OntheWilderSide

Green Party leaders from the US have joined Green Party  elected officials and leaders from countries throughout Latin America and Europe in Cancun, Mexico, to participate in the 16th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 16) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (http://www.cc2010.mx/en/index.php).

Greens are calling on the world’s leaders attending COP16 to “to reverse the failure of Copenhagen and create the conditions for a strong legally binding global climate agreement” on steps to avert catastrophic climate change in the next century, according to a statement issued by the Global Greens Coordination.  The statement is appended below.

The Global Greens Coordination (http://www.globalgreens.org/ggc/ggc_homepage) is a committee established to oversee Global Greens affairs, including issuing Global Greens statements and organizing Global Greens congresses.

In the US, Greens are challenging the White House, Congress, and state and municipal governments to take action, by conversion to safe and clean energy, drastic reduction of fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions, more public transportation and less car traffic, carbon taxes, creation of millions of living-wage green jobs in conservation and retrofitting of homes and buildings, protection for publicly-owned fresh water resources, and by leading the world in forums like COP16 in calling for expansion of the Kyoto Protocols.

Unfortunately, the Obama Administration has caved in to the demands of polluting industries, with the President’s authorization of offshore drilling in US coastal waters even after the BP disaster, endorsement of the ‘clean coal’ myth, refusal to act against mountaintop removal mining, approval for new taxpayer-funded nuclear plants, promotion of emissions trading schemes, which give polluters a license to continue polluting, and other retreats.  In this century of global warming, the Green Party has become an imperative in the US and abroad.

Green Party US members are present in Cancun at COP16 as delegates from NGOs or have press credentials, since conference rules bar political parties from any official status.

See also:

• Link for recorded webcasts: http://webcast.cc2010.mx/grid_en.html
• “Virtual Participation” in COP16: http://unfccc.int/virtual_participation/items/5780.php

• World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth: http://pwccc.wordpress.com
• People’s Agreement of Cochabamba, April 22, 2010: http://pwccc.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/peoples-agreement

Climate change — time for transformation

Global Greens Statement for COP16 in Cancun, December 2010
http://www.globalgreens.org/statements/cancun_cop16_time_for_transformation

1 December 2010

The Global Greens call on the leaders of the world’s industrialised countries at Cancun to reverse the failure of Copenhagen and create the conditions for a strong legally binding global climate agreement to avoid dangerous climate change and facilitate adaptation.

COP 16 at Cancun Mexico, from 29 November to 10 December, is the sixteenth meeting of parties to the UN Framework on Climate Convention since it was negotiated at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. Green parties from around a dozen countries will be represented.

The Global Greens, representing many millions of the Earth’s citizens, recognise that humanity cannot continue to live beyond the Earth’s ecological limits. Cancun is an opportunity to begin the transformation to sustainability, including through —

1. Political will and practical mechanisms to constrain global warming to no more than +2°C above pre-industrial levels, especially by moving rapidly beyond coal and other fossil fuels through investment in energy-saving, resource-efficiency, and renewable energy.

2. Rules for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation including safeguards that ensure claimed emission reductions represent genuine abatement, that benefit and protect Indigenous peoples’ rights, and that protect and restore biodiversity, water and nature.

3. Commitment of substantial new funding by developed countries for emissions mitigation and climate change adaptation by developing countries.

4. Greenhouse gas accounting rules that prevent perverse outcomes, such as promoting biofuel plantations at the expense of biodiversity and critical food production in developing countries and giving loopholes to developed countries in the land use, land-use change and forestry sector.

5. Exclusion of carbon capture and storage from the Clean Development Mechanism, and rejection of nuclear power altogether.

The COP16 should commit to finalizing a legally binding agreement no later than 2011 covering these and other issues, building on the Kyoto Protocol.

More information: secretary@globalgreens.org

MORE INFORMATION

Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
• Green candidate database and campaign information: http://www.gp.org/elections.shtml
• Green Party News Center http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtml
• Green Party Speakers Bureau http://www.gp.org/speakers
• Green Party ballot access page http://www.gp.org/ballotstatus
• Green Party Livestream Channel http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyus

“Global warming will kill one million a year by 2030: Estimates at UN talks say it will also cost $157 billion annually”
By Richard Ingham, Agence France-Presse, December 4, 2010
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Global+warming+will+kill+million+year+2030/3928270/story.html

Green Pages: The official publication of record of the Green Party of the United States (Fall 2010 issue now online)
http://gp.org/greenpages-blog

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• Climate change – time for transformation | Global Greens (www.onthewilderside.com)

Filed under: 3rd party, Action Alert!, activism, Ecology, economy, energy, Environment, Global Warming, grassroots democracy, Green Party, politics, US Politics Tagged: | 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference, Cancún, Global Greens, green, Kyoto Protocol, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, united states, World People's Conference on Climate Change