COP 19 : “I Care”, Do You?

27 November 2013

Henriette Imelda
Institute for Essential Services Reform (IESR)

Leaving for Warsaw, for COP 19, with the Polish Government’s promises in mind that COP 19 would be the Finance COP, has – to some extend –  given me a bowl-full-of-expectations. Finally, I thought, the climate change negotiations will turn into a positive, meaningful, and fruitful talks. Walking home not only with pledges but also the commitment for full implementation of the pledges.

As I walked around the centrum, reaching a place for a meeting, I suddenly saw this big banner over COP 19 with a tag “I Care”; what a hopeful banner for me, someone who comes from developing countries that still have problems with access to energy, as well as the fact of being heavily threatened by the impact of climate change. With the possibility of losing around 200 islands, and with a growing population that is currently over 240 million, do you think that we won’t have land issues for residence? Our dependence on fossil fuel to generate cannot be used as an excuse, to force us in reducing our emission, as we only have fossil fuel to light our houses. Renewable energy is still expensive for us to avail, which gives us more homework to be done because we still need to grow.

With such kind of a background, I came to Warsaw with full expectations.

Early morning on the day the COP 19 was supposed to end, I took a look at the ADP text that was uploaded at 5.45 in the morning. How surprised I was when I saw that all the important things were deleted; equity, timeline to review developed countries’ pledges, as well as enhance ambition. I felt betrayed, now that my expectations have been turned down, since developed countries have violated things that both developed and developing countries have agreed upon.

Many developing countries have to bear the cost of climate change by themselves. The Philippines has to bear the cost of destructions from the Haiyan typhoon, and some developing countries had to bear their own cost to develop their Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs). We have done so many things to rebuild or sustain lives, but developed countries seemed not to care. Many times developed countries ask for NAMAs from developing countries. Now that we have some, why don’t you just put some money in there, showing that you, as developed countries, can still be considered as accountable for developing countries? We’ve done our part, now it’s yours, isn’t it?

The green big banner that I saw in the centrum, does not reflect on what the developed countries think of; not even for Poland’s government, the host. “I Care”? Really?? Do you???

If it is true, then show me! Put your pledge!