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Daily Archives: December 5, 2008

Stand van Zaken COP14

05 Dec

Stand van zaken COP14

Er gebeurd veel hier op COP14. Je wordt doodgeslagen met informatie. Per dag zijn er tientallen persconferenties van de officiële Poolse organisatie, NGO’s en burger groeperingen. De laatsten volgen de onderhandelingen kritisch en laten tijdens hun persconferenties ook kritische geluiden horen. Ze vinden bijvoorbeeld dat die vergaderingen te lang duren en dat de partijen niet klaar zullen komen vóór 12 december.

De Poolse minister van milieu, Maciej Nowicki, heeft vandaag tijdens een persconferentie, de stand van zaken gegeven van de COP. Volgens hem is de conerentie verdeeld in 3 fasen. De eerste fase is drie tot vier dagen, waarin landen de gelegenheid hebben hun verklaringen over agendapunten te presenteren. In de tweede fase zullen zij conceptdocumenten voorbereiden, die aan hun ministers zullen worden aangeboden. In de derde fase zullen de mnisters de documenten bediscussieren en goedkeuren, aldus Nowicki.

Gedeelde visie

De bewindsman zei, dat het belangrijkste doel van de COP de gedeelde visie is over bescherming van het klimaat op aarde. Het gaat volgens hem niet alleen om de vermindering van broeikasgassen, maar het gaat ook om hoe zich aan te passen aan klimaatverandering, hoe technische mechanismen te otnwikkelen, hoe technologie over te dragen aan ontwikkelingslanden, hoe de ontwikkelingslanden zullen worden gefinancierd, hoe financieringsbronnen te vergroten, hoe ontbossing te stoppen, hoe een begin te maken met herbebossing en hoe locale specialisten te trainen in de aspecten aangaande klimaatverandering.

Nowicki gaf aan, dat partijen er alles aan om een solide basis te leggen voor de overeenkomst die zal worden ondertekend in Copenhagen. Van de verschillende voorzitters van de vergadering zei hij bericht te hebben gekregen dat alles op wieletjes loopt. Hij zei nog dat er 11.000 participanten zijn geregistreerd, 1000 journalitsten en dat er 34 conferentieruimten zijn.

CDM

Er zijn landen die klagen, dat CDM-projekten geogragisch niet goed zijn verdeeld. Er zijn al 1200 projekten uitgevoerd en Afrika klaagt dat er geen enkele is uitgevoerd op hun continent. Men zegt dat Afrika een ‘lost continent’ is, omdat ze op alles achterloopt.. China, India en Brazilie hebben de meeste CDM-projekten uitgevoerd. Clean Development Mechanism, is een mechanisme van het Kyoto Protocol om broeikasgassen te verminderen.

 
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Posted by on December 5, 2008 in Caribisch Gebied

 

Does the UN climate convention ignore gender?

05 Dec
Women’s organizations at the UN climate talks in Poland, COP14, are concerned about the treaty which underlies the meeting, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, because they say the convention has no human face and no social dimension. They say that it is one of the few global conventions in which women and gender issues are not mentioned, and that it therefore clashes with other UN conventions such as that on biodiversity.

Women now want to make sure that they are included in the agreement which is expected to be reached a year from now at the next round of climate talks, in Copenhagen. In COP14 many are now working as a team to make sure that gender issues are incorporated in the climate agreement expected from Copenhagen to replace the present global climate treaty, the Kyoto Protocol. “Many studies have been done… including after recent disasters – which prove that the impact on women is great”, said Monique Essed-Fernandes, interim director of the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEMO) http://www.wedo.org/ “Women are also the ones who know the best how to adapt to the impact of climate change. They are the ones who plant. They are the ones who take the decisions. Who decides to save energy by telling the children to turn off the light? Women.”

Commonsense

According to Tracy Raczek, the public affairs specialist of UNIFEM, the United Nations Development Fund for Women, it is basically commonsense to include all stakeholders in the negotiations of COP14, including women and women’s concerns. “Women’s potentials and contributions should be included, because we they are half the world’s population, so they have half the skills, half the needs and if their needs are incorporated and they are allowed to contribute in the decision-making process the entire negotiations will be more productive, adaptation policies will be more effective, and mitigation networks will be more effective,” she said.

Work plan

The women’s organizations have a large work plan and one of the topics they are working on is to provide an orientation for UNFCCC delegates on the issue of gender and climate change. “We had a training session yesterd,”said Rebecca Pearl, coordinator at the Global Gender and Climate Alliance (GGCA) http://www.gender-climate.org/ ,”where we brought forty delegates together and we taught them about what are the gender implications of adaptation, what does that mean in terms of when a disaster hits. What are the gender implications when men and women have different responsibilities on the ground? And mitigation, men and women have different roles in the area of mitigation. For instance there are a couple of initiatives happening where women are planting trees and also doing energy projects that could be contributing to reducing emissions.”

Next Week’s Meeting

Next week during the high level segment of COP14 women will have a meeting with women ministers of environment, who were brought together in WEMO by Gro Brundtland, a Norwegian politician and international leader in sustainable development. She now serves as a special envoy on climate change for the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The women will talk about financing mechanisms, because they reckon with the fact that women are playing a role in the UNFCCC and that they have to be included in adaptation and mitigation. Wangari Matai, Nobel Prize winner and one of the founders of WEDO, will share her vision on this area via a video conference.
 
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Posted by on December 5, 2008 in Caribisch Gebied