Climate change: civil society does not neglect water in Copenhagen

Updated - Friday 08 January 2010

Unlike the official UN climate meeting, a parallel civil society forum did not neglect the issue of water in Copenhagen. The Klimaforum09 declaration [1] states that “real solutions” to the climate crisis are “based on safe, clean, renewable, and sustainable use of natural resources, as well as transitions to food, energy, land, and water sovereignty”.

As expected the official statement [2] of the Conference of Parties (COP15) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) neglected water altogether. “The crucial subject of water didn’t even figure in the discussions and there were no real signs that Copenhagen’s delegates would make water adaptation strategies a priority”, WaterAid remarked.

Both Uruguay and Bolivia had pushed to put land and water issues on the COP-15 agenda, according to Adriana Marquisio, vice president of FFOSE, the union of employees of Uruguay’s public water agency. “The little countries who are suffering real impacts (of climate change) are trying to bring attention to this”, she said.

The World Political Forum had sent in their Memorandum for a World Water Protocol [3] to COP-15, based on the work of the International Committee for the World Water Contract.

[1] A Peoples Declaration from Klimaforum09

[2] UNFCC – Copenhagen Accord

[3] World Political Forum - Memorandum for a World Water Protocol

Related news: Climate change: water evaporates from Copenhagen negotiations, say campaigners, Source Weekly, 12 Nov 2009

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Source: Stephen Leahy, IPS, 17 Dec 2009 ; WaterAid, 23 Dec 2009