Civil Society demands stronger leadership from the Peruvian Government during the Bonn Climate Change Conference

 

"The necessity of reducing the emissions caused by the extraction, production and consumption of energy induced by any human activity must be highlighted”. Even  though  the  second  series  of  intersessional  meetings  (June  4-15)  started  Wednesday  in Bonn, Germany;  doubt exists as to the commitments of industrialized countries to adopt concrete measures in order to reduce emissions by 2020.

 

On  June 5 and 6,  the Peruvian Minister of  the Environment, Mr. Manuel Pulgar Vidal, co-chaired two in-session high-level ministerial events which are part of a great process of negotiation over the  New  Climate  Agreement  which  should  be  signed  during  the  COP21  in  Paris.  The  first  draft should be written in Lima during the COP20, making it a real key event.

 

The  Peru  COP20  Group  -  gathering  of  different  Peruvian  civil  society  organisations  -  demands a  New  Climate  Agreement  which  shall  be  fair,  ambitious  and  legally  binding.  In  the  meantime this group demands advances on both national and international Peruvian policies over climate. To  reach  this goal,  they  published an  open letter  to  the Minister  of  the Environment and  to  the Minister  of  Foreign Affairs   in which  they made  several recommendations. Roció  Valdeavellano, the  spokeswoman  of  the  Peru  COP20  Group  declared  that:  “according  to  the  IPCC  warning,  in order to avoid the global rise of the temperature by 2 degrees, the industrialized countries must present ambitious national mitigation objectives and reduce their emissions by 40 to 70% as soon. 

 

The Peruvian civil  society,  represented  by  the Peru COP20 Group, also claims  for  fair, equitable and global efforts  from every country, based  on historic  responsibility, capability  to act and  the emergency of the (climate) crisis. It implicates a quick transition  to  global low carbon energy , a reduction of  the dependance and subsidies  to  fossil  fuels with a diversification of  the economy, if  we  want  to  save  the  future  generations  from  an  even  more  serious danger,  insisted  Mrs Valdeavellano. 

 

It was also pointed in a open letter that in the Bonn Second Intersessional Meeting, that it must be a  reduction in  the extraction, production and energy production emission  for all  kind  of human activities (like industry, transportation, agriculture, housing and deforestation). This implies “(...) a change in the individuals values of conduct in use today, that reinforce the inertia of the energy patron that we must abandon”. Rocio  Valdeavellano  highlighted  the  necessity  of  assure  the  financial  resources  in  the  amounts the industrialized countries committed, in order  the most weakest countries can reduce  the risk related with the climate events, both in adaptation as mitigation.

 

The Peru COP 20 Group hopes theirs proposal can be received during the intersessional meetings in  Bonn  and  announces  that  they  will  continue  developing  an  open  dialog  on  the  national  and international agenda of Climate Change for the forthcoming COPs.