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EU leaders are threatening to 'kill off' any remaining hope of a good global deal to combat climate change, Christian Aid campaigners are warning today (Friday 30 October).
As EU leaders wind up their European Council meeting in Brussels this morning, the campaigners have delivered a letter to the EU's Swedish presidency, condemning current EU proposals as 'a major failure of ambition in the face of injustice.'
'The draft text being considered by leaders threatens to kill off any chance of a fair and adequate deal,' says the letter, from Paul Brannen, Head of Campaigns at Christian Aid.
'With only five days of formal negotiations left until Copenhagen, for the EU to advance such a negative position puts the prospect of a deal at risk'.
His warning came as campaigners held a funeral-themed demonstration with a coffin and smartly-dressed 'mourners' outside the Swedish Embassy in Marylebone, central London, before delivering the letter to Ambassador Staffan Carlsson.
Christian Aid believes that current EU proposals fall woefully short on both funding for developing countries and on cuts in European emissions.
On funding, we estimate that poor countries need at least 110 billion Euros a year in additional public finance, to help them with clean development and coping with climate change. We calculate that the EU's fair share of this is around 35 billion Euros a year - but current EU proposals do not indicate the level of finance Europe is offering and suggest that it may be as little as 2 billion Euros a year.
On emissions, Christian Aid believes that in order to be a leader on climate change, Europe must commit to cuts of more than 40 per cent over 1990 levels by 2020. It should deliver these within EU borders and not through 'offsets' bought from the Clean Development Mechanism.
However, the current proposals are so weak that the EU may only have to cut an extra one per cent more than its existing targets for 2012-2020, in order to meet them. 'This is far from the leadership required,' states the letter to His Excellency Staffan Carlsson.
'We urge your government, as the holder of the EU presidency, to ask the Council to quickly reconsider its position and advance new proposals that provide sufficient finance, adequate emissions cuts and work in accordance with the architecture supported by a majority of negotiating countries.'
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
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