2. Preamble
PREAMBLE
Years of unheeded warnings
AWARE THAT as far back as 1958, scientists began to acknowledge the potential threat of climate change, and subsequently in 1988, scientists, politicians and members of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) met at the Changing Atmosphere Conference in Toronto to address the issue of climate change and warned that:
“Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequence could be second only to a global nuclear war. The Earth’s atmosphere is being changed at an unprecedented rate by pollutants resulting from wasteful fossil fuel use … These changes represent a major threat to international security and are already having harmful consequences over many parts of the globe…. it is imperative to act now.”
In the Conference Statement from the 1988 Conference, the participants, scientists, government representatives, industry, other organizations called for:
“The stabilizing of the atmospheric concentrations of CO2 is an imperative goal. It is currently estimated to require reductions of more than 50% from present [1988] emission levels. Energy research and development budgets must be massively directed to energy options which would eliminate or greatly reduce CO2 emissions and to studies undertaken to further refine the target reductions.”
In view of this important and accurate statement made at a major conference, the developed world cannot deny that it had been warned.
ENDORSING the statement, to the United Nations, from the Maldives, made after pointing out that year after year the Maldives has raised the alarm:
“From now on, we will no longer be content to shout about the perils of climate change. Instead, we believe our acute vulnerability provides us with the clarity of vision to understand how the problem may be solved – very crystal clear to us: the objectivity to say that it is in all of our interests to aggressively pursue that solution; and the courage and the determination to lead by example by walking the path ourselves. In return, we ask assembled world leaders to discard those habits that have led to twenty years of complacency and broken promises on climate change, and instead to seize the historic opportunity that sits at the end of the road to Copenhagen.”
Dereliction of duty failure to discharge obligations
Deeply disturbed that changes in world climate would have serious impacts on human health. The World Health Organisation estimated, in its “World Health Report 2002″, that climate change was responsible in 2000 for approximately 2.4% of worldwide diarrhoea, 154 000 deaths and affected 5.5 million peoples health. More than 84% of this burden occurred in developing countries.
The Global Humanitarian Forum Climate Change Human Impact report that summarised data including that issued by WHO on the impacts estimates that in 2009, 325 million people were seriously affected by climate change (based on negative health outcomes), and there were 303,000 deaths as a result of climate change. It predicts that in 2030, 660 million people a year will be affected by climate change and that 471,500 people will die from climate change. 98 % of those affected and 99% of deaths come from the developing world. The start year for the data is 1980 in terms of impacts. That equates to nearly 13 million deaths by 2030, and billions affected. If this is the case with less than 1 °C increase in temperature the trend will dramatically worsen at 2 Degrees and beyond and will have serious effects on child mortality, life expectancy, and under 5 mortality rates which means the death of millions of the worlds most disadvantaged men, women and children.
AWARE THAT member states of the United Nations have been warned about climate change, and have been incurring obligations and making commitments related to climate change through a range of Conventions, Conference Action Plans and General Assembly Resolutions. These instruments form a central strand in both national and International peremptory norms; the time for procrastination has long since passed.
Aware that not acting on climate change may be considered as criminal negligence and unreasonable conduct since it is an action that a prudent or reasonable person would not do. A person may be considered to be criminally negligent when HE/SHE does something or omit to do anything that it is his/HER duty to do, and shows wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of other persons (CANADIAN CRIMINAL LAW)
NOTING WITH CONCERN THAT after Rio many states set up a multisectoral round table consensus based- decision-making process which glorifies conflict of interest through the participation of corporate vested interests.
NOTING WITH INCREASING CONCERN THAT STATES have often devolved their power and responsibility by forming “public private partnerships” which often, through the profit motive, undermine the state obligations to the commons
AWARE THAT the IPCC scientists, because of the mandate of the IPCC to neither prescribe nor proscribe, have been prevented from revealing the real state of global emergency, and if a global emergency were declared global emissions would be reversed in a year
NOTING WITH CONCERN THAT many international NGOs are beholden to the military, fossil fuel, nuclear, biofuel, large-scale – hydro etc. industries through having corporate members on their boards and through receiving corporate funding
NOTING WITH CONCERN AS WELL THAT many politicians in developed countries “receive political donations” from the military, fossil fuel, nuclear, biofuel, large-scale – hydro etc. industries, and when no longer in politics sit on the boards of these industries
NOTING WITH CONCERN that the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) has failed to achieve its mandate which was to fund projects that would contribute to the discharging of the obligations under the UNFCCC.
