Copenhagen: NGOs and scientists are largely shell shocked and disappointed by Kim Carstensen, WWF’s Global Climate Initiative 10:18am 16th Dec, 2009   Dec 2009    “What we have after two years of negotiation is a half-baked text of unclear substance. With the possible exceptions of US legislation and the beginnings of financial flows, none of the political obstacles to effective climate action have been solved,” Kim Carstensen, Leader of global conservation organization WWF’s Global Climate Initiative, states in a press release.    According to WWF’s estimates, the contents of the Copenhagen Accord translates into “three degrees Celsius of warming or more” and “millions of lives, hundreds of billions of dollars and a wealth of lost opportunities lie in the difference between rhetoric and reality on climate change action.”    The accord “clearly falls well short of what the public around the world was expecting, it’s clearly not enough to keep temperatures on a track below two degrees,” says Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists, according to Reuters.    The two degree target is linked by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to keeping the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere below 450 ppm (parts per million).    “Going above 450 parts per million will change everything. It’s not just one or two things. There will be changes in water, food, ecosystems, health, and those changes also interact with each other,” Cynthia Rosenzweig, NASA climate impacts researcher, tells AP.    According to Reuters, Jake Schmidt of the Natural Resources Defence Council says that “part of the dysfunction (of the Copenhagen talks) is that China is feeling its way into a new, more powerful role.”    Under the Copenhagen Accord, the countries that sign on will need to declare their national emissions targets. Their measures will be subject to international consultations, but if a country falls short this will have no consequences as the accord isn’t legally binding.    According to AP, Gregg Marland, who keeps track of worldwide carbon dioxide emission at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA, thinks that “voluntary carbon reductions fall far short of what’s needed to address climate change. I don’t see people going very far voluntarily without incentives to do it, and that comes from government.”    WWF says attention will now shift to a host of initiatives by countries, cities, companies and communities that are starting to build low carbon economies from the base up.”    “We are disappointed but the story continues. Civil society was excluded from these final negotiations to an extraordinary degree, and that was felt during the concluding days in Copenhagen. We can assure the world, however, that WWF and other elements of civil society will continue engaging in every step of further negotiations,” says WWF’s Kim Carstensen. Visit the related web page
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