John Prescott has defended China’s role in the climate change summit, saying the blame for its flawed outcome must lie with the United States and Barack Obama.
The former deputy prime minister helped negotiate the Kyoto protocol in 1997, and was in Copenhagen acting as an informal bridge between the Chinese delegation and others.
As a frequent visitor to China, who knows many of its officials personally, Prescott fears privately that the Chinese will walk away from the talks if they continue to be singled out for blame.
In a letter to the Guardian, Prescott criticises the US climate change special envoy, Todd Stern, who “said at Copenhagen emissions weren’t about ‘morality or politics’, they were ‘just maths’, with China projected to emit 60% more CO2 than the US by 2030″.
In his letter Prescott claims that Stern’s arguments “ignored the more transparent measure of pollution per capita, which shows the US emits 20 tonnes per person every year, compared to China’s six tonnes, whilst America’s GDP per person is almost eight times greater than the Chinese”. He also attacks President Barack Obama for suggesting there had been a period of “two decades of talking and no action. That might have been true in America, which refused to sign up to Kyoto, but not in the case of China or Europe, who followed a lot of that protocol’s policies. Indeed Obama’s offer of a 17% cut is wholly dependent on Congressional approval and will still be less than Kyoto targets.” Prescott is climate change convenor for the Council of Europe, with the role of exploring how to keep the talks on the road.
China itself defended its “crucial role” in saving the Copenhagen conference from failure, according to the state media’s first blow-by-blow rebuttal of European claims that China wrecked a climate deal.
In a florid account of prime minister Wen Jiabao’s 60 hours in Copenhagen, the Xinhua news agency said the premier staved off the “unrealistic and unfair demands” of Britain, Germany and Japan.
There is no direct criticism of the US, but Obama is described as “awkward” in the presence of the Chinese premier.
According to the lengthy defence of China’s actions, European nations repeatedly tried to impose secret drafts, unscheduled meetings and a hidden agenda on China and other developing nations.
The article, likely to have been approved at the highest level of government, notes that Wen walked out of a state dinner after hearing that an unscheduled meeting of leaders was being arranged soon afterwards to discuss a new draft text.
“It was really absurd that the country who called for the meeting never informed China,” the report says. “Premier Wen concluded that this was no small matter.
“Since the start of the conference, there had been cases where individual or small group of countries put forward new texts in disregard of the principle of openness and transparency, arousing strong complaints from other participants.”
Such accusations infuriate senior European negotiators, who claim China was fully informed ahead of Copenhagen of the plan for a new document, though it never agreed to the content.
Xinhua avoids mention of how and why China killed attempts to impose 2050 targets for reducing emissions. Beijing has consistently rejected such long-term goals, which it sees as a threat to itseconomic growth.It also fails to address claims that China torpedoed the inclusion of a 1.5C maximum global temperature rise, requested by small island states and African nations. Instead, it says, Wen showed sincerity by accepting a rise of no more than 2C by 2050.
EU Kyoto Negoitator John Prescott has given his response to President Obama’s speech, saying he must do more to help secure a political agreement that is credible .
In a vlog on his New Earth Deal website (www.newearthdeal.org) he says:
“Well I’ve heard President Obama’s speech here in Copenhagen and I do have to say to him, it’s wonderful to hear an American President say we’ve got to do something and get action not talk.
“But I was a little bit put out when he said nothing has happened since the Kyoto. That’s certainly true in America but not in Europe. We lived up to a lot of our Kyoto oblogations and the deal President Obama has announced is still less than what European nations have observed since Kyoto.
“It’s still the largest and wealthiest nation and the greatest emitter. So hopefully that speech is a statement of his position at the moment. But when he gets in the room with Gordon and others he’s going to have to offer a little bit more.
“As I told the Chinese environment minister, he’s got to wriggle a little bit more and Europe’s got to be talking about 30% as the minimum not the maximum.
