In the afternoon, the Danish organizers of the Klimaforum will carry out a symbolic act in which they will pass the responsibility of organizing the COP 16 of 2010 to Mexican organizations.

With reference to the COP 15, which is supposed to come to an end today as well, on Thursday, Bolivian President Evo Morales proposed to have a global referendum on climate change, in view of the signs that indicate that there will not be an agreement in Copenhagen due to the strong differences in the way of living of industrialized and non industrialized countries.

“As we will not reach an agreement here, I would like to ask you to have a debate within the UN to solve this issue, not at the level of Heads of State, but with the peoples of the world and have a global referendum on climate change”, he said.

Morales proposed to ask the world´s population if they agree with 1) reestablishing harmony with nature, 2) changing this model of over-consumption, 3) developed countries reducing emissions to limit to 1 degree Celsius the rise of temperature, 4) allocating a better budget to climate change than that allocated to Defense, 5) the creation of a climate justice tribunal to trial those who commit crimes against Mother Earth.

“Given that there are strong differences among presidents, let´s ask the people and do as they say”, concluded Morales.

Meanwhile, Oscar Rivas, Paraguay Environment Minister, stated that the temperature of the planet will continue to rise due to the production and consumption models, and the way we treat nature. He said that “the (industrialized) countries responsible for the direct causes of global warming are not acknowledging their historic responsibility for the increasing social and environmental debt they have with the most vulnerable peoples, causing a situation of injustice which must be reverted immediately”.

Rivas demanded developed countries to reduce at least 49 per cent of their domestic GHG emissions by 2017, with reference to 1990 levels. In addition, he demanded them to provide enough financial resources and transfer of technology that “our countries need to achieve a sustainable development”.

Also, Friends of the Earth International issued a press release stating that developed countries are to blame for the lack of a significant advance in the negotiations.

Former Chair of Friends of the Earth International, Meena Raman, said: "Developing countries are not the problem here, they are simply asking that rich countries honour their obligations. This means committing to tough new targets to cut their emissions, in line what science says is needed, rejecting offsets and providing the money for developing countries for adaptation and mitigation.”

"Rich countries have missed every deadline they set this year to agree new targets to cut their emissions and now they have the audacity to blame developing countries for the current deadlock” she concluded.

Photo: Radio Mundo Real