United States Awarded First Place Fossil of the Day, Papua New Guinea Receives Second Place Fossil

8 June 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                               8 June 2011

The first place Fossil of the Day Award goes to the United States of America. This fossil is awarded for opposing a discussion of sources of long-term finance in the LCA.  Secretary Clinton herself pledged to work with other countries to jointly mobilize $100 billion per year by 2020 for climate action in developing countries.  Meeting that commitment has to start with exploring options of innovative sources of public finance in the UNFCCC.  The US must be open to a process under the LCA to at least start the conversation.

Papua New Guinea receives the second place Fossil. This award goes to PNG for saying Tuvalu did not have enough trees to be entitled to have an opinion on REDD or advocate for the rights of indigenous peoples. PNG has shown it is far removed from the reality of its Pacific island neighbours in terms of REDD.  PNG's response to Tuvalu's call for transparency was tacky to say the least and reflects  its ignorance of the 'Pacific Way'.  Tuvalu took a principled position in supporting the interests of indigenous peoples – whether that is in the interest of Tuvalu is not the issue, as countries should not only defend their national interests but also global ones.

About CAN: The Climate Action Network (CAN) is a worldwide network of roughly 700 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) working to promote government and individual action to limit human0induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels. www.climatenetwork.org  

About the fossils: The Fossil of the Day awards were first presented at the climate talks in 1999, in Bonn, initiated by the German NGO Forum. During United Nations climate change negotiations (www.unfccc.int), members of the Climate Action Network (CAN), vote for countries judged to have done their 'best' to block progress in the negotiations in the last days of talks.

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Contact:
David Turnbull
dturnbull@climatenetwork.org
USA: +12023163499
Germany: +49(0)2523657307