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Talking points of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla at the interactive Round Table discussion of the high level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on Climate Change. New York, 22th September 2009
- Signing an agreement on climate change in Copenhagen during the Fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is indispensable.
- The evidence provided by science is irrefutable and its verification in practice is overwhelming. Ten of the last twelve years were the hottest in history. The Arctic ice cap is becoming thinner. Glaciers are retracting. There is an increase in the sea level and the frequency and intensity of hurricanes. Rainfall has changed. Another 100 million hectares of forests have been lost. Deserts have expanded. Thirty per cent of the species will disappear if the global temperature increases between 1.5 to 2.5 Centigrade degrees. Small Island States run the risk of disappearing under the waters.
- The average temperature has increased by 0.8 Centigrade degrees since 1980, according to NASA’s Center for Space Studies. The warming speed is increasing. The last two decades of the 20th century were the hottest of the last 400 years, and possibly the hottest in several millennia.
- According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 11 of the last 12 years are considered to be among the 12 hottest years since 1850. Average temperatures in Alaska, the western region of Canada and the eastern region of Russia have increased twice as much the speed of the world’s average, according to the Analysis on Climate Impact from 2000 to 2004. Arctic ice is rapidly disappearing, and the region could experience its first icefree summer as early as 2040. Polar bears and indigenous communities of the region are already suffering the consequences of ice loss.
- Present concentrations have reached a level equivalent to 380 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide, a figure that exceeds the natural range registered in the last 650 000 years. During the course of the 21st century or even later, the average world temperature could increase by more than 5 Centigrade degrees. If we put this figure in context it means that this is equivalent to the change in temperature occurred as from the last glacial period, during which part of Europe and North America were covered by one kilometer of ice.
- The increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse effects gases have raised the global average temperature by 0.8 Centigrade degrees. More than two thirds of that increase date back to the 1980’s. This warming is already affecting the natural systems of the whole world: climate specialists have documented the trends towards more heat waves, longest and more severe droughts, higher sea level, heavier and more frequent rains and stronger hurricanes.
- The lack of a determined and clear international action to mitigate climate change threatens to undermine the aspirations of entire generations to eradicate poverty and reach adequate levels of health, nutrition and education.
- The way in which we cope with climate change today will have a direct impact on the development prospects of the majority of humankind. Failure to reach an ambitious, just and balanced agreement will doom the world’s 40 per cent poorest –around 2.600 billion people to a future of very limited possibilities. It will also exacerbate the profound inequalities that exist between developed and developing nations and undermine the efforts to achieve a more inclusive world order.
- Developed countries should clearly accept that, as a result of the impact of their historical and present emissions, they bear the responsibility for climate change. They concentrate the overwhelming majority of the greenhouse gases emissions trapped in the atmosphere, while the developing countries are the ones which will pay the highest price for the impact of this global phenomenon.
- Mitigation strategies (the reduction and absorption of greenhouse gases emissions) and adaptation (the reduction of vulnerability before the impact of climate change) will not be effective if the unsustainable patterns of production and consumption of opulent societies, which are the main responsible for the environmental damage in the whole planet, do not change.
- Seventy six per cent of the accumulated emissions of greenhouse effect gases have originated in industrialized countries; they increased by 12 per cent between 1990 and 2003. The US emissions increased by 20 per cent. Rich countries are responsible for bearing the burden of mitigation. They should comply with the exiguous commitments established by the Kyoto Protocol and set more ambitious goals.
- An American citizen consumes an average of 25 oil barrels a year; a European citizen consumes 11; a Chinese consumes less than 2; and a Latin American or Caribbean citizen consumes less than 1.
- New wars will not prevent oil’s depletion.
- Around 1 billion citizens from the First World waste around half of the energy of the planet, while 2 billion poor people lack electricity. Thirty countries, including the European Union members, consume 80 per cent of the fuel that is produced.
- It is necessary to introduce a radical change in the use of energy aimed at a reduced consumption by developed countries. Governments should be the ones to do that, because the market won’t.
- The Copenhagen agreement should clearly reflect the responsibility on the part of developed countries, whether a party or not to the Kyoto Protocol, by means of real commitments, to reduce their emissions at their very sources. Such commitments, if they are to be serious, should establish a reduction rate of no less than 45 per cent with regards to the rates of 1990 by the year 2020. However, that is not the determination perceived in the present negotiations.
- The ultimate emissions reduction goals that some of the main developed countries have announced that they are ready to consider, including the United States –with only 4.6 per cent of the world’s population it concentrates 20 per cent of global emissions are quite distant from the rate necessary to stabilize a temperature increase in the planet to prevent an irreversible catastrophe.
