Immediate phaseout of fossil fuels pushed

MANILA, Philippines - As the so-called make or break final negotiations for a new treaty to address climate problems in Copenhagen draws near, environment advocates on Tuesday pressed government leaders to put aside selfish interests and bring talks to focus on the gradual but immediate phase out of dependence on fossil fuels.

This as the Philippine government was urged to harness the country’s abundant sources of renewable energy in order to survive amid climate change.

Larry Lohmann, of The Corner House, a UK-based research and advocacy organization, said that government leaders must ensure in Copenhagen that practical actions that will deal with climate change and its impacts immediately and do away with mechanisms that merely delay efforts to ultimately address climate problems will be instituted in the new treaty.

“They must go back to the root of the problem, which is fossil fuel.  World leaders should institute real systems to remove the use of fossil fuels. They should recognize this as a goal though it would be difficult, but this should not be anymore delayed,” noted Lohmann, who is in town conducting some talks about climate change issues with various groups.

The Focus on the Global South, which invited Lohmann to the Philippines, lamented that the main solutions being offered to fulfill the consensus that significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions were urgent are “techno-fixes” such as mega-dams, nuclear power plants, and biofuel plantations.

The group, which combines policy research, advocacy, activism and grassroots capacity building in order to generate critical analysis and encourage debates on national and international policies, said the central problem is over consumption, especially in developed countries, and that fundamental solution lies in replacing the paradigm of high growth based on ever-rising consumption.

But it criticized the negotiations for not being able to exhaustively discuss these points, as the strong state action in dealing with the climate problem was discouraged in favor of the market.

“Climate change will affect all life in this planet, yet the discourse on how humanity should respond has been hijacked by the global elite,” the group said.

“Like everything else, the world was told, the climate crisis will be solved by the ‘magic’ of the market,” it also said.

Like the Focus on the Global South, Lohman agrees that pinning hopes on the market and techno-fixes is dangerous.

They said that market and techno-fixes do not guarantee favorable results as what have been seen by the failure of the European carbon trade and the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol to reduce GHG emissions.

They added that market and techno-fixes would only “inevitably increase injustice and inequity” where rich countries, corporations, and those who control the technology will be in a position to take advantage of the new regime, leaving the developing countries once again marginalized and powerless.

Lohmann said leaders of developing countries must stand their ground in insisting for genuine, deeper and early emission cuts to change the landscape in Copenhagen and shun the existing schemes on clean development and carbon or emissions trading, even the expansion of these mechanisms under the proposed new treaty.

Lohmann maintained that these schemes only delayed the just, equitable, and effective response to climate change, as these schemes only gave leniency to developed countries to evade their historical responsibility in addressing climate change.

The Kyoto Protocol envisioned “a common but differentiated responsibility” — with greater responsibility of reducing carbon emissions by developed countries, being identified as large carbon emitters in history.

“And now that the 15th Conference of Parties is coming up in Copenhagen where a new deal on climate will be negotiated, the time has come for all of us to really come to grips on the issue of climate change and to demand real solutions to the climate crisis,” the Forum on the Global South stressed.

The group then noted that super typhoons have ravaged thousands of homes and livelihoods in the Philippines, which only shows that the effects of climate change are “as real as ever and we have no time to lose…(to obtain) climate justice” through a fair and effective agreement to address climate change.

Lohman said that the Philippines must develop and make use its abundant sources of renewable energy in order to survive amid climate change rather than investing more on fossil fuel-dependent technologies.

“There must be massive public investment in their (governments) own infrastructure away from the use of fossil fuel. Biofuel is not even an answer, as it cannot replace totally fossil fuel. So the way to go really is to go renewable. The Philippines is lucky to have so much of these resources. Why not use it?” he pointed out.

Meanwhile, the EcoWaste Coalition and Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) exhorted the government to recognize and champion “the mitigation potential of recycling and waste reduction” at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen on Dec. 7 to 18.

EcoWaste and GAIA likewise sought the approval of a Global Climate Fund that will invest in resource recovery programs, ensuring decent livelihoods for all workers and traders in the recycling economy.

“The outcome of the negotiations could make or break global efforts to ease the accelerating climate crisis, and we are asking negotiators to focus on winning solutions such as recycling that will not only cut emissions, but also ensure livelihood for the poor,” said Manny Calonzo, president of EcoWaste and co-coordinator of GAIA.

“Negotiators should be wary about ‘waste-to-energy’ and landfill gas schemes that will directly undermine resource recovery efforts by the informal waste sector as well as by recycling households and communities, while burning or dumping valuable materials that should have been returned to commerce or nature,” he added.

In a joint letter sent via e-mail and fax to President Arroyo, the two groups said that climate negotiators must “recognize the critical and productive role that the informal recycling sector contributes to climate change mitigation and to a healthy economy.”

Citing scientific assessment of materials management options, EcoWaste and GAIA stated that cutting emissions by recycling costs 30 percent less than applying energy efficiency and 90 percent cheaper than through wind power.

On the other hand, the groups said that the proposed Global Climate Fund should be directly accessible to waste pickers and other members of the informal waste sector and should stop subsidies to polluting waste disposal technologies that redirect discards from recycling into incineration and land filling which can lead to increased emissions and unemployment.

The waste pickers or re-claimers at dumpsites or landfills, garbage crew, garbage truck jumpers, itinerant waste buyers and junk shops constitute the informal waste sector in the Philippines.