CONCERNED THAT bilateral funding, often with funder-interest conditions, creates a disorganized and power susceptible system of tackling climate change.
ACKNOWLEDGING THAT at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was negotiated and signed; it was subsequently ratified by most Member States of the United Nations including many who have not ratified the Kyoto Protocol.
ACKNOWLEDGING ALSO THAT the UNFCCC called for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the preservation of carbon sinks such as old-growth forests and bogs, with a final objective of stabilizing emissions to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interferences within mandatory time frames, and that there was an obligation incurred to reduce greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by the end of the century (the year 2000)
AWARE THAT the defining point at which the term dangerous should be used in terms of the targets and time frames is below 1°C degrees. Since this is the point at which GLOBAL SYSTEMS, ON LAND, WATER AND AIR will be so affected as to destabilise societies;
AWARE ALSO THAT scientists now know with total confidence that any global warming target above 0.8°C is planetary suicide because of events happening to the Arctic, the oceans and coral reefs today at today’s warming of 0.78°C. Today’s warming is projected to double by today’s atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and last for over 1000 years. The published science for several years shows that additional methane is being emitted as carbon feed back to global warming from warming Northern peat lands thawing permafrost and melting subsea Arctic methane hydrates obviously. This methane Arctic carbon feedback has always been recognized as the greatest single danger from atmospheric greenhouse elevation and global warming. Another reason we know this is the state of the world’s coral reefs and the opinion from scientists that it may already be too late to prevent their practical total loss from global warming and acidification (N.B. irreversible damage to natural ecosystems under FCCC). Realistically it may be too late now to avoid losing the great coral reefs and to avoid runaway global heating. (Dr. Peter Carter, personal communication, 2009).
RECOGNISING, the vital role of the depletion of water as a both as a contributor to and a consequence of climate change
CONCURRING WITH Report prepared for the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues THAT The International Panel on Forests cites, among others, discriminatory international trade, trade distorting policies, structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), external debt, market distortions and market failure, perverse subsidies, undervaluation of wood and non-wood forest products, and poorly regulated investments as the international underlying causes of deforestation (2007: Victoria Tauli-Corpuz and Parshuram Tamang Report to Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues)
CONCURRING AS WELL with the Report prepared for the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues that “The environmental justice approach which strikes at the underlying causes of global warming was defeated when the Convention took a more market-based approach as seen in the proposals of the Kyoto Protocol.” Annex 1 countries (38 industrialized countries) pledged that by 2012 they will reduce their emissions by an average of 5.2 percent below the l990 levels by buying “carbon credits” from less polluting countries or corporations and by investing in projects which “sequester” or “store” carbon. None of the three market-based “flexible mechanisms” tackle directly the physical root causes of global warming: the transfer of fossil fuels from underground, where they are effectively isolated from the atmosphere, to the air”
And with a further statement in the Report: The flexible mechanisms allow Northern countries to avoid or delay reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) allows Northern countries to finance projects in the South to mitigate climate change in return for credits, which are banked and ultimately used to license continued pollution at home. Joint Implementation means that Northern countries can finance projects aimed at mitigating climate change in other Northern (often Eastern European) and Southern countries, receiving credits accordingly. With these in place, traders and bankers have started establishing carbon exchanges in those countries where major stock exchanges are based. (2007: Victoria Tauli-Corpuz and Parshuram Tamang Report to Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues)
CONDEMNING the use of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) as a means of discharging obligations in energy generation projects; the CDMs have been deemed neither to have benefited the developing countries nor to be in accordance with the principles of the UNFCCC.
CONCURRING with the developing states at the climate change meeting in Bangkok (Bangkok climate change talks: 28 September – 9 October 2009) that “market-based” or “market centre approaches. which are being proposed by developed states must be opposed because they will not serve the needs of developing
Convinced that market-centre approaches are neither an efficient nor an equitable framework for the achievement of the UNFCCC objectives.
