Cop23 Finishes in Bonn

The future of humanity and life itself is at stake. Climate change is the most important issue currently facing us.  The 23rd Conference of Parties (COP23), the United Nation’s annual international gathering on climate change, has been taking place in Bonn and has now ended but you wouldn't have noticed it by reading the media headlines. If there is no slowing down and eventual reversal of emissions levels, there is absolutely no hope to mitigate a global disaster. The world subsidises fossil fuels to the tune of $500 trillion per year, according to John Sweeney, emeritus professor of geography, Maynooth University 

Chief Ninawa Huni Kui, president of the Federation of the Huni Kui, an indigenous Amazonian tribe, explained, “They’re not talking about Mother Earth here in this conference of parties. They’re talking about business, money, capital, carbon credits and fracking, and supposedly offsetting pollution.” Chief Ninawa continued, “We are sad when we see that the governments and corporations are setting the table to get down to auctioning off the animals, buying and selling the plants, buying and selling the water, buying and selling the very air that we breathe.”

The Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) -- a continental coalition of civil society organisations -- says "In general, Africa has not gotten what it wanted at this Cop23," he says. "Because the discussions that matter to us, things that matter to us have been relegated to the background and all that we're hearing is what the developed countries want, and that is not in the interest of Africa...Africa has not contributed to this problem, yet it's bearing the consequences in a great way, in a massive way and we don't have the luxury to adapt to the climate change consequences, as well as we don't even have the means to do any mitigation," he warns.