“All these three groups have got to make a change so let’s hope that’s going to happen in the next couple of hours so we do have a political agreement that is credible.”
Former UK Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott was in Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Convention (COP15.)
Mr Prescott was there as the Rapporteur on Climate Change for the Council of Europe and leading its New Earth Deal campaign for a fairer deal for the developing countries. You can follow his daily diary at www.newearthdeal.org.
Former UK Deputy Prime Minister and EU Kyoto negotiator John Prescott is in Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Convention (COP15.)
Mr Prescott is there as the Rapporteur on Climate Change for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and leading its New Earth Deal campaign for a fairer deal for the developing countries.
You can follow his daily diary here at www.newearthdeal.org
John Prescott, the rapporteur on climate change of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), has called on the leaders of the United States, China and India to personally take part in the Copenhagen climate change conference in December.
Mr Prescott, a former British Deputy Prime Minister who played a key role in negotiating the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, said: “These talks are vital for the future of the planet. These three countries can make the difference between success and failure.
“It is vital that their leaders are there, alongside the 60 other presidents and prime ministers who have already said they are coming.”
He was speaking at a meeting of PACE’s Environment Committee in Paris.
Mr Prescott has asked the President of the Parliamentary Assembly Lluis Maria de Puig to make a personal appeal to US President Barack Obama, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, as well as Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, inviting them to attend.
He added: “This could be settled, as at Kyoto, by political leaders in a last-minute deal on the principles and a road map, for finalizing by the COP. We need the three most important ones to be there.”
In a September resolution, the Assembly – representing 47 parliaments across greater Europe – called on developed countries, which are responsible for most past carbon dioxide emissions, to take the lead at Copenhagen by agreeing to “deep and early cuts” in greenhouse gases.
The right to ‘live in a healthy and viable environment’ should be enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights, according to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE)
PACE’s Rapporteur on Climate Change, former UK Deputy Prime Minister and Kyoto Protocol negotiator John Prescott is backing the call as part of its New Earth Deal campaign to secure a fairer deal at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December.
Mr Prescott, who today begins a UK tour of schools at the Globe Academy in Southwark, London delivering a presentation on climate change, Kyoto and Copenhagen as part of UN Climate Week, said:
“In 1949, the Council of Europe drew up the European Convention of Human Rights to ensure that we never again had to endure a global war.
“60 years on, the global threat isn’t from war but from climate change.
“That’s why we propose drafting a new Protocol to the Convention, enshrining the right to a healthy and viable environment as a fundamental human right.”
PACE will recommend the proposal at its Road to Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in Strasbourg, France on Sept 29th as well as calling on the Council of Europe to adopt climate change as one of its core priorities and explore the linkages between climate change and human rights in Europe.
PACE will also call for an ambitious binding global agreement with a clear vision for a future low carbon world – based on more social and environmental equity and recommend that Council of Europe member states and observer states negotiate an integrated package of measures.
Mr Prescott added: “We believe that any deal negotiated must consider the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.
“That means that social justice and the reduction of poverty must be at the very heart of any agreement. It also means equalising greenhouse gas emissions per head in each country.
“The climate change we’re experiencing across the world has been caused by the richer developed countries. They must now recognise the central principle that the polluter pays.”
The schools, which are being visited as part of Mr Prescott’s New Earth Deal campaign over the next three days, are:
Globe Academy, London, Pudsey Grangefield, Pudsey, nr Leeds, Parrs Wood High School in Didsbury, Manchester and Yardley’s School, Birmingham.
PACE has partnered with the environmental movie ‘Age of Stupid’ allowing access to use clips from the film in Mr Prescott’s school presentation and on its website.
The UK school tour will be launched on September 21st in London by one the Age of Stupid’s stars, windfarm developer and environmental activist, Piers Guy. His battle against nimbys (‘not in my back yard’ campaigners) opposing his windfarm development in Bedford, England will feature in the presentation.