RECALLING THAT the Climate Change Convention came into force in the Spring of 1994. Under the Convention, the signatories of the Convention were bound to invoke the precautionary principle that reads:
“Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing such measures, taking into account that policies and measures to deal with climate change should be cost-effective so as to ensure global benefits at the lowest possible cost” (Article 3. Framework Convention on Climate Change).
This obligation to invoke the precautionary principle complemented the broader Rio Principle:
”Where there is the threat of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent the threat.” �
Note: But there was the call for measures. It appears that rather interpreting “measures” to involve “prevention” [as was the case in the version of the precautionary principle in the Rio Declaration), many member states of the UN have embraced after-act "mitigation" - not preventing something from happening but anticipating or developing a clean-up technology, and then unfortunately, now, many member states are settling for adaptation - mitigation and adaptation should not be the foci of climate change negotiations. The foci should be prevention.
AWARE THAT while the threat of climate change has been obvious to many scientists for five decades, the industrialised world as the major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions have refused to address the urgency of the crisis. Largely coerced into this position by developed-world industry, industry front groups, industry-funded academics and industry-controlled states, member states have failed not only to address the urgency of the crisis through enacting effective legislation, but also to even consider the sufficient resources that will be required to protect the poor and most vulnerable from the current and future impacts of climate change. In addition, they have failed to consider the need to assist low-lying states and Small Island developing states that have already been impacted by climate change, and to compensate the global displacement of people resulting from climate change.
Deeply disturbed that the main victims of climate change will be the worlds poorest nations and communities, and appalled that when per capita emissions are considered it is the high emitting rich who will suffer least while they inflict these emissions on the poor who emit less.
Disregarding of peremptory norms
DISMAYED THAT the exploitation of human and natural resources by developed states, in developing states, and states in transition has undermined the ability of the latter states to address the impact of climate change
RECALLING THAT obligations enunciated in the Framework Convention on Climate Change "to protect the climate system for present and future generations” have been disregarded; the rights of future generations will be violated if the global community fails to act now to prevent the devastating impacts of climate change, which could also threaten international peace and security .
CONCURRING with the fundamental principle of intergenerational equity, including the rights of future generations to their cultural, natural heritage and to a safe environment, and affirming the obligation in the Framework Convention on Climate Change "to protect the climate system for present and future generations."
CONCURRING AS WELL A Human Rights Council panel has emphasized that a successful outcome of climate change negotiations matters for human rights. The human rights perspective is indispensable to the ongoing negotiations leading to the year-end Copenhagen Climate Change Conference.
“As you engage in those negotiations, you must bear in mind the grave human rights consequences of a failure to take decisive action now,” said Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kyung-wha Kang when she opened the panel on 15 June.
“A successful outcome of ongoing climate change negotiations matters for human rights. A new climate change agreement must be fair, balanced and sufficiently ambitious to be effective.
“Climate change is related not only to environmental factors but also to poverty, discrimination and inequalities – this is why climate change is a human rights issue,” said Kang, adding that the human rights perspective is particularly well suited to analyzing how climate change affects people differently.
“climate change has many implications for the effective enjoyment of human rights, and for Nations human rights obligations and commitments”.
AWARE THAT at the Habitat II Conference every member state made a commitment to move away from car dependency
Ignoring commitment made to socially equitable, environmentally safe and sound renewable energy, transportation, agriculture, forestry etc.
CONCURRING with the commitment made under Chapter 9 of Agenda 21 - the section on Atmosphere, which calls for environmentally sound renewable energy: �
New and renewable energy sources are solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, wind, hydro, ....geothermal, ocean, animal and human power, as referred to in the reports of the Committee on the Development and Utilization of New and Renewable Sources of Energy, prepared specifically for the Conference 2? (See A/CONF.151/PC/119 and A/AC.218/1992/5)
CONCERNED THAT often labour engaged in non-renewable resource extraction, including the fossil fuel industry and the nuclear industry are reluctant to oppose the continued existence of industrial practices that are harmful to human health and the environment, and that labour would not be so reluctant if there were the implementation of the fair and just transition principle; and that often the call by labour for a fair and just transition to socially equitable and environmentally safe and sound energy is ignored by industry and governments.
