The November 2011 edition of AEFJN's Forum for Action is now online. It contains articles on the ethical responsibility of the Church on the climate issue, on the clean up of the Ogoniland oil spills, which will take decades, on the spread of Libyan arms in the Sahel, on the production of medicines in Africa and on the EU's attempt to force African countries to sign EPAs.
The national election campaign officially started the 28th October in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), exactly one month ahead of historic presidential and legislative elections, scheduled for November 28 2011. 41 humanitarian and human rights organizations, among them AEFJN, have expressed concern about the high political tension and deteriorating security situation. They have called upon all Congolese and international actors involved to take urgent measures to prevent electoral violence, better protect civilians and ensure credible, free and fair elections.Cancún COP16 : Conclusions
Climate change: the conclusions of the 16 ° Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Climate Change (COP16) in Cancun
The geopolitical climate dominates talks
The first challenge
was to manage multilateral negotiations, as this process had failed in Copenhagen. The adopted
text, non-legally binding, left much of the decisions to next year’s talks without
ensuring the post Kyoto
Protocol. It does not contain sufficient measures to reduce the greenhouse
gases (GHG) emissions and to achieve the goal of limiting the increasing global
temperature below + 2 ° C. An outcome: the Aid Fund.
All participating countries, except Bolivia, approved a text which provides 33 pages
to hand over major decisions at the next conference to be held in November 2011 in Durban (South Afr.). Failure to complete
those negotiations - despite the road map established in Bali
3 years ago – is due to the fact that most developed and emerging countries
continue to increase their GHG emissions. Their political leaders are turning
probably already to another type of treaty directed no more towards the climate
but towards biodiversity or the environment, it would be national standard and
no longer multilaterally.
On the other side, developing countries rely heavily on
the "Green Climate Fund"
to "support projects, programs, policies in developing countries." It
should help pay for developing countries, in principle to the poorest ones,
increasing sums to reach one hundred billion dollars (€ 76bn) annually by 2020.
How this fund will be constituted remains unanswered. Western countries,
indebted, will not be able to make such an effort by public funds, so they seek
alternative sources but these are also relevant to other budgets. Contrariwise,
the Fund's management has been defined. The Fund will be steered by a board of
members chosen evenly from developed and developing nations, but for the first
3 years, the World Bank would oversee it.
The Cancún deal also agreed on a mechanism for reducing deforestation that accounts for about 15% to
20% of global GHG emissions. The goal is to "slow, stop and reverse the
loss of forest cover," with "participation" of the parties
involved in forest management, including indigenous peoples. But the controls
are not provided and the funding remains unclear.
Two last agreements, the review of climate goals in 2015
to assess whether a commitment to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees
centigrade is needed and the monitoring nations' climate pledges based on data
provided by nations and without sanction planned.
As said Connie Hedegaard, the European commissioner for Climate Action: "It is real progress, but it is also fair to say that we have a long and challenging journey ahead of us."
(Extract of the AEFJN Update for the Food sovereignty Working Group - December 2010)
