COP21 draft pact: light on commitments, no mention of Arctic, Inuit

Aurora, the mechanical polar bear, makes an appearance at the Le Bourget Conference Centre outside Paris where the COP21 talks are now underway. (PHOTO COURTESY OF THE UN CLIMATE ACTION)

Greenpeace pulled its three-tonne mechanical polar bear, Aurora, out of the attic this week and brought the lumbering puppet to the COP 21 conference centre to add pressure on governments to agree on an ambitious climate deal.

The appearance of polar bear, last seen in public in London in 2013 to protest Arctic oil and gas exploration, was intended to demand action on climate change and for the rights of Indigenous peoples to be acknowledge in the final version of the global climate pact that is now under negotiation.

The final agreement is due to be released Dec. 11 — or to collapse, due to a possible lack of agreement among the delegates and 195-plus states attending the United Nations Framework on Climate Change conference.

“It is unfair that the rights of Indigenous peoples are not included in the text,” Vyacheslav Shadrin, a Yukagir spokesperson from Russia’s Far East, said in a Greenpeace news release. “We are on the frontline of climate change, and are suffering its first and worst impacts. So we have a right to be recognised in this international forum.”

But, according to the latest draft deal, indigenous peoples may get mentioned in the final text, but that won’t carry much impact.

As well, the word “Arctic” isn’t mentioned anywhere.

That’s despite a statement Dec. 8 from governments of Nunavut and Greenland, and the Inuit Circumpolar Council, asking, among other things, for recognition and protection of the rights of Indigenous peoples and “the values, interests, culture and traditions of the Peoples of the Arctic.”

The new 29-page document, the draft “Paris Outcome,” released Dec. 9 at about 3 p.m. local Paris time, still features brackets in the sections of its preamble that mention Indigenous peoples — which means this section could be dropped completely as COP21 negotiations enter their final hours:

“[Emphasizing the importance of Parties promoting, protecting and respecting all human rights, the right to health, and the rights of indigenous peoples, migrants, children, persons with disabilities and people in vulnerable situations and under occupation, and the right to development, in accordance with their obligations, as well as promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women, when taking action to address climate change,]”

The new draft does mention Indigenous knowledge, but it’s in a “country-driven” context and says “traditional, Indigenous peoples knowledge and local knowledge systems” will be used in responding to climate change “as appropriate” — which means there’s no binding obligation to do that.

Inclusion of Indigenous peoples in several sections of the text — which many hoped would allow Indigenous peoples in developed nations like Canada to access money to deal with the impact of climate change — is not in the draft text either.

The wording — which “recognizes the knowledge, technologies, practices and efforts made by local communities and indigenous peoples to address and respond to climate change” — won’t cost any of the 195-plus nations at the COP21 anything.

But there’s a larger issue at stake: The document’s heart has not been determined yet.

Will the pact aim to bring temperatures below 2 C above pre-industrial levels, “well below” 2 C above pre-industrial levels, or below 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels?

And will it call for deep rapid cuts aimed at a “net zero greenhouse gas emissions” or the much looser goal of “long-term global low emissions”?

You can see by all the brackets in this section on the implementation of the pact that there is still a lot to be settled:

“Each Party shall regularly prepare, communicate [and maintain] [successive] ###4 and [shall][should][other] [take appropriate domestic measures] [have in place][identify and] [pursue] [implement] [[domestic laws], [nationally determined] policies or other measures] [designed to] [implement][achieve][carry out][that support the implementation of] its ###].
{Differentiated efforts}”

COP21 is supposed to wrap up Dec. 11, but the talks may be extended if there’s no agreement on all the brackets.