SYDNEY,Dec.5, 2012, (ANTARA/Medianet International-AsiaNet) --
DOHA—Pro-development group World Growth says the United Nations climate strategy adopted in Durban in 2011 to remake the Kyoto Protocol and finalise a new treaty has already lost its way and is now posing a threat to growth in the developing world. The group says the Durban Platform should be abandoned and alternative approaches considered.
World Growth Chairman Ambassador Alan Oxley said that the rift between developed and developing countries on how to address climate change has widened in the current climate talks in Doha.
"Wealthy countries are now proposing measures that will reduce growth and increase poverty," said Ambassador Oxley. "The EU, for example, is now calling on poor countries to reduce emissions from food production: India's obvious retort is that such proposals would harm anti-poverty efforts."Ambassador Oxley said these digressions from the core question of how nations can collaborate to address greenhouse gas emissions demonstrates that the Durban Platform has already failed.
"Since the Copenhagen conference, efforts have focused on halting deforestation in developing countries, which is now conceded to be a minor source of greenhouse emissions," he stated.
"Billions of dollars have been pledged to the so-called REDD program to reduce deforestation, but a recent World Bank review of the program found that little money had been disbursed, and the program has been grossly inefficient," he said.
Ambassador Oxley said some donors, such as the UK, were now actively proposing aid money should be used to replace wealth generated by forestry.
"But at the same time, the UK has stated that the main driver of deforestation is food production. Are poor countries simply supposed to stop producing food?"
Ambassador Oxley said anybody at all familiar with UN processes would recognize that, after nearly 20 year of trying, this effort has failed and must be overhauled.
"The fact that governments are already using the Durban Platform as a bandwagon for other hobbyhorses shows it has stalled," said Ambassador Oxley.
He pointed out that President Obama said recently it might be practical to revert to the so-called "major economies" approach to forge common ground how to deal with climate change. This process was initiated under the second Bush Administration and had acquired useful momentum before it was allowed to lapse.
"A clean-sheet approach to addressing climate change is required. The Major Economies approach can produce that. The Durban Platform is now weighed down with the consequences of years of institutional jockeying. These processes themselves have become an impediment to solutions to climate change," said Ambassador Oxley.
To contact World Growth's experts email: info@worldgrowth.org or phone
+61 3 9614 8022
SOURCE: World Growth
Editor: PR Wire
Copyright © ANTARA 2012
