Greenpeace: Key leaders leave climate chaos behind

By Li Xing (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-12-19 23:55

Copenhagen: Greenpeace strongly condemned the arrogance of the heads of state from the world's most powerful countries for presenting a 'take it or leave' deal to the Copenhagen Climate Summit. Whilst en route to the airport they claimed the deal was done, it was not. All they left was chaos and confusion in their wake.

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Greenpeace International Executive Director, Kumi Naidoo, warned: "The world is facing tragic crises of leadership. Rather than coming together to secure a future for hundreds of millions of people by agreeing an historic deal to avert climate chaos, leaders of the world's most powerful countries have betrayed future and current generations. Averting climate chaos has just gotten a whole lot harder."

In its statement, Greenpeace pointed that the accord does not contain strong measures for emission reductions in developed countries.

"It is a major concession to climate polluting industries, especially in the fossil fuel sector which lobbied hard to undermine a deal and now has a license to continue to pollute," according to Greenpeace.

The international environmental organization acknowledged that the accord contained "a few plus points", including the provision of the establishment of a new Climate Funding Mechanism and agreement on the need of large scale finance, up to $100 billion a year, "to allow developing countries to protect their forest, to put their economies on a low carbon pathway and to help them adapt to the impacts of climate change".

"Although negotiations will continue next year, the loss of the 'legally binding' objective made the Copenhagen Summit a huge missed opportunity", the statement reads