Climate deal needed 'to avert catastrophe'

airport posters at COP15

Image by The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy

(28 November 2014) – Ahead of the UN ‘COP20’ climate talks in Lima, Peru, CARE International says governments must succeed in delivering a blue print for an ambitious and just climate deal in 2015 that delivers a safer future for the world’s poorest people.

Speaking ahead of the talks which being on Monday and bring together 196 governments, Milo Stanojevich, CARE’s National Director in Peru said:

“People living in poverty around the world are on the front line of climate change impacts. In Peru, melting glaciers and more extreme and unpredictable weather, from flash frosts to searing hot spells, are damaging people’s crops, incomes and chances of lifting themselves out of poverty. From the Andes to the jungles, communities are doing what they can, but their efforts will never be enough without ambitious, global action to tackle climate change.”

Milo Stanojevich said:

“It is rich nations and populations that have caused the climate change problem through their excessive consumption of fossil fuels, not people living in poverty in the developing world. This makes climate change and its impacts an extreme global injustice.

“Governments must agree and implement an ambitious, just climate deal in Paris next year that guarantees a safer future for the world’s poorest people. COP20 is the critical opportunity to agree the blue print for the 2015 deal, to ramp up action now to reduce global emissions and to increase support for poor people who are already dealing with climate change impacts.”

Despite recent signs that some high carbon emitting nations, including the US and China, are starting to take their climate responsibilities seriously, current levels of climate action remain wildly inadequate to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees C – the danger threshold advised by scientists.

In a new report Building a fair and just climate deal for world’s poorest people, CARE International calls on governments meeting in Lima to:

·        Urgently shift away from emissions-intensive development models

·        Go all out to achieve a strong draft text for a rights-based, fair, ambitious and binding 2015 climate deal

·        Promote gender equality in climate action

·        Urgently make financial and technical resources available to promote low-emission and climate-resilient development

·        Strengthen adaptation and disaster risk reduction by increasing financial support for national adaptation planning

·        Develop an international mechanism to pay for loss and damage caused by climate impacts

·        Promote action that strengthens the food and nutrition security of poor and vulnerable people

Sven Harmeling, CARE’s climate change advocacy coordinator, concludes: “If governments fail to build on the growing demand for climate action, the chances of agreeing a new climate deal in 2015, that provides real hope for the world’s poorest, are very slim. Nations meeting in Lima must rise to the greatest challenge of our time and deliver a step-change in political ambition that can truly avert climate catastrophe.”

ends