This deal is not ours
The 26-nation led by US President Barrack Obama and Danish PM Rasmussen that drafted the Copenhagen Accord do not speak for the rest of humanity. The Copenhagen Accord is only meaningful to the extent that it is an extremely disappointing and useless document.
A bad deal is never an alternative to a no deal. What is US$30 billion crumbs when the Philippines alone needs US$4.5 billion for reconstruction after typhoons Ketsana and Parma?
Chito Tionko of the CSO Working Group on Climate Change and Development advises Secretary Heherson Alvarez and President Gloria Arroyo to “exercise caution and common sense before rushing to praise deeply divisive outcomes.” He said, “ Filipino taxpayers money have sent them to Copenhagen to negotiate on behalf of our threatened future, and what do they have to show us upon their return?”
Right from the start of the COP 15 climate talks, the Philippine delegation was beset with political wranglings that deprived the Filipinos of some of the most highly competent and dedicated negotiators. In their place were politicians on junkets demanding to be accorded “special treatment” from the UNFCCC secretariat.
The CSO Working Group on Climate Change and Development commends Dean Antonio Lavina’s leadership in the REDD process for achieving progress over the contentious text. However, when the rest of the political leadership assume self-ascribed importance and pay little attention to fellow poor, developing countries’ positions, we end up as cohorts to rich developed countries’ interests.
We loose our dignity to fight for what is rightfully ours because we falsely hang on to promises dangled by agents of rich countries rather than fight the battle together with the rest of the poorer nations.
Rowena Bolinas, Coordinator of the CSO Working Group on Climate Change and Development warns “if President Arroyo wants to go into bilaterals, dismissing the negotiations process under the UNFCCC, she must remember, we are watching her every move. We do not want another Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) that will drown us with toxic discards from highly-polluting countries.”
The $380M in pledges she got from the ADB, WB and the Danish government should not be burdensome loans that the poor Filipino people will pay while destructive mining and logging continue unabated with official government support, contrary to the call for reduced emission of carbon from deforestation and degradation (REDD). The US$ 250M from the Clean Technology Fund (CTF) administered by MDBs “seeks to fill a gap in the international architecture for development finance available at more concessional rates than standard terms used by the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) and at a scale necessary to help provide incentives to developing countries to integrate nationally appropriate mitigation actions into sustainable development plans and investment decisions.”
Ms. Bolinas urges vigilance over “scaled-up funding” that are loans in disguise of ODAs or grants. The “concessional rates” mentioned in the CTF points to this example. What the CTF provides are supposedly investments for mitigation programs, and not adaptation programs which are much needed by a highly vulnerable country like the Philippines.
She adds, “let COP 15 in Copenhagen be a lesson to our politicians- when you mess up with our delegation, do not mess up more by extolling pathetic pacts. We shall continue pursuing a climate deal that does not insult and compromise our fragile existence. Our children deserve such, hopefully new political leaders that will be elected soon, will really do something good for them.”
