Greenpeace urges binding emission targets
Updated
Greenpeace International's new head, Kumi Naidoo, is critical of Australia for a lack of leadership on climate change.
Linda Mottram also asked Kumi Naidoo whether there's new political momentum with Barack Obama's decision to attend part of the Copenhagen climate summit.
Presenter: Linda Mottram
Speaker: Kumi Naidoo, Director General of Greenpeace International
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NAIDOO: While it is good that he has announced that he's going to Copenhagen. We would say right city, wrong date, because he's talking about going on the 9th of December and the heads of state are supposed to come towards the end. And the emissions targets that have been announced are way below what is expected from the world for us to actually have the impact that we need.
MOTTRAM: But that's the reality we're dealing with it isn't it, I mean this is the best that global leaders appear to be able to do and meanwhile some, quite a lot of nations are acting domestically where they weren't say 12 or 18 months ago. Are we going to have to just live with this as the political reality?
NAIDOO: No I think now is the time for ordinary men and women across the world to stand up and actually bring their voice to bear on the public debate, because even in the United States we still have a majority of citizens who want the Obama administration to actually act more courageously on climate change. So I think Greenpeace for example 20 years ago when it was saying climate change needs to be addressed were dismissed as alarmists and so on. Now we have that global consensus that we must address it, and even if it makes us sound as being unrealistic, I think we rather speak to power and say what is needed. And if we don't get an ambitious and binding treaty then we obviously have to think about how we escalate our campaign.
MOTTRAM: Elsewhere in the sort of Asia-Pacific region in Indonesia your activists have been busy campaigning in the field against deforestation activities, the destruction of peat areas. Is that campaign being effective do you think?
NAIDOO: Yes it's already delivered some success where one of the logging companies has had their license suspended. We have discussions going on with the Indonesian government and the Indonesian government seems to be open to dialogue with us, which is positive. And I think the heroes on the ground there were putting their lives at risk to actually make this point, recognise that deforestation is about 25 per cent contributing to carbon emissions that we have, and so unless we recognise that our forests are sort of the lungs of our planet and ensure that we do everything to prevent further deforestation we are in serious trouble. So the kind of activities that the activists in Indonesia are doing is critical to send the message on the importance of deforestation, but also to have immediate impact in terms of the conduct of logging companies, which are destroying the forests in unsustainable ways.
MOTTRAM: Indonesia is a country that finds itself in a difficult situation isn't it given its population growth. There was a seminar recently discussing climate change policy for Indonesia and trying to shape that, and it was mentioned that to limit global emissions to around two tonnes of carbon dioxide per person per year or less Indonesia would need to keep its emissions from energy use, industry, agriculture, roughly constant. Now that's a huge challenge for a country that's on a growth trajectory like Indonesia. What's the compromise going to be there do you think?
NAIDOO: Well in the Chinese language the character for crisis is the same character for opportunity, and the climate crisis does offer us an opportunity of saying we have to change the way we are living. We need to invest in a serious greening of our economies, creating sustainable green jobs, really investing in renewables which Indonesia and most countries have not begun to do on the scale that could actually deliver their energy needs. We would like to see that happen rapidly. Obviously it's not going to happen overnight but I think what we are looking for clear commitment and to see countries on the pathway to renewable energy dependency, rather than on fossil fuel. So while we recognise that there's differentiated responsibilities between rich and poor countries, it's also important for us as a global family now to recognise that we either get this right as rich and poor countries acting together and we can deliver a decent world to our children and grandchildren, or if we get it wrong, rich and poor countries go down together.
MOTTRAM: So would you say that a country like China, a country like Indonesia should sign on to some sort of binding agreement at Copenhagen?
NAIDOO: If we don't have binding agreements I think that it's easy then for countries to wriggle out of it. But I do think in terms of fairness it's very difficult to get developing countries to commit to binding targets if rich countries don't take the lead. And because we've had some of these commitments anyway in terms of the Kyoto Protocol and have not yet fully delivered on it. But I do think that developing countries also have to put forward targets which they're serious about and that shows that they recognise that this is a global challenge that we have to address globally so that while carrying differentiated responsibilities, they need to also recognise that they have a key role to play in terms of resolving the biggest challenge that humanity has faced.
