Setting the path towards Paris: Lima COP calls for concrete and ambitious actions
“Clever as monkeys, rapid as hummingbirds and ambitious as condors”.
By Elisa Calliari
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At the Opening plenary to the COP20/CMP10 held this morning at the “Pentagonito” in San Borja (Lima), the UNFCCC Secretary Christina Figures urged the international community to take inspiration from the famous Peruvian Nazca lines in laying the foundations for a strong climate agreement to be reach in Paris.
To this aim, COP 20 is expected to deliver results especially in terms of setting adaptation efforts at the same level as mitigation – given their equal urgency- and enhancing particularly vulnerable countries’ financial capacity for dealing with climate change issues.
The new appointed president of the COP, Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, also stressed the pivotal role this conference will have in setting the way towards Paris. He expressed the willingness to take stock of the momentum recently shown at the international level, with the announcement to curb emission by the EU, US and China as well as the recent capital injection to the Green Climate Fund, and to act in order to strengthen such determination. He called parties to work in a creative way, also by including non-state actors’ consideration.
The announcement of December 11 as the “Lima Climate Action Day” goes into this direction, aiming at getting the voices of the youth, women, indigenous people and civil society to be heard. Calling for a concrete agreement, Pulgar-Vidal stressed the need to strengthen the link between climate action and development, given the impact of climate change on the most vulnerable.
The plenary was opened by former COP president Marcin Koroloec. Citing Mandela, he stressed the role of education as a fundamental pre-requisite for raising awareness and support for climate action. After Pulgar- Vidal and Figueres’ intervention the floor was given to Lima’s Mayor Susana Villaran, who called for new paradigms in cities management and the need for cities to be heard on climate change issues and be part of the solution. The Plenary closed with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rajendra Pachauri presenting the main findings of the Fifth IPCC Assessment Report (AR5)
