Scottish Catholic Observer

The Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund has warned that ‘the collective failure of governments to agree sufficient action’ at the UN’s climate change summit in South Africa ‘threatens to increase the climate-related death toll in developing countries.’

Talks in the South African city of Durban ended in the early hours of Sunday morning, 36 hours later than expected with a last minute agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emission by 2012. While Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, South Africa’s international relations minister, said the countries taking part in the summit  ‘have made history,’ with the Durban Platform, SCIAF have warned that ‘insufficient progress’ has been made and it is ‘is likely to cost many lives in developing countries.’

Falling short

The deal from the summit, which was scheduled to have ended on Friday evening, arose from an 11th hour compromise about the phrasing of the agreement that will for the first time commit all nations—including the world’s three biggest polluters: the US, China and India—to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions from 2020.

In spite of the progress, SCIAF says that not enough is being done.

“While some positive progress has been made towards agreeing a global legal framework, the major industrialised countries have failed yet again to agree to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in line with what scientists believe is necessary to avoid dangerous climate change,” Lexi Barnett, SCIAF’s campaigns officer said from Durban. “This means we are still on course for global temperature rises of three to four degrees Celsius. Experts believe this will be catastrophic for much of the world’s population, especially in developing countries where the lives and livelihoods of many millions are at risk. With 300,000 climate related deaths every year already, mainly in developing countries, this lack of ambition is unacceptable.”

The need for a single global treaty to come into force in the future was also agreed at the negotiations though SCIAF has said, however, that the terms of the pact have ‘fallen well short of the ambition needed to hold dangerous climate change in check.’

Dr Sarah Wykes, climate analyst for CAFOD, the Catholic aid agency for England and Wales, said that it was ‘significant’ that steps had been taken at the summit towards a legally binding treaty on emissions reduction but that ‘the timetable and lack of clarity of the agreement is an insult to the urgency of this crisis for the poorest and all of our futures.’

“We are still sleep-walking into catastrophic climate change,” she said.

Scotland

Last week, SCIAF praised a speech given by First Minister Alex Salmond in China, in which he called for united international action on climate change.

The First Minister said that climate change was making the planet’s economic inequalities far worse. “Climate change exacerbates the vast gulf in resources which already exist across our planet, but it also gives us an opportunity,” he said. “Climate change is the issue above all issues which illustrates humankind’s interconnectedness across national boundaries… In response we need a greater shared ownership of both the problem and the solution.”

Mr Salmond also told his Chinese hosts it was vital to connect economic development to greater human rights.

Patrick Grady, SCIAF’s advocacy manager, said Mr Salmond’s words were a timely intervention.

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