D.I.Y. Do It Yourself GIS Maps - for Beginners & Experienced GIS Users Alike. Climate Change, Indian & Federal Lands - Create digital GIS maps in minutes ... more
Reimagination - Reimagining, exploring and celebrating the changes in infrastructure, politics and culture that will help us live in harmony with each other and the earth now and in the future.
Published on Monday, July 16, 2001
Bonn Statement on Climate Change -
"'Saving' the Kyoto Protocol Means Ending the Market Mania"
The following statement, to be released during the UN climate summit in Bonn (July 16-27), warns against a further weakening and distortion of the Kyoto Protocol, as governments try to accommodate the irresponsible position of the US (and a growing number of other countries). To sign-on to the statement, please send an e-mail mentioning organization and country to: ceo@xs4all.nl To be part of the list of sign-ons from the start of the Bonn summit, we need your response before Monday July 16th. Later responses are also very welcome, as we will release an updated list in the second week of the conference.
Current attempts to entice the US government to recommit to the Kyoto Protocol are likely to further accelerate the corruption of the Treaty. To save the Kyoto Protocol, talks should urgently shift focus from the current market mania, to discussing effective and fair solutions to climate change, beginning with domestic reductions of greenhouse gas emissions by the industrialized countries.
At last November's UN climate summit in The Hague (COP-6), Northern governments and corporations were only inches away from being allowed to 'fulfill' their reduction commitments through various inventive but seriously flawed market-based ('flexible') instruments. This included creating global emissions markets, encouraging a scientifically dubious trade in 'carbon sinks' (carbon absorption via trees, wood products and soil) for emissions, and the promotion of nuclear energy. These escape clauses would have allowed the industrialized countries to significantly increase their emissions (instead of reducing them by the average 5.2% as agreed upon in Kyoto).
The debate since COP-6 has revolved around the US government's open rejection of the Kyoto Protocol. Other governments are so eager to placate the US in order to get them back on board that they appear ready to compromise the Protocol's environmental, social and moral integrity. Therefore, there is a real risk that the UN climate summit in Bonn (COP 6, part 2) will result in an entirely corrupted treaty that would unleash a global market in fraudulent emissions credits and do nothing to help stabilize the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.
Many corporate ventures that might become eligible for emissions credits - nuclear power plants, so-called 'clean coal' plants as well as industrial agriculture and large-scale tree plantations (including genetically engineered varieties) - have extremely serious negative social and environmental impacts. Investments in 'carbon sinks' (such as large-scale tree plantations) in the South would result in land being used at the expense of local people, accelerate deforestation, deplete water resources and increase poverty. Entitling the North to buy cheap emission credits from the South, through projects of an often exploitative nature, constitutes 'carbon colonialism'. Industrialized countries and their corporations will harvest the `low-hanging fruitī (the cheapest credits), saddling Southern countries with only expensive options for any future reduction commitments they might be required to make.
Carbon credits are envisioned to be sold through a global emissions market, a concept that suffers from fundamental flaws. Firstly, allowing immediate trade in emissions permits (carbon credits) in effect means granting unequal private property rights to the atmosphere. This system of property rights would consolidate the historic overuse by Northern industry at the expense of the South (80% of all CO2 emitted since 1850 has come from the North). A market without clearly defined property rights can never function and the unfair property rights that underlie the currently proposed emissions markets will eventually be rejected by those losing out.
Moreover, the proposed emissions markets lack a workable accounting system, another essential element of a functioning market. A market which assumes that emissions cuts are climatically equivalent to planting trees, constructing new 'clean coal' plants or engaging in other pseudo-solutions, is deeply flawed. Global carbon stocks and flows cannot be quantified in the way such a market requires. Unverifiable emissions credits would flood the market, turning the trading system into a farce. The net effect would be to subsidize greenhouse gas emissions and exacerbate the climate crisis.
The fact that the property rights issue is unresolved and deeply contentious and that the proposed accounting system is fraudulent, should be sufficient reason to call off the launch of global trade in emissions credits. Attempting to regulate (for instance with 'caps' or trying to close 'loopholes') a market with such fundamental flaws is bound to fail. If unleashed now, the multibillion-dollar global emissions markets would develop their own disastrous dynamic. Given the bias towards corporate interests by neoliberal governments and international institutions, once these markets have been allowed to operate and expand, it will be virtually impossible to close off the lucrative trade in fraudulent emissions credits.
The North has a moral obligation to make the deepest cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, instead of using the South as a carbon dump. In particular, transnational corporations and international financial institutions must be held accountable for their central role in fueling the climate crisis. Reducing fossil fuel use, which ultimately means keeping fossil fuels in the ground, is the only effective way to avoid escalating climate change.
Therefore:
We demand that industrialized countries drastically reduce their greenhouse gas emissions at home.
We demand that industrialized countries do not seek to escape their reduction commitments through market-based mechanisms such as Emissions Trading, Joint Implementation or the Clean Development Mechanism.
We call for a just transition to sustainable economies (through policies that protect workers and vulnerable communities), as well as for support for countries and communities threatened by catastrophic climate change.
We call for an end to fossil fuel subsidies and a moratorium on new oil exploration and drilling.
This statement is initially signed by:
ASEED Europe (Action for Solidarity, Equality, Environment and Development), Europe
The BET, Europe
Center for Social Justice and Global Awareness, United States
Centro Humboldt - Friends of the Earth, Nicaragua
The CornerHouse, United Kingdom
Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), Netherlands
CorpWatch, United States
Energy Club, Hungary
European Youth For Action (EYFA), Europe
Fern, United Kingdom
Indigenous Environmental Network, United States, Canada & Mexico
Kairos Europa - Towards a Europe for Justice, Europe
Korea Ecological Youth (KEY), South Korea
Rainforest Action Network, United States
Southwest Workers Union, United States
Third World Network, Malaysia
Transnational Institute (TNI), Netherlands
World Information Service on Energy (WISE), Netherlands
World Rainforest Movement, Uruguay
MapCruzin.com is an independent firm
specializing in the publication of
educational and research resources.
We created the first U.S. based
interactive toxic chemical facility
maps on the internet in 1996 and we
have been online ever since. Learn more about us and view some of our projects and services.
Didn't find what you are looking for? We've been online since 1996 and have created 1000's of pages. Search below and you may find just what you are looking for.
