Durban must deliver

Durban must deliver
This is my first UN Conference of the Parties (COP) meeting and so the array of negotiations, side events and exhibitions, plus an open civil-society programme, can be quite bewildering.

  A daily schedule is published each day and from that you choose which activities you would like to attend.

   As I’m an NGO-Observer I am not entitled to sit-in on the closed negotiations, but all other events are available, and sometimes the opportunity also arises to catch up with delegates after their closed sessions have ended.

  Yesterday I was very pleased to bump into Rev. Tafue Lusama the General Secretary of the E

kalesia Kelisiano Tuvalu (EKT) Church and member of the Tuvalu delegation, and as a result, found myself invited to have lunch with the Tuvaluan delegation.

 COP17 may not achieve the media attention of COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009 nor the initiatives and institutions agreed at COP16 in Cancun last year, but the Durban meeting must deliver.
   Why?
  The future of the Kyoto Protocol is at stake.
  The Protocol came out of COP3 in Japan in 1997.
  It is the only legally-binding instrument that commits industrialised countries and countries in transition to a market economy to achieve emission reduction targets.
  Its first commitment period comes to an end next year.   Meaningful action on climate change must include a second commitment period, alongside a fair and ambitious agreement with legally-binding commitments to be adopted by 2015 at the latest.
  Governments must not delay; we are at a critical turning point in addressing climate change.
  These next two weeks will be decisive for all our futures.
Julia