The Daily Tck

Race to the Future: www.tcktcktck.org

15 June 2011

Summary of the Current status/situation

Well, according to some reports, overall things seem to be going quite well, though there are troubled areas in the fight for the Kyoto Protocol and for money the finance necessary to help developing countries both adapt to climate impacts that are already happening as well as support low carbon development. Despite the commitments at Copenhagen, and particularly the leadership role played by the US there, the tables have turned and while most countries are apparently willing to talk about sources of finance, the US is steadfastly refusing to address the issue across all the negotiations. There appears to be two reasons: the first is that their refusal is tied to getting commitments from China (in particular but also other big developing countries) the agreement they want on so-called measurement, reporting and verification (MRV). In other words people are dying across the world while these countries discuss how they are going to report their emissions! The second reason for refusing to talk about finance is, of course, due to the political situation at home in the US where the Republicans are watching like hawks for any evidence that the current administration is making any commitments to support developing countries which can then be used as an excuse domestically to cut their AID budget. Whatever the reasons, this refusal is having a negative impact on the negotiations. Whilst on the subject of money, following the activity yesterday morning as well as an article in ECO, the financial transaction tax (or Robin Hood Tax) was brought up in the conference as an innovative source. It was also the main topic of a press briefing where representatives of labour, environment, development and youth called on governments to implement an international FTT. It is a tiny tax on financial transactions (of between 0.02% and 0.05% - this would be 20 or 50 cents on a transaction of USD$1000) which would raise USD$650 billion a year globally. The pressure for Europe to increase their greenhouse gas emissions cut target from the current paltry 20% to 30% (by 2020 from 1990 levels) continues. The EU is already at 17% and a 20% cut is just business as usual. This campaign called Push Europe is being highlighted by the fact that at least 6 million new jobs could be created in Europe if the EU moved to cutting emissions by at least 30%. At present 5.5 million young people are unemployed across the EU.

What is happening?
Yesterday was about money. In the morning we greeted delegates with information about how to help fill the climate fund with the appearance of Robin Hood. Then a press briefing calling for an international financial transaction tax was held with Bob Baugh, from the American Federation of Labour - Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)1, Mark Lutes of WWF International, Tetteh Hormekuh from Africa Trade Network and Cat Stace of the UK Youth Climate Coalition. You can see the video here: http://bit.ly/kOkElT Today, youth groups increased pressure on Europe to increase their emission cut target to 30% and so, not only help fight climate change, but provide the framework for increasing the number of green jobs

Message for the day

Push Europe adopt the 30% emissions cut target now to save the climate, improve the economy and provide a future of green employment. The science says that we need to move to 40% by 2020 but at
1

The AFL-CIO is a federation of national and international labour unions that represents 12.2 million members

least we can get onto the right patch by moving to 30% now. Next week (June 22) is a Global Day of Action on the Financial Transaction Tax. A tiny tax on finance, but a giant leap for the climate fund . The FTT Campaign have produced a step by step guide toolkit which is also available in French, Spanish and Portuguese as well as English from: http://www.makefinancework.org/IMG/pdf/eng_mediaonline_packfinal.pdf More Bonn talking points are at: http://bit.ly/mFJ6MP and at: https://sites.google.com/site/dailytck/rapidresponse

What you can do today?

Push Europe continue spreading the word about the Power Shift campaign by European youth networks and upload your green CV at: http://pusheurope.eu/ If you want to update your supporters on what s going on in Bonn, check out the latest blogs and videos the Adopt-A-Negotiator team has posted on their website.

Other materials:
It s not a tax, it s a future! http://adoptanegotiator.org/2011/06/14/it%E2%80%99s -not-a-tax-it%E2%80%99s-a-future/ Money, money, money http://adoptanegotiator.org/2011/06/14/money -money-money-2/ A book to save the world: Where are we headed in the UN climate talks? - http://adoptanegotiator.org/2011/06/15/a-book-to-save-the-world/ Video excerpts from today s FTT presser http://adoptanegotiator.org/2011/06/14/video-excerpts-from-todays-ftt-presser/ Robin Hood invades UN Climate Talks to push for innovative sources of climate finance http://adoptanegotiator.org/2011/06/14/robin -hood-invades-un-climate-talks-to-push-for-innovativesources-of-climate-finance/