http://bit.ly/7XwAG
PART 1 DISTRUST
Comparing the DANISH ACCORD with the OBAMA BASIC Deal
MANIPULATING THE FOREST DEAL.
WHERE THE LOBBIES ARE THE SPONSORS
On arrival at the Copenhagen’s airport, the first sign the 17000 delegates and the 30,000 activists saw was a Shell ad saying "what the world needs is a low carbon future" Similar hoardings have welcomed COP conference delegates in every conference over the last 15 years. Yes climate change conferences have been traditionally sponsored by those very forces who are behind the carbon emissions, the ecological devastation of forests and the mining operations. The lobbies who supposedly sponsor the Climate Change events also manipulate the Climate change texts, taking advantage of their proximity to the politicians and negotiators of both the G7 & G 77. We had anticipated the pre- planned rigging by the lobbies in our 5 th December presentation “COP 15 : Deal Sabotage at Copenhagen” http://bit.ly/XUrUd in our 5th December presentation prior to the Conference. Let us our see how and why it actually happened in practice.
In the coming weeks, we will be analysing each of the 7 reasons why the Copenhagen Accord failed. Our analysis shows that the failure was solely due to the recurrent manipulation of the text by the Danish hosts and several other influential political leaders. This was often at the behest of the logging and fossil fuel lobby who were manipulating the weighty politicians not only of the G7 but also of the G77. This has been the common practice in the past 15 COP conferences, the reason why the climate talks have become a farce in which the common man has lost faith,
We also back our thinking with proof that the COP 15 Danish draft was a rigged document. Its failure was a boon in disguise, as far greater damage would have occurred had the Danish Draft been adopted. This we do by exposing the context of the Danish Text and comparing it to the far superior OBAMA-BASIC deal enacted at the last minute.
THE RIGGING OF THE FOREST DEAL AT BANGKOK
Weeks back in Bangkok, a British negotiator deliberately removed language from a proposed forest agreement that would have specifically protected intact natural forests. Rumours persisted that the EU delegates had been bought by the loggers and it seemed strange that even when over 20 nations like Brazil, Mexico, India and Norway protested in writing, the EU still declined to put the words back in.
The doctoring in the forestry text by the British Delegate could make the difference between the global logging industry being subsidized by governments to continue clear-felling Africa and Indonesia, and communities being left to live in strongly protected forests. It had created a deep suspicion and distrust and negotiators from G77 started going through each line of the voluminous treaty with a toothcomb, even as the G7 started pumping in new texts at the last minute.
NORWAY BREAKS RANKS TO FORCE THE EU APOLOGY
However after being accused of wrongdoing by an European state Norway who clearly had broken ranks with EU on emission reduction earlier by voluntarily upping its emission cut targets , the EU buckled under pressure. A clearly embarrassed Swedish spokesman of EU was forced to say the negotiator had blundered. "It was an unfortunate mishap," he said. "Sometimes negotiators think of tactical moves. In this case, he wanted to wait until the Barcelona talks next month to reinstate”.
John Vidal the respected environmental columnist of The Guardian U.K. reported the event in his column as early as 9th of October almost 2 months before the Copenhagen conference started. He said “Eventually, the EU admitted a mistake had been made, said the official had been "slapped" on the face and it was promised the safeguards would be reinstated.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/09/british-logging-eu-apology
But forty days later, and with just a day left before the end of the last talks before Copenhagen, the words were still not there in the Danish Text ….and the status has not changed since.
EU’s TEXT MANIPULATION WOULD LEAD LOGGERS TO SEIZE ADAPTATION BENEFITS MEANT FOR THE INDIGENOUS POPULATION
If the EU was able to force its way, the COP 15 draft would be permanently scarred as the difference between “Natural forests “ and man made plantations would be permanently erased in the Climate Change Accords. The benefits of adaptation would also pass from the poor indigenous population struggling with the effects of climate change, to the loggers who supposedly do logging “called sustainable forest management , another misleading terminology in the UNFCCC Vocabulary inserted previously by the lobby”
It is well known that several big time loggers in Indonesia , Congo Basin and South America have been caught in the act of destroying natural rainforests and replanting those fertile lands with palm oil plantations or fast growing and commercially remunerative species like eucalyptus , only to profit on carbon offsets worth billions from the EU-ETS. The EU delegates were merely ensuring that the text changes in the Accord helped them in getting future offsets directly from the climate fund , so that the loot could be evenly shared amongst the politicians, the EU administration, the verifier and the industry.
THE LOGGERS HAVE THE LAST WORD IN THE DANISH ACCORD
The Doctoring in the forestry text by the British Delegate could make the difference between the global logging industry being subsidized by governments to continue clear-felling Africa and Indonesia, and communities being left to live in strongly protected forests. However as it would be needed to evade legal action against some big loggers who had claimed billions of dollars of carbon credit by falsehood and deceit. These loggers had illegally felled natural forests in Indonesia and Congo and planted palm oil plantations and other fast growing varieties claiming billions of dollars in carbon credits and were keen that the text changes stay to avoid penalties and prosecution.
They ultimately ensured that their was no accord at Copenhagen and the changes in the text wrongly done by the British negotiator stayed.
Denmark’s Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen has been lambasted by the world’s media after the disappointing results of the COP15 climate summit, but the initial Australian draft and the EU delegates continued attempts at manipulating the accord are equally to blame. However it was not only the forest draft which had been rigged, that sowed the seeds of distrust. Few other issues will be discussed subsequently during out next articles of this series, as here we would give the comparative of what the OBAMA BASIC deal has to offer on the forests.
COMPARITIVE :
OBAMA BASIC TEXT OF THE FOREST DEAL.
"Not detailed and ambitious but apparently transparent and attempting to address both the issue of REDD as well as of adaptation.
“Scaled up, new and additional, predictable and adequate funding as well as improved access shall be provided to developing countries, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Convention, to enable and support enhanced action on mitigation, including substantial finance to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD-plus), adaptation, technology development and transfer and capacity-building, for enhanced implementation of the Convention. The collective commitment by developed countries is to provide new and additional resources, including forestry and investments through international institutions, approaching USD 30 billion for the period 2010 to 2012 with balanced allocation between adaptation and mitigation. Funding for adaptation will be prioritized for the most vulnerable developing countries, such as the least developed countries, small island developing States and Africa. In the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation, developed countries commit to a goal of mobilizing jointly USD 100 billion dollars a year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries.”
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