Cancun - hopes and fears

Even though the expectations of the upcoming negotiations of UNFCCC at COP16 are low there are some hopes and some fears.

The hope is that at least the promised money for quick-start funds for adaptation will be raised and that it will be additional to other development aid money. One of the few positive things in Copenhagen was the promises from US and other to deliver this money for development.

The other positive thing with Cancun is the low expectations! In Copenhagen everybody raised their expectations for some years, and that seemed to lock the processes. This time with a post-Copenhagen depression over the las year no one expect anything to come out of the meeting. This might be a good ground for a good grounding work for the next meeting in Durban, South Africa 2011. At least EU seems to have gone back to keep and prolong the Kyoto protocol so that there will be some kind of legally binding treaty to hold on to.

The fears? Well, it must be that the parties just don´t see the urgency anymore and dig the trenches even deeper and pointing at the other telling the to act and escalate the blame-game. And the result will be a much more insecure, unequal and unjust world and unsustainable in every aspect.

Statement from Budapest

The conference in Budapest on Poverty Wealth and Ecology is over and the statement is published on the internet.

The call is a good call that I think underline some of the more important perspectives. The call to EU institutions is for example;

· Climate justice, and therefore both social and ecological values, should be a central goal of policy-making. In industrialised countries economic growth should no longer be seen as an aim in itself.

· European countries and the EU should politically and financially support green growth in developing countries in order to allow for the development of renewable energy.

· Tax systems must be reformed in order to be at the service of just, participatory and sustainable societies and communities, as well as to promote justice on the global scale.

· Prices on goods and services should reflect true social and ecological costs and benefits.

· Coal-fired power stations and nuclear power stations should be replaced by renewable energy as soon as possible, richer European countries should support poorer ones in so doing.

· A redistribution of wealth and income as a key element of environmentally sustainable societies is necessary.

· The redistribution of wealth and sharing of technology between rich countries and poor countries affected by climate change are crucial elements of climate justice and have to go along with additional support for climate change mitigation and adaptation.

· The EU should commit itself to more ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction targets regardless of policies of other large economies.

· The market sphere needs to be informed and limited by the public sphere and the real “core economy” – namely our ability to care, teach, learn, empathise and live in solidarity.

· People living in poverty and social exclusion, including marginalised migrants, shall participate in the definition, design and implementation of all measures which affect them according to the principle “Nothing about us without us is for us”.

And the call to the churches are

· be prepared to use their influence and positions to take a firm stand and to take a risk where necessary when it comes to conflicts following God’s preferential option for the poor.

· make use of the WCC statement on Eco-Justice and Ecological Debt in their approach to governments and in their relationship with official institutions, companies and church members.

· acknowledge the close link between the fight against poverty and the struggle for climate justice in their strategic and practical approaches.

· reflect on the impact of their policies as well as the lifestyles of their members on both the climate and on vulnerable and poor peoplw

· be pioneers and examples on the way to sufficiency by implementing practical programmes on reducing CO2 emissions, e.g. environmental certificates for parishes, increasing the knowledge and solidarity as well as exemplifying different sets of values and fulfillment as alternatives to consumerism and striving for life according to the “principle of enough”.

I think there are some real good and interesting standpoints in this that should make churches more wiling to act. Because that is what we need now.

The full statement can be find at http://www.ceceurope.org/news-and-media/news/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=230&tx_ttnews[backPid]=17&cHash=5917295165

Today is the third day of the meeting in Budapest about Poverty Wealth and Ecology. People from Europe and all other continents to discuss how the three different subjects are related and what churches should and could do about it.

Obviously there is a clear linkage between them. The change of the climate is a result of the way the world produces wealth and the results of a climate change is to often strikes the poor people most and first.

So we are in a world were we got to change. And if we will not change the the climate will beyond what we can handle. And that is the about the only thing we don´t want to change.

But we need to change our way of thinking of what is growth. We need better instruments to say what is wealth. To just measure it only with "money" is not enough. Money is just an instrument to create the prerequisites for our way of living together and it is important but not enough to describe what makes a good life.

We are looking after it in Budapest but we still haven´t found what we looking for.

Cap and Trade - no more in the US!

The website BusinessesGreen.com writes "Business seem to have called time on the US's only national carbon trading market, blaming an absence of legislation as emissions-trading laws remain mired in Congress.The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) operates a cap-and-trade scheme which, since its launch in 2003, has attracted major players such as Ford, Bank of America, IBM and Intel.Members made a voluntary but legally binding commitment to meet greenhouse gas emissionreduction targets either by cutting emissions or by buying emissions permits sold by members.The scheme relied on the government setting mandatory caps on emissions – legislation that has not emerged after the Democrats abandoned plans for cap-and-trade legislation over the summer. Republican gains in today's mid-term election would likely push the possibility of legislation even further off the agenda."

There are a huge criticism against the cap and trade system saying that this will not speed up the lowering of greenhouse gas emissions. This system is used inside the EU but it has not really done that much to emission targets. The financial crisis did a much better work in this aspect. At least Cap and Trade can be one way to get business into the work but the resistance against any climate legislation in the USA seems to killed the voluntary CO2 market. And if the Republican get a lot stronger today the climate policies seems to come a lot more far away in the coming two years. This is not a good day for all of us struggling to change the view on a sustainable world and a more just world in the coming years. But still ; We can Hope and we can act....