African civil society argues for only one degree of warming

Shortly after entering the Copenhagen Conference at COP 15 today, we were confronted by the prospect of a 'Danish text' that has been floating around. The text is utterly weak and would undermine all the previous negotiations on the LCA text.

The Danish text is dangerous and considerably weaker because; it does not include the target of 1.5 degrees as an option, and only mentions 2 degrees. It does not refer to indigenous people's rights. It includes the possibility of forests being included in carbon markets and becoming another loophole in mitigation commitments. There is also no reference to 350ppm as the ultimate stabilisation target (which is essential according to James Hansen at NASA). We need all these elements in the final LCA text; by comparison the Danish text is useless.

As I was sitting there considering these texts, the corridors of the COP 15 erupted into a protest by African Civil Society. There was chanting of "suicide" and a flood of press and security personnel formed around the protesters, in front of the main Plenary. We managed to speak to an NGO member from Kenya as he was being interviewed by SABC News.

"We must keep warming to one degree" - Umuro Godana, executive director of PISP argued. He argued the IPCC Report AR4 was very clear that even 0.8 degrees above current levels will have devastating impacts on Africa. He stated that "2 degrees of warming effectively means 4 degrees for Africa", so while 'two degrees' might be suitable for Western countries, it is not for African countries and many Island States. He repeated the call for a fair deal at Copenhagen, and that it could be better to have no deal than a useless deal.

However, it is difficult to say whether the world is already committed to a certain amount of warming; perhaps 0.6 degrees (according to NASA) which just demonstrates the already urgent need for agree on finance for developing countries, plus an agreement to halt emissions. We must remain positive and insist on the fact that survival is not negotiable.