POZNAN, Poland, Dec 1, 2008 (AFP) — Green groups upped the pressure at U.N. climate talks in Poland on Monday with wacky stunts aimed at prodding delegates from around the world to get moving on a new deal to tackle global warming.
The World Wildlife Fund, or WWF, welcomed the almost 11,000 participants at the 12-day talks in Poznan by handing out walnuts and urging them to “crack the climate nut” and overcome negotiation deadlock.
Greenpeace meanwhile unveiled a three-metre (10-foot) high sculpture depicting the Earth on the brink of destruction from a “tidal wave” of carbon dioxide made of wood and coal.
“So far there is still an utter lack of any kind of visionary leadership in these talks. There are still governments that repeatedly fail to grasp the urgency of the crisis,” Greenpeace said.
“That’s why we need to make ourselves heard, because the impacts of climate change are racing ahead of the scientific projections.”
It also launched a video running through 20 years of speeches and “broken promises” on climate change from the likes of former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian premier Silvio Berlosconi.
The forum in Poland of the 192-member U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) comes halfway in a two-year process, launched in Bali, Indonesia, that aims at crafting a new pact in Copenhagen in December 2009.
Delegates in Poland are tasked with whittling down an 82-page document containing a vast range of proposals for action into a workable blueprint for negotiations culminating in a deal in the Danish capital.
Aid agency Oxfam said that climate change would “increase global poverty and halt — eventually reverse — human development if governments fail to take major steps.”
Copyright 2008 — Agence France-Presse
