16 November 2010 | News | Forests and biodiversity
To the point
Harsh questioning to countries of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
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The World Rainforest Movement is accusing the 192 member countries of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of violating the convention, which can be described as “a crime against humanity”.
The international environmental network highlights the pressure made by companies on governments so that they will not implement “real solutions” to the climate crisis, but they balme the countries for not addressing the issue immediately: “The total reduction of fossil fuel emissions in the shortest term possible”.
The WRM in Montevideo said this in an open letter, which circulated on Friday.
The letter says that since 1992, when the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed “the governments have done from little to nothing to address the issue” of climate change. “That is to say that the spirit of the Convention has been violated for two decades. The convention aimd to avoid climate change. Because of its potential consequences for the survival of human kind, this violation could be described as a crime against humanity”, they explain.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change considers especially the historic responsibility of the industrialized countries in the current climate crisis, and provide that those states are the ones who should take the lead to address the issue. Drastic emissions reductions are therefore needed, as well as money transference to the global South (the most affected) for adaptation and mitigation to climate change and technology transfer so that the countries of the South will develop under more sustainable patterns.
“The main signal should be to put fossil fuels in the center of debate”, says the World Rainforest Movement. “The false solutions (such as carbon sinks, avoided deforestation – REDD, Clean Development Mechanisms, compensation of carbon emissions, etc) should be left out of the discussion. They should instead focus on the real problem: how to get out of the fossil fuels era”.
The environmental network believes the first step should be clear: “the governments should start by committing to an immediate stop of the search for new fossil fuels in their territories. Finally, they should set specific dates for the total eradication of those fuels”.