RECOGNIZING THAT the developing countries are aware that there are many barriers to transfer of technology to developing countries. Intellectual Property Rights are one such barrier particularly where the transfer involves development of domestic capacities to absorb, innovate based on the knowledge and commercialization of the results. (Third World Network, 2009)
In light of the imminent challenges posed by climate change and the patenting trend (with ownership of technology focused in industrialized nations, a trend likely to continue more robustly in coming years), there is need for action on the part of members negotiating at the UNFCCC to agree to measures that overcome the IP barriers and facilitate transfer of technology as well as associated skills and know-how.
It is crucial that nothing prevent governments from taking steps to deal with climate change, this includes intellectual property rights that pose an absurd barrier to the implementation of the UNFCCC
Condoning institutions that undermine true solutions and proposing solutions that are worse than the problem they are intended to solve
AWARE THAT the Breton Woods Institutions, since their inception, have been responsible for unfortunate policies such as the IMF Structural Adjustment programmes and many unsustainable mega projects such as those funded by the World Bank)
AWARE ALSO THAT International Trade agreements, such as GATT, and the subsequent WTO, along with regional trade agreements, have undermined international resolve to seriously address unsustainable practices, and to enforce regulations that would advance and in many cases have been used to undermine development, by sovereign states, of socially equitable environmentally safe and sound renewable energy, transportation, agriculture, forestry etc.
CONCERNED THAT Global Environmental Facility is involved in funding climate change projects, which involve biofuels, nuclear and crop (genetic) engineering. The GEF is a developed world instrument, it does not implement policies with the ultimate goals of the UNFCCC in mind, AND IT is undermined since it is embedded in industry interests, and as such cannot function under its title as the funding mechanism for the UNFCCC.
CONCERNED THAT bilateral funding, often with funder-interest conditions, creates a disorganized and power susceptible system of tackling climate change.
CONCERNED THAT solutions proposed to address the issue of climate change would have in themselves serious irreversible consequences, such as those arising out of the use of genetically engineering technology, of biofuels, as they impact land, water use and food security, and food sovereignty. The impact of biofuels on indigenous peoples was outlined in the Report submitted to the permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues:
“The recommendations adopted ....on global warming are a classic case of providing a solution to one specific problem while simultaneously creating a host of other problems. Expanding plantations for biofuels or energy crops and for carbon sinks are recreating and worsening the same problems faced by indigenous peoples with large-scale mono-cropping, agricultural and tree plantations....” (2007: Victoria Tauli-Corpuz and Parshuram Tamang Report to Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues)
CONCERNED THAT in some of the poorest regions of the world, agricultural land that should be used for local food production is instead used for biofuels to offset emissions from the developed world.
AFFIRMING ALSO THAT nuclear energy is not a solution to climate change because, although promulgated by proponents, as "safe, clean, and cheap”, there is clear and valid scientific evidence of its inherent dangers: lack of safety (emissions into both air and ground water), security-linked issues, unresolved (and likely irresolvable) waste disposal problems. And finally” there is the inextricable link between civil nuclear energy and the development of nuclear arms.” (Dr. Fred Knelman, author of "Nuclear Energy: The Unforgiving Technology".)
NOTING WITH DISMAY THAT the serious equity, health, and security consequences, especially on the land of indigenous peoples and marginalized communities of large-scale biofuel and large-scale hydroelectric projects, and ecologically and socially unacceptable location of small-scale hydro projects
CONCURRING WITH the rapporteur of the Permanent Forum of Indigenous Peoples: “Unfortunately, the mitigation and adaptation processes that are now being proposed under the Kyoto Protocol are producing adverse impacts on indigenous peoples. The impact of biofuels and monocrop plantations on indigenous lands for expansion of land to produce biofuels, to supposedly be alternative fuels, has caused dislocation and expropriation of indigenous peoples.” (Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, rapporteur for Permanent Forum of Indigenous Peoples, 2007, DPI Conference at the UN)
AWARE of the importance of Traditional Knowledge and practices in developing strategies to address climate change.
