The UNFCCC Lima Climate Change Conference held in Lima, Peru this week reached a consensus agreement on Sunday. Finnish organisations are decrying the compromised outcome, reached two days later than scheduled.
Both Greenpeace Finland and the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation (FANC) consider the Lima conference a wasted opportunity. Both organisations chide the outcome for shifting most of the actual decision-making to next year’s climate summit in Paris, and for leaving too many central issues unresolved.
The agreement reached on Sunday also fails to push countries towards concrete climate goals, instead leaving decisions on scheduling and extent up to UN member states. The FANC, however, takes an optimistic stance in its press release.
“Climate talks are finally starting to touch upon the core problems of climate change,” Otto Bruun from the FANC said in the release. “Decision-makers, companies and investors have to understand – before meeting in Paris in 2015 – that the time of fossil fuels is ending and that polluting countries will be punished.”
EK: “Watered-down compromise”
The Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK) describes the compromise reached at the two-week-long conference as ‘watered down’.
“The business sector is disappointed that the old blocs still held sway over the talks in Lima,” Mikael Ohlström from EK said in the Confederation’s own release. “Announcements before the meeting from countries like the United States and China claiming to reduce emissions brought hope for big steps in the Conference, which have now been dashed.”
Environmental groups also criticise the Conference’s outcome for not coming to terms over funding.
“People came to the conference with too little to go on,” says development policy expert Tuuli Hietaniemi from the umbrella organisation for Finnish civil society organisations (Kepa). “For next year’s summit to yield results, the ministers sitting down to the talks need to have the power to decide on funding issues. Perhaps Ministers of Finance should book tickets to Paris next year.”
And yet EK is optimistic that the Paris conference will result in a “comprehensive, equal and legally binding” international climate agreement.
Grahn-Laasonen: “Better than nothing”
Finnish Minister of the Environment Sanni Grahn-Laasonen from the centre-right National Coalition Party also calls the outcome of the Lima conference "weak", but says that the conference's aim was to set the ground for the Paris summit next year. Her ministry says that steps were taken in Lima to clarify upcoming targets.
“The outcome isn't as hard-hitting as we would have liked, but it is still better than nothing,” Grahn-Laasonen says. “Everyone had to make compromises. We didn't get the best results for Paris, but we are still on track for the main goal, a new climate agreement for late 2015.”
See also: the Conference's official website.