- Furthermore, the figures announced so far are not only conditioned to greater openness in the Kyoto Protocol flexibility mechanisms, but also to higher commitments by developing countries. The intention to modify the benchmark year validated by the scientific community, the Convention and the Protocol will also mean to condone the increase of emissions these countries have had between 1990 and 2006. This course of action is unacceptable and represents a serious obstacle to any progress in the negotiations.
- The situation is no different with regards to the discussions on finances and technology transfer, including the approach to intellectual property rights, which are essential aspects to promote the participation of developing countries in the negotiation of a longterm cooperation agreement to combat climate change.
- Such an agreement, which could not become an additional obstacle to the development of developing countries, should include a sound scheme of new and additional public financing to assist those countries in their mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. According to some estimates, by the year 2015 around 86 billion dollars in new and additional financial assistance will be required for adaption. This figure accounts only for one tenth of the military budget of developed countries.
- There are enough resources for that: Why not using a small share of the two trillion dollars destined to bail out banks and speculative companies?
Why not meeting the commitment of investing 0.7 per cent of the GDP in Official Development Assistance, which will mean an additional amount of 141 billion dollars to current funds?
Why not condoning the debt, which has been already paid for more than once, the service of which being 400 billion dollars that are subtracted every year from the funds devoted to development?
Why not invest the 300 billion paid every year in agricultural subsidies in developed countries in food security, the reduction of poverty in rural areas and the establishment of fair prices for our export products?
Why the poor countries are robbed from their highly skilled human resources instead of receiving assistance to train them?
- To buy from poor countries their certificates of greenhousegases emissions or trying to establish quotas instead of contributing to their economic and social development is selfish, immoral and ineffective.
- Likewise, the intellectual property rights are a real barrier to the transfer of and access by developing countries to the viable existing and future technologies to mitigate and adapt to climate change. A longterm cooperation framework should also include effective measures to respond to that limitation.
- We require a mechanism for an expeditious clean technology transfer under preferential conditions to developing countries, giving priority to Small Island States and the least developed countries; the allocation of new and additional resources and a financial support mechanism to implement adaptation measures.
- A just and balanced agreement in Copenhagen would still be possible if we approach the negotiation process with a new political attitude. To allow the perpetuation of selfishness and irresponsibility is ethically and politically unacceptable. The battle against climate change can and should be won. We should not wait until is too late.
- In a speech delivered in 1992, President Fidel Castro pointed out that: “…An important biological species is endangered due to the accelerated and progressive destruction of its natural living conditions: man (…) the solution cannot be to put off the development of those who need it most (…) A better distribution of wealth and of the technologies available in the world could spare humanity such devastation. Less luxury and waste in a few countries could bring about a reduction of poverty and hunger in a large part of the planet.”
- Cuba has been able to do it by replacing 9.5 million bulbs and more than 3 million energyintensive electrical appliances. This has led to more than a 360MW peak demand reduction, which means that we have been able to save investments almost 400 million dollars worth. In addition to that, 680 000 tons of fuel have been spared every year. Thus, every year 1.210 thousand tons of CO2 have not been released into the atmosphere.
- In hardly two years, with the installation of high quality and efficient power generators as part of a distributed generation system, our country has increased its generation capacity by 66 per cent 2 103 megawatts. Thus, generation has become more efficient and transmission losses have been reduced.
- Besides, we have been working intensively in the development of renewable sources of energy.
- The world population is growing faster than the production of foodstuffs. The initiative launched by President Bush to turn food into fuel in a world where there are 850 million hungry is criminal. Its effects have already been devastating for food prices. In the case of wheat, the increase is twice and a half as much the price recorded in 2005; corn and soybean prices are twice as much, and milk 2.3 times as much. Malnutrition affects 16 million people per every percentage point.
- This unsustainable world order has plunged 2.5 billion people in poverty; 1.1 billion have no fresh water; 2.6 billion have no sanitation services; more than 800 million are illiterate; more than 115 million children do not receive primary education. One third of the people infected with HIV/ AIDS do not receive regular treatment. In Africa, two out of three persons totally lack antiretroviral drugs. The so called Millennium Goals are an illusion.
- The world invests more than one trillion dollars in military expenses and another one trillion is invested in publicity. Half a trillion dollars is wasted in illicit drugs. People invest 123 billion in cosmetics and 17 billion in food for pets.
- Half of the world’s population owns 1 per cent of the wealth, while the 1 per cent richest owns 40 per cent of the wealth.
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