FOE charges leaders attending Doha talks

…2 degrees Celcius or more not acceptable
The Qatari capital, Doha, is already buzzing with activity after this year’s round of climate change negotiations got underway on Monday with world leaders under pressure to save the earth from destabilisation and crisis. 
Scientists predict catastrophic consequences for the world, particularly Africa, if global temperatures should rise beyond two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. It is emphasised that the best way to avoid a catastrophe is to stabilise greenhouse emissions (GHGs), including carbon.

It is feared that a warmer globe would dissipate global economic development achievements and render human beings vulnerable as a result of increased climate related diseases, water stress, and drought, leading to reduction in prospects for food production.
Thus, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), led by the Friends of the Earth (FOE), have encouraged world leaders to secure a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol, stressing the need to incorporate ambitious emissions reductions by developed countries.
“In order for atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases to be stabilized… industrialized countries should honour their commitments for a second Kyoto Protocol period and commit to ambitious emission reduction targets of 50% by 2017, and by more than 100% well before 2050, against a base year of 1990,” said George B.K. Awudi, Co-ordinator of Climate Change Programme at FOE’s Ghana chapter.
Mr Awudi, who was briefing a select group of journalists in Accra ahead of the Doha talks, stressed: “This process should be concluded in Doha COP18 to avoid a gap between the first Kyoto protocol commitment period which expires on December 2012 and second commitment which should come into force in 2013.”
He stressed that it is imperative for world leaders to ensure that the 12-day conference (November 26-December 7) culminates in emissions reduction targets that sit in a workable timeframe to safeguard food production, allow for agricultural and ecological systems to adapt naturally, and safeguard jobs and economic development.
Earlier, African Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and networks under the auspices of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), had said the outcomes to be agreed at the Doha climate negotiations must ensure that developed countries address their historical responsibilities and debts, while implementing the Kyoto Protocol (through the Kyoto Protocol track) and the Climate Convention (through the Bali Action Plan).
The Doha climate conference is officially called the eighteenth Conference of the Parties (COP 18) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The conference also features meetings such as Eighth session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 8); Thirty-seventh session of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI 37), Thirty-seventh session of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 37); Seventeenth session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (second part) (AWG-KP 17.2); Fifteenth session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Co-operative Action under the Convention (second part) (AWG-LCA 15.2); and First session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (second part) (ADP 1.2).
This is my story published in the Public Agenda on November 30, 2012. You can visit www.publicagendaghana.com.