Arab Leaders Wake Up!
IndyACT Slams Arab Heads of State for Lack of Action on Climate Change
BEIRUT – on September 22, 2009: Last night more than 100 environmental activists sounded the alarm in Ein El-Mreiseh square, where a Climate Change Countdown Clock will be erected to mark the short three-month time we still have to reach a global agreement that would save the planet form climate change during a summit in Copenhagen. They called on Arab Heads of State, who most of them missed a key climate summit today in New York, to wake up and engage the negotiation process.
Members, supporters and partners from the global league of independent Activists-IndyACT sounded the alarms of their clocks and mobile phones, honked their horns and banged their musical instruments, making a tremendous noise in a symbolic action, part of a global ‘Wake-Up call’. The activists also held up a banner saying “it is time for climate action”, and another sign that says “Wake UP 12:18” to mark the 18th of December when a new global climate agreement is supposed to be reached. This global call, which took place simultaneously with over 2000 similar events in more than 120 countries, is a joint effort of the “TckTckTck” Campaign; an international alliance including IndyACT, 350.org, Greenpeace, Oxfam, WWF, and many others. The action comes amid expert warnings that the UN climate pact in Copenhagen in December risks failure unless world leaders revive bogged-down negotiations at today’s UN Heads of State climate summit, ahead of the UN General Assembly.
“Again Arab leaders missed yet another opportunity to defend the survival needs of the region from climate change impacts.” said Wael Hmaidan, Executive Director of IndyACT. “While today’s climate summit is attended by Presidents of the US, France, China and many others, only Algeria participated at the Presidential level from the Arab region”, added Hmaidan.
At the summit today, Heads of State will be discussing how the effort to fight climate change should be shared between the developed and developing countries, and how much financial and technological assistance will be transferred from the industrialized to the poor and most vulnerable countries to help them achieve a low-carbon growth. IndyACT has been participating in all the negotiation sessions similar to this one that should lead to achieving an ambitious, fair and binding agreement in Copenhagen. In all of these sessions the Lebanese and many other Arab delegations have never taken the floor to speak even once. “The main Arab countries engaging the negotiations are Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, who only defend their oil trade. The Arab region is more than oil, and we have to know that if climate change is not addressed properly, we will lose our agriculture, water, economy and livelihood of our people in the region and globally”, declared Hmaidan.
IndyAct along with international NGOs and civil society worldwide consider the Copenhagen Summit as a key moment in our history, and call all the Arab governments to have an active and positive role in reducing global CO2 concentration in the atmosphere to 350 ppm (parts per million). 350 ppm is the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere that we need to reach to keep the global warming below two degrees Celsius and avoid catastrophic climate change impacts.
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