During the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) session this afternoon, YOUNG, the official youth constituency at the UNFCCC, made an intervention on behalf of global youth. FYEG participated in editing the presented text – see below.
“Following what you agreed upon in 1997 in Kyoto, the Protocol needs new targets for the next commitment period that will start in 2012. You have been negotiating for more than three years to fid solutions to the challenge of your generation and the survival of mine. But instead of finding the agreement we need, you failed, in Bali, in Poznan and also in Copenhagen.
Progress on a second commitment period to the Kyoto Protocol is not as good as we need it to be, and as we demand.
The whole climate community is already looking for solutions because we fear that we are going to fail again in Cancun and that we’ll also likely fail in South Africa. Instead of reaching the agreement that human kind needs, States seem to be cynically weakening the strongest legal instrument we currently have to deliver the ultimate objectives of the Convention.
As young people, we are often accused of lacking long-term commitments and serious goals. But today, we are definitely not the ones who have failed in their commitments. We are committed to the Kyoto Protocol and the further implementation of strong, legally binding targets. I am here today to ask each and every one of you – can you show us you are committed as we are?
There are only four weeks of negotiations left before the end of Cancun. And the list of tasks is still long. All it takes to say ‘yes’ is to provide targets which really have integrity, and to ensure that any mechanisms that currently weaken that integrity are significantly improved.
You can do this by bringing about domestic action in each of the Annex 1 countries. You can do this by closing loopholes in policy areas such as LULUCF [Land Use Land Use Change and Forestry]. You can do this by adopting the -40% target by 2020 and by agreeing on keeping the average increase in global temperature below 1.5 degrees Celsius. You can do this by ensuring that there is commitment. Because we respect the Kyoto Protocol, but without real commitment this just won’t work at all so we need a fair, adequate and legally binding agreement to ensure it fulfils our common needs.
So, right now, we’re asking the big question: through real commitments to the Kyoto Protocol, and new targets, will you give us a safe future?
We’re hoping you’ll say yes. The world and the younger generations are looking to you. We ask you, please don’t disappoint us again. “
Presented by Florent Baarsch