COP 15 climate change negotiations in Copenhagen end with a poor outcome
The 15th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) concluded on December 18, 2009 with a weak political agreement known as the Copenhagen Accord. The Copenhagen Accord does not present any clear new commitments to solving the climate crisis and the 194 countries that are party to the Convention were scarcely able to agree to it, merely deciding to ‘take note’ of the Accord rather than adopt it. After a year of intense negotiations that were, at least at the outset, supposed to lead to a legally binding instrument, this is a very poor outcome indeed.
Indigenous representatives the world over have been intensely engaged in the negotiation process leading up to the COP. Throughout the year, they have gained increasing support from state parties to recognizing indigenous peoples’ human rights in the negotiation texts. With references to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the outcome documents from the negotiations on REDD, and to the UN Human Rights Council’s resolution (10/4, March 2009) on human rights and climate change in the outcome document on a Shared Vision for long-term cooperative action, it was expected that the Copenhagen Accord would specifically recognize the obligation of states to respect and protect indigenous peoples’ human rights in all climate change policies and actions. It was thus a serious disappointment for the approx. 200 indigenous representatives present at the COP to learn that the Copenhagen Accord makes no reference whatsoever to the rights of indigenous peoples. The Accord does not, in fact, mention human rights at all.
COP 16, which will take place in Mexico in November-December 2010, is now supposed to result in the legally binding instrument that the COP 15 process was unable to produce.
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UNFCCC and COP15
Indigenous Demands for the Negotiations
Indigenous Summits on Climate Change
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