Citizens’ Climate Lobby report from COP20: Lima Accord for Climate Action Approved
By Joe Robertson
At 1:22 am, on December 14, 2014, the Closing Plenary session of the 20th Conference of the Parties (COP20) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) approved the draft decision of the Ad-hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP). That document now becomes the Lima Accord for Climate Action. The Lima Accord is the basis for the work that will be done throughout 2015, leading up to the COP21 next December in Paris, where a global climate action pact including nationally-determined commitments is to be agreed.
A teary-eyed Manuel Pulgar Vidal, Peru’s Environment Minister and President of the COP20, thanked the 195 national delegations for their hard work and collaboration. Calling it an obligation of “our position as decision-makers that we seek to work for the most vulnerable”, he said he woke up this morning, after last night’s tense all-nighter, determined that the COP20 fulfill that responsibility to the world.
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Thank you for this, Christine.
Reading the full text from the link you provide gives an insight into how complex and fraught this process has been. Phrases like ‘More than one participant was literally reviewing the document while falling asleep’ do not fill me with confidence that the result will be robust. It says that the final Lima Accord ‘cites 1.5°C as an option for the target maximum global average temperature increase from pre-industrial levels’, which would be good news — if this target were realistic, and achievable.
Given how long and fruitless the whole UNFCCC path has been to date, I for one remain concerned that nothing of substance will come of this. Although some of us humans are, at least, trying to address the issues; sadly, all too many still refuse to recognise that we have a serious problem on our hands, and won’t wake up to reality until it smacks them in the face. I still think the horse bolted in 2009 at Copenhagen, but I guess we can’t give up trying to close that door…
Hi P!
There’s no doubt that the international process is fraught with procrastination and pitfalls but I do believe that there are signs that, in the final hours that we globally have to act, the world is going to step up and start us down the path to a clean energy future and a stabilized (although changed) climate.
The really good news is what is happening on the sub-national front. Here in Ontario we’ve now got a Minister of Environment and Climate Change who really understands the climate crisis. And Ontario and Quebec and California are working together on this issue, particularly re:pricing carbon (sure hope we can convince the Wynne Liberals to go with revenue-neutral fee and dividend rather than cap and trade the way Quebec and California have gone). Together, those 3 sub-national jurisdictions make up the 5th largest economy in the world.
US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a tireless climate champion who addresses the Senate every week about the climate crisis, told us in Washington last June that change on this issue is coming, and when it comes it’s going to be so fast it will leave our heads spinning.
It’s hard for the people, like you and me, who have been aware that the longer we delay on this issue the more expensive and difficult it becomes to address. But as Paul Gilding argues, based on past human history we will do the right thing eventually. The shift we are talking about is huge, and to expect it to be seamless and easy is naive and unrealistic. It’s a whole new way of living and being human on this planet that is being birthed, and like most births it is going to be messy and painful and hard.