Working through the night, negotiators struggled to understand the status of the so called ‘Copenhagen Accord’ as the Copenhagen Climate Summit came to an inglorious, incoherent and fiercely disputed close.

“We have had a year of crises, but today the biggest one facing humanity is a leadership crisis. The so-called Copenhagen Accord is a failure of political will – it fails the basic test for an acceptable outcome – the agreement is not fair, it is not ambitious, and it is not binding” warned Greenpeace Canada Climate and Energy Coordinator, Dave Martin from Copenhagen.  “This failure could condemn millions to death as the impacts of runaway climate change escalate in coming years.” 

The Copenhagen Accord is being hailed by some as a step forward. It is not. It has not even been formally adopted by the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP).  It does not contain strong measures for emission reductions in developed countries. It is a major concession to climate polluting industries, especially in the fossil fuel sector which lobbied hard to undermine a deal and now has a license to continue to pollute.

In the lead-up to Copenhagen, Greenpeace put the climate crimes of the Alberta tar sands on the agenda at the climate conference through a series of civil disobedience actions in September and October against tar sands operations in Alberta. Cabinet documents leaked during Copenhagen showed that the Harper government wants to weaken its already weak reduction targets to allow continued, unchecked expansion of the tar sands and greenhouse gas emissions.

“Canadians want action on climate change.  They don’t want the tar sands corporations to dictate Canada’s environment and foreign policy.” 

Canada received 10 Fossil-of-the-Day awards from Climate Action Network at the Copenhagen conference. The tongue-in-cheek awards are given to countries that block progress in some way at the negotiations. The large number of fossils resulted in the Canada receiving the ‘colossal fossil’ award as worst country at the conference. 

“Climate science says we have only a few years left to halt the rise in emissions before runaway climate change will result in catastrophic impacts. We cannot change that science, so instead we will have to change the politics, and we may have to change the politicians.”

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Available as links from this newsrelease at: http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/press/

Dave Martin’s comments on the agreement

Copenhagen agreement

 

 

Editors: Greenpeace staff are available for interviews on the end of the Copenhagen:

Dave Martin, 011 45 5267 8631, cell in Copenhagen

Virginie Lambert Ferry, 011 45 5010 3012, cell in Copenhagen

Christy Ferguson, 416 451-9354

Bruce Cox, 416 419-7341

 

For more information, please contact:

Alex Paterson, Media and Public Relations Officer, (416) 524-8496