Warsaw COP19

By VIOLET MENGO in Warsaw, Poland

The climate change talks under the United Nations Framework Convention on climate change opened on Monday in Warsaw, Poland on a grim and somber note, as parties recalled the devastation of the typhoon Haiyan in the Phillipines.

The Phillipines head of delegation, Naradev Sano made an impassioned and emotional plea calling for the Warsaw talks to “end the madness” breaking down at the end of his speech.

Mr Sano announced that he was commencing a voluntary fast until meaningful progress has been made in Warsaw.

Mr Sano said the Typhoon Haiyan was apparently the cruelest and worst storm in recorded history, with the full extent of the damage being uncertain.

“The picture following its aftermath is of a colossal disaster” He said that Parties cannot afford to delay climate action and that “We can stop this madness”

Mr Sano said that this was the 19^th meeting of the conference of Parties and despite significant gains, “we continue to fall short of attaining the Convention’s ultimate objective”.

Loss and damage is a reality and developed country mitigation targets are dangerously low. Parties were at a critical juncture and even with the most ambitious reductions, it is too late and there is need for global solidarity.

The means of implementation is ever so crucial and the emerging climate pathway cannot be that typhoon are a way of life as is the counting of dead bodies

Mr Sano said that Philippines are doing their own effort with a national renewable energy programme and that if the developed world could finance the incremental costs, it could do much more in mitigation actions.

He said his own family’s hometown was hit by Haiyan, adding that his brother survived but is hungry and weary as food supplies are short and is involved in burying dead bodies.

Mr Sano announced that he would adopt a “voluntary fast” during this COP until there was “meaningful outcome” 

He wanted concrete resources to be mobilized for the Green Climate Fund (GCF) which remains an empty shell and needed to see real ambitions.

He said the UNFCCC could be called a “project to save the world and we could stop the madness” and urged the Parties not to move the “goal post” He ended his speech with a call to Parties to rise above humanity and received a standing ovation as he broke down in tears.

Parties then observed three minute silence for those who had perished in the tragedy moment of silence on the request of Su Wei, the head of the Chinese delegation to the COP19 Presidency, Marcin Korolec, Minister of Environment of Poland.

The COP19 and the 9^th session of the meeting of Parties of the Kyoto Protocol are meeting from 11 to 22 November. The subsidiary bodies who are also meeting are the Subsidiary Body for the Implementation (SBI), the Subsidiary Body for the Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the Ad-Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP).The SBI and SBSTA also opened on Monday while ADP started on Tuesday 12^th November.

There were concerns whether the COP provisional agenda would be adopted, given that the Russian Federation had proposed a new sub item for the inclusion on “decision making in the UNFCCC process under the agenda item on Administrative, financial and institutional matters.

When a similar proposal to include a new agenda item was made by the Russian Federation, Belarus and Ukraine for the SBI session in June in Bonn, Germany, the SBI could not commence work at all due to wrangles over the agenda.

However, in Warsaw, the COP opening did not see an “agenda fight” as Parties were given assurance by the COP President that the Russian item on the adoption of the rules of procedure of the provision agenda and item relating to a proposal by Papua New Guinea and Mexico for amendments to the Convention to allow for a right to vote on all matter, except to those related to financial rules and the financial mechanism when consensus cannot be found among Parties.

Papua Guniea, following the adoption of the agenda said that it had made request since the Bali COP for the adoption of the rules of procedure (which is still pending adoption as Parties have not been able to agree on rule 42 on voting when consensus is not possible).It said that without having effective and transparent processes, the hands of Parties were tied. It wanted resolution of this.

When Parties were invited to make statements following the adoption of the agenda, the G77 and China stressed that the Warsaw talks must be about the implementation of the past commitments including on finance, technology transfer, capacity building, adaptation and a mechanism to address loss and damage. The G77 and China call was echoed by all the other developing country groupings.

The climate talks begun with an opening ceremony which saw speeches by Abdullah Bin Hamad Al –Attiya, President of COP18. The President of COP19, Rejendra Pauchauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, Mayor of Warsaw and Christian Figueres the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC.

Ends….