TAKING INTO ACCOUNT the principle of common but differentiated responsibility and accepting that all member states have adopted Principle 3 of the Rio Declaration (1992); and that "the right to development must be fulfilled so as to equitably meet developmental and environmental needs of present and future generations." Industrialised nations must work cooperatively, and in the best interests of those nations and peoples with the least resources to support those nations in developing strategies for conservation and the development of alternative sources of energies uniquely suited to their circumstances; these sources should be socially equitable and environmentally safe and sound energy." The impact on the world's poor, on indigenous peoples, vulnerable communities, and especially low-lying states will be the greatest.
Ignoring the impact of militarism on climate change
BECOMING more and more aware of the dangers related to climate change, and the potential security implications related to resource conflict, and militarism,
DEEPLY CONCERNED THAT foreign refusal to supply fossil fuel for the consumption of developed states could be deemed to violate "strategic national interest" of developed states and result in military intervention,
DEEPLY CONCERNED THAT in violation of international law, some developed nations, in the pursuit of resources, are flagrantly engaging in war crimes under the guise of “human security”, “humanitarian intervention”, “responsibility to protect” or the “will to intervene”; these guises have been used to justify the policy of “preventive/pre-emptive military strikes which contravenes the ultimate international crime of aggression.
REAFFIRMING THAT warfare is inherently destructive of sustainable development" (Rio Declaration, Principle 24, UNCED, 1992), and that there must be rigorous adherence to and enforcement of the [1978] Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD),
REAFFIRMING THAT the commitment made in Chapter 33 of Agenda 21, to reallocate resources presently committed to military purposes, and the importance of implementing this commitment made, and to transfer part of the peace dividend to assist the developing states in the development of socially equitable environmentally safe and sound renewable energy, transportation, agriculture, forestry etc. These resources should be put into a fund for the implementation of the UNFCC.
NOTING THAT in Agenda 21, there was an estimate of the annual cost of implementing all the AGENDA 21 provisions each year, and that a reallocation of the GLOBAL military budget could begin to seriously facilitate implementation of these commitments,
AWARE THAT at the September, 2007 DPI/NGO Conference, the Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was presented with a declaration calling for the IPCC to include a full analysis of the contribution of militarism to greenhouse gas emissions.
AWARE THAT states adopted Principle 24 in the 1992 Rio Declaration, UNCED: this principle affirms that “Warfare is inherently destructive of sustainable development.” This principle confirms that military actions create a barrier to sustainable development.
Eroding of the Commission on Sustainable Development
NOTING that the General Assembly Resolution A/RES/47/191 states that the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) should ensure effective follow-up to Agenda 21, and other UNCED obligations and commitments
CONCERNED THAT the CSD failed in this role in its current format as shown by the failure of negotiations at CSD15, especially to produce a negotiated outcome on climate change and other issues. This failure was also evident in the weak document emerging from CSD 17
DISMAYED THAT government and non-governmental organisations have embraced the backward-looking agreement made at WSSD and are building on this agreement which is not an appropriate mechanism for instituting a socially equitable and environmentally sound world
DISMAYED THAT since its conception in 1992, changes in how CSD functions have progressively affected its ability to fulfill its mandate in its original form
CONCERNED THAT at CSD 11 (UN E/2003/29, E/CN.17/2003/6) it was decided that in order to fulfill the CSD mandate the work of the Commission will be organized in a series of two-year action-oriented implementation cycles, which will include an evaluation of progress in implementing Agenda 21, the Programme for the Further Implementation of Agenda 21 and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, while focusing on identifying constraints and obstacles in the process of implementation with regard to the selected thematic cluster of issues for the cycle
MINDFUL THAT this has not worked, issues wait for long periods of time to be addressed, this in itself in fundamentally flawed. For example climate change waited three years and in its two-year cycle no adequate agreement was reached. Now in the subsequent meetings on for example water any agreements may be undermined by the lack of action on climate. The current issues as they relate to sustainable development may be irreversible and this procrastination will only mean that the delay is more critical than it already is. This delay also prevents the CSD from performing its role as outlined in General Assembly Resolution A/RES/47/191.