Conference for global ecological governance - Conclusions of Workshop 1: "Combating climate Change"
Paris, 5 February 2007
1. Scientific knowledge on climate change has moved on considerably since the first IPCC reports which guided us in establishing the Rio Convention and the Kyoto Protocol. It is no longer possible today to doubt that global warming is accelerating and that the role of human activity is making a very substantial contribution to that acceleration. These are the conclusions of the fourth report that has just been released on 2 February in Paris by IPCC. Consequences of this acceleration will be huge, and island countries such as Tuvalu or Maldives expressed their deepest concern during the workshop on the economical and human costs to be expected.
It is therefore urgent to define a global target for the reduction of our greenhouse gas emissions, failing which we shall be both responsible for and victims of the serious damage we shall have caused to our planet. Morocco expressed the concern we must collectivly have on the growing gap between the international measures being taken to reduce GHG emissions and the current trends of global emissions.
2. This is why the Participants in the Paris Conference call on all Heads of State and Government to adopt the target of a 50% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, from 1990 levels. They also ask industrialised countries to set an example by endeavouring to reduce their own emissions by a factor 4, or by 60 to 80%. This is the condition for our being able to define by 2009 at the latest the appropriate actions for a regime to combat climate change that is capable of responding to the issues facing us.
The necessary sharing of the burden in an equitable way that will result from this target for global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions must encourage all States to consider new forms of voluntary commitment for the industrial sectors that generate most pollution.
The Participants of the Paris Conference ask industrialised countries and developing countries to consider jointly and very actively in connection with the climate convention negotiations, beginning with the Bali Conference, the form that may be taken by voluntary sectoral commitments on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
Such consideration must in particular enable developing countries to make the necessary effort to achieve significant reductions in their emissions in a given industrial sector compared with a business as usual scenario, to resell on the global carbon market the emission credits they have earned, and also to benefit from mechanisms for technology transfer and cooperation.
Among other tools, Costa Rica expressed its will to see a real joint international Policy aiming at developing economic tools able to stop deforestation.
In addition, this must be supplemented by the sharing of quantified targets for national policies and measures, particularly in the area of energy efficiency and intensity.
3. In this respect, a strengthening of IEG would permit improved integration of the climate aspect with economic policies in order to assure the future of the Kyoto Protocol.
Climate disruption has generated a very high level of mobilisation by all countries around the world. This has given rise to commitments, not only by industrialised countries but also by developing nations.
At a time when negotiations are beginning in the context of the Climate Convention and the Kyoto Protocol in order to formalise the terms on which this strategy will be pursued after 2012, the Participants at the Paris Conference invite the industrialised countries and the developing countries to undertake joint study of ways forward to permit those negotiations to ensure coherence, and offer enhanced synergy, with the other environment-related issues.
From this point of view, the emergence of a strengthened IEG through the creation of a UNEO would allow the pooling of the work linked to the combat against climate change undertaken in the different forums addressing environmental issues. It would make it possible to encourage a stronger contribution from developing countries via the broader inclusion of climate issues (mitigation and adjustment measures) in the policies and development assistance programmes of international institutions. The participants are welcoming the offer of Morocco to welcome the first meeting of the UNEO Friends in a near future.