UN climate negotiations need overhaul, says Oxfam

The UN climate talks must be rescued from the shambles of Copenhagen by
revolutionizing the way the negotiations are carried out so that a deal can be
delivered in 2010 and the chaos witnessed in Copenhagen is never repeated, said
Oxfam today.

In a new report, Climate shame: get back to
the table launched today, the international aid agency reviews the
outcomes of the recent climate conference, the shortcomings and the missed
opportunities which will send repercussions among the world's poorest
people already suffering the effects of climate change.

Oxfam's climate change adviser Antonio Hill said: 'The Copenhagen
Accord is hugely disappointing but it also reveals how the traditional approach
to international negotiations, based on brinkmanship and national
self-interest, is both unfit for pursuing our common destiny and downright
dangerous. There is too much at stake for this politics-as-usual
approach.

The report calls for world leaders to be more involved to cut through the
deadlock and reignite delegates' negotiations. It wants more ministerial
meetings to be held between now and the Mexico summit in December, along with
an outline of what must be agreed at each one with ministers prepared
to stay on until an agreement is brokered.

Only two intercessional meetings are planned before the next
UN climate talks in Mexico in December. By then, an estimated 150,000 people
will have died and a further 1 million displaced as a result of climate change.

Oxfam said that existing loopholes, coupled with the lack of
substance in the Accord risk rich-country emissions being higher in 2020 than
in 1990, putting the world on track for a catastrophic temperature rise of
almost 4 degrees C as opposed to the 2 degrees C required. It fails to
include emissions cut targets to keep temperature increases below 2 degrees C.
A commitment that continuing talks will lead to a legally binding agreement is
also absent.

A further concern is that there have been no assurances that the proposed US$100
billion from rich countries for poor countries to adapt to climate change will
not come from existing aid commitments. Moreover, Oxfam argues that this
amount is just half of what is required and could be a promise easily broken. Unless
it comes from public sources there would be no guarantee that the money would
reach the right people in the right places at the right time.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Oxfam's Global Ambassador who
attended the talks and met with many of the key decision makers in Copenhagen
said: 'The failure of the political process in Copenhagen to achieve a
fair, adequate and binding deal on climate change is profoundly distressing. A
higher purpose was at stake but our political leaders have proven themselves
unable to rise to the challenge. We must look to the future. Our leaders must
regroup, learn and make good their failure for the sake of humanity's
failure.