Copenhagen: We need a fab climate deal

Whether or not you know your COPs from your carbon caps, this FAB guide to the ideal deal will help you cut through the jargon to explain what we want to see from the UN climate talks in Copenhagen.

At CAFOD, we want a climate deal that’s FAB, one that’s fair, ambitious and binding. Which means…

A fab deal

• $200 billion each year by 2020 to help poor countries cope with climate change
• More than 40 per cent emissions cuts by rich countries
• A legally binding treaty

Fair

Poor countries are experiencing the impacts of climate change first and worst, but they’ve done least to cause the problem. That’s unfair.

We think the least that rich countries, who have developed thanks to emitting greenhouse gases, can do is to pay poorer countries to cope with the impacts of climate change. Not just to cope, but also to find clean, green ways of developing in future.

This must be new money, no sneaking the cash out of existing aid budgets. Can’t say fairer than that.

It’s not cheap: $200 billion is needed every year by 2020. Double the UK proposal of $100 billion. But the cost of not tackling climate change is much higher. Not just in money, but in human life and environmental destruction.

Ambitious

Now is the time to think big. The most ambitious offer the EU has on the table at the moment is to cut its emissions by 30 per cent by 2020, based on 2005 levels. Sorry, but this isn’t ambitious enough.

Rich countries need to cut more than 40 per cent of their emissions by 2020, based on what they were emitting in 1990. This is our best chance for keeping temperature rises below the 2˚C danger zone. And we mean real reductions; carbon offsetting so that you can carry on business as usual won’t do.

The leaders of rich countries need to lead, by cutting emissions and providing extra money. They need to be prepared to take bold, ambitious steps. If they do, we’ll back them 100 per cent.

Binding

It's no good until it's legal. Leaders must be prepared to sign on the dotted line, not just make aspirational statements for which they can't be held to account. Individual countries may shrink from making hard decisions, but for the future of our planet and to bring justice to poor communities, we need a global commitment to stop climate chaos.

Will it happen?

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