Age of Stupid Director and founder of 10:10, Franny Armstrong said:
“Everyone at Team Stupid is delighted to join forces with John Prescott as he heads in to schools up and down the country.”
Vital UN climate change talks in Copenhagen are likely to collapse unless rich nations agree a “social justice deal” built around equalising emissions per head in each country, according to the former deputy prime minister John Prescott.
Speaking to the Guardian, Prescott admitted that the formula would require far greater sacrifices by rich nations, especially the US. Prescott, one of three politicians to broker the original UN climate change deal in December 1997, is to become deeply involved in trying to ensure there is a successor to Kyoto.
He met leaders of Barack Obama’s climate change team in Washington a fortnight ago, and is due to travel to China on 8 September at the same time as Lord Mandelson, the business secretary. He will be given an honorary professorship at Xiamen University for his work on climate change.
Prescott will also stage an international conference from 28 September on the principles of a deal for Copenhagen, to be opened by Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and addressed by Al Gore. The conference, organised by the Council of Europe, will have 65 states present.
Prescott is also going to lead a Gore-style campaign in schools in October showing the film The Age of Stupid, starring Pete Postlethwaite, portraying a devastated planet in 2050 owing to world leaders’ failure to act on climate change.
Prescott says: “What I fear is that Copenhagen is a much more difficult nut to crack than Kyoto, far more countries are involved, and we nearly did not succeed at Kyoto. It took a last-minute fix. There are going to be real difficulties, even among the rich countries themselves.”
He is doubtful that the EU member states will even stick to the commitments they make. “For a deal to work it has to have a formula that has an element of equity and social justice in it that reflects the state of each country’s industrial development and its emissions per capita.”
China now emits more carbon than America in absolute terms, owing to the size of its population, but in per capita terms the US emits four or five times as much. Prescott warns: “Rich countries are showing great reluctance to face up to the reality of what rationing carbon means for levels of growth and prosperity in their countries. It is going to be a fundamental change.”
The EU has committed itself to an 80% cut by 2050 and a 20% cut by 2020. The US Senate is due to pass a cap-and-trade bill to cut greenhouse gas emissions by only 17% from 2005 levels by 2020. But even this proposal, regarded as far too little by China and India, is meeting fierce resistance from the US coal industry, which is pouring cash into a lobbying campaign to weaken the resolve of Democrat senators. Prescott says: “From speaking to the Americans I can already see it is clear that they are going to have difficulties even meeting the European target. The steel and coal companies are financing the same kind of campaigns against Copenhagen as they financed against Kyoto.
“What is vital is that America and China come to an agreement, and at the heart of that will be an arrangement on the coal industry. China depends for 70% of its energy on coal, and the US still has a massive coal industry. Coal is still going to remain at the heart of global energy. A realistic agreement will have to recognise coal. You cannot shut it down.
“The west is going to come up with big money on how to finance alternative energy in the developing countries, including clean coal. We have got to crack clean coal technology. China and India are going to want to know how many billions the rich countries are going to put aside to help them make their carbon contributions. That will be one of the big tests at Copenhagen. The fact is that the west has poisoned the world and left continents like Africa in poverty. The west will have up to stump up the cash for clean technology.”
Both Chinese and Indian climate negotiators have recently again refused to offer any targets to cut their emissions. They are insisting that the EU and the US commit themselves to 40% cuts in emissions by 2020 against 1990 baselines. Neither the US nor the EU are anywhere near this position.
Prescott says any agreement cannot be based on 1990 levels for developing countries. “They did not have industrial development at that stage, so we are fighting for the principle of an objective based on carbon tonnes per capita. That is the fairest way forward.”
Copenhagen, he argues, will represent a major infringement on free market economies, even though it will use market mechanisms such as cap and trade to set a price for carbon through rationing.
“What we are beginning to witness is a whole new set of rules for economics, based on rationing resources.”
