Ricardo Navarro, chair of CESTA-Friends of the Earth El Salvador, says that these negotiations only represent the lack of ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Navarro claims that nowadays most governments, including El Salvador’s, attend these meetings only in search for economic support to favor a false struggle against the climate crisis.

Countries such as Norway and New Zealand are determined to sign commitments if countries like China and the United States -which are the world’s main polluters- commit to a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, as all the strong economies in the world should do, said Navarro.

Friends of the Earth International and its strategic allies such as La Via Campesina International and the World March of Women have participated in the lobbying, mobilization and denunciation around the official negotiations in Durban.

“We are in a situation where agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are not being effective even though they are looking for mechanisms to try to reduce emissions by 5% so that temperature will not raise 2° or more”, said Navarro in a press conference in San Salvador.

Meanwhile, the planet’s reality shows that 300,000 people die every year as a result of climate change, and temperatures are expected to raise five degrees more by the end of the century.

By then, only 1 billion people will remain alive out of the 7 billion people who live on Earth, which Navarro says means a collapse for humanity where politicians are the main responsible for answering to economic interests of big oil corporations, and failing to change the consumption system.

This means that expectations around the commitments expected to come out of the COP17 are low. The only hope is that civil society will struggle and organize to demand their rights.

Photo: elfaro.net Produced by: CESTA-Friends of the Earth El Salvador