urgent: sign-on letter to Obama
Neil Tangri
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [cpnreality] urgent: sign-on letter to Obama
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2009 10:50:02 -0500
From: Orenstein, Karen <KOren...@foe.org>
Friends and colleagues –
Please join Friends of the Earth International and Third World Network
in sending the following urgent letter to President Obama on the
occasion of his attendance at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen.
Climate change is an extreme threat to world peace. Last week, Obama
received the Nobel Peace Prize. Now, he must earn it. If ever there was
a time for Obama to exert bold leadership, this is it.
Please send sign-ons to koren...@foe.org <mailto:koren...@foe.org>
by 6 pm Copenhagen time (6 hours ahead of Washington, DC) this Thursday
(the 17^th ).
Thank you for your consideration,
Karen Orenstein
Friends of the Earth
--------------------------------------
Dear President Obama,
The world has had great expectations for your leadership in addressing
climate change internationally, but to date there has been much
disappointment. We understand you face a difficult political reality in
the United States, but billions of people face the reality of flood,
drought, famine, and climate-constrained development. Every country
faces its own complex political circumstances, and those of the United
States cannot be allowed to hold back the rest of the world.
We are writing to urgently ask you to reconsider the emission reduction
target you have put forward for Copenhagen and instead offer a target
that will return atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide to no more
than 350 ppm and allow for no more than 1 to1.5°C global temperature
rise. A reduction by the United States of only 3 percent below 1990,
contingent on greenhouse gas cuts by China and other developing
countries, is scientifically unsound and deeply unjust. If other
developed countries committed to longer term reductions that are no more
ambitious than those you have pledged for the US[1] <#_ftn1>, the rich
world will end up consuming two-thirds of the carbon budget available
for this century.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Africa is
expected to warm at around 1.5 times the global average. In Copenhagen,
leaders from Africa have made it clear that a temperature rise of 2 °C
is suicide for the peoples of that continent. Yet the targets offered by
developed countries won’t even keep the world below a 2 degree global
temperature rise. We echo the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance that
this is, “a death sentence to literally millions of Africans. We fear
for our mothers and fathers, our sisters and brothers – your uncles,
aunts and cousins. Your policy on climate change threatens not only our
families but also your own.”
Rather than undermining constructive multilateralism, the U.S. should
join the rest of the international community and ratify the Kyoto
Protocol. Barring that, the U.S. should plug its emission reduction
commitment into the special space designed for it under the Bali Action
Plan - paragraph 1(b)(i) - to fulfill its obligations under the UN
Climate Convention in a manner that is comparable to the commitments of
other developed countries under the Kyoto Protocol. Since then, the
failure of the US to take serious reduction commitments has instigated
an abandonment of the Kyoto Protocol by developed countries, spurring a
race to the bottom.
The provision of public climate finance for mitigation and adaptation in
developing countries is also fundamental to a just and effective outcome
in Copenhagen. As the leader of the nation most responsible for causing
the climate crisis, and as the world’s wealthiest economy, the U.S. must
pay its share of what the Africa Group is calling for from developed
countries– at least 5 percent of GNP annually in the long term and
US$400 billion for fast track financing. Further, climate finance should
be channeled through a new Global Climate Fund established under the
authority of the UNFCCC. The World Bank and other existing international
financial institutions should have no role in UNFCCC climate finance.
During your Nobel Lecture, you said “...the world must come together to
confront climate change.” We ask that you move beyond rhetoric to
meaningful action. More than 100 countries have called for reductions by
developed countries of at least 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, no
more than 1.5°C global temperature rise, and a return to 350 ppm. The
United States should support nothing less.
Climate change is an extreme threat to world peace, and in many cases,
entire peoples’ survival. If ever there was a time for you to exert
bold leadership, this is it. Last week you received the Nobel Peace
Prize. Now, we call on you to earn it.
Thank you for your serious consideration of this life-or-death matter.
Sincerely,
****************
Karen Orenstein
Friends of the Earth U.S.
+45-2971-8809 (mobile in Copenhagen)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] <#_ftnref1> The Obma Administration’s stated reduction pathway is
17% below 2005 emission levels by 2020, 30% by 2025, 40% by 2030, and
83% by 2050.
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-attend-copenhagen-climate-talks).
Assuming the same targets were adopted by all Annex 1 countries, this
pathway consumes nearly 500 GtCO2 out of a total available budget of 750
GtCO2 for the world. On a per capita basis, this appropriates about
eight times more atmospheric space for each Northerner compared to each
Southerner.
John Reindl
Personally, one of things that I am doing is writing to companies that I regularly deal with and asking them to sign on to the Copenhagen Communiqu�. I saw an ad by Coke in the last issue of Newsweek that they had signed on and urging other firms to follow their example.
John
.....................
�
Dear John,
If you
think our representatives in Washington, DC are disregarding the will
of the people now, wait until you see what President Obama will try to
pull off in Copenhagen this week.
You see, the very thing the U.S. Senate refuses to do here at home - mandate a costly cap and trade energy tax system in the name of saving the world -- President Obama is telling the world at the Copenhagen Climate Summit that he can do it on his own through the Environmental Protection Agency. Even though that would be "taxation without representation," the President must believe that his noble intentions can override the rules of our constitutional system.
So, this week, as the Obama administration prepares to sign an international agreement that our own Senate would likely never ratify, we're running a full page ad in the COP15Post, the go-to English language paper of the Copenhagen Summit, with this simple reminder:
In America, "We
the People" govern, and without our approval through our Senators,
President Obama has no constitutional authority to bind the United
States to any international agreement whatsoever.
It's so basic a Constitutional fact that Senator Jim Webb (D-VA)
recently wrote in a letter to President Obama: "As
you well know from your time in the Senate, only specific legislation
agreed upon in the Congress, or a treaty ratified by the Senate, could
actually create such a commitment on behalf of our country."1�
Take
a look at our ad by clicking the image below.
While
other governments represented in Copenhagen may be able to ignore the
will of their people, that's not how it works in America.
And
to demonstrate how "we the people" govern in America, we're giving you
and every American Solutions member an opportunity to sign your name
onto the ad. You can do that by going here.
With a small dona tion of
$5 or more to help pay for the ad, your name will be added�to it.
If
anyone is able to make a donation of $200 or more, we will make sure
your signature is much more prominent, like John Hancock's on the
Declaration of Independence. We will limit this to the first ten people
to make such a donation.
Please add your name right away.���
Thanks for helping us send
the message that "We the People" govern in America.
Sincerely,
Vince Haley
Vice President for Policy
American Solutions
1Senator
Webb Letter to the White House, November 25, 2009.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paid
for by American Solutions for Winning the Future. Not authorized by any
candidate, or candidate committee. Not printed at government expense. www.AmericanSolutions.com
To unsubscribe from future
mailings, click here: in...@americansolutions.com?subject=unsubscribe