- Guest blog by Jamie Peters, UKYCC Policy Officer

It’s like when you have just started dating someone new and can’t figure them out, ‘does she care about me or does she not?’.

Anyone following the current instalment of the UN climate change talks this week will be hoping for some progress but probably not sure where it is going to come from. The themes dominating talks this week have been mitigation and equity – see here for a great summary of equity in the talks.

The climate talks most topical area (ADP aka Durban Platform) concerns historical responsibilities and whether, or not, nations are translating their historical responsibility into emission reductions.

They are not.

This area of the talks should also look at the level of ambition in reduction targets we need to see on a global level. We are not seeing any strong mitigation efforts, there is a lack of trust between nations and we need leadership to get things moving. But there is currently no real leadership.

Unless you listen to all of the talk. Allllll of the mind-numbing talk…. and not just in plenary, where the negotiations take place, but also from our leaders and governments. The EU, who should be taking a lead in emissions reductions are not. But they confusingly tell us that they are.

UK, why will you not lead the way?

The EU seems to have lost its way in these talks. It is not the strong and ambitious block of countries that we want and need it to be. However, within the EU we also need to see some leadership. As much as we need the EU to inject some urgency into the current talks, we need the UK to inject some energy into the EU. But the UK is also failing us.

The UK, domestically, have more than lost their way…they have wilfully got lost and burned the map in a gas-fired power station. The current UK government declared they were going to be the “Greenest Government Ever”. To the credit of the Brits, we don’t believe they are.

Why is the UK letting us down so badly? Why is it letting down the EU and in turn letting down the whole process? Climate change is drifting from the UK political agenda on a domestic level. The world has high expectations of the EU and the UK at the UN climate talks. Neither is living up to these expectations.

Mixed messages

For all the talk at the UN, there is not enough mitigation being offered up by those who should really know better. For all the talk from the UK about being some sort of good guy in these talks they are doing pathetically poorly on a domestic level. The Greenest Government Ever has jumped into bed with an ever more powerful gas lobby – great way to put out a fire with gasoline. They have attempted to replace calls for more renewable energy (wind or solar) into campaigns for alternative energy cons (fracking, Carbon Capture Storage, nuclear). The Greenest Government Ever have voted against the EU at a European level for attempts to strengthen the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) (provoking the ire of some delegates at the ADP this week).

The United Kingdom is hiding from its responsibilities. It is hiding behind the EU at an international level and it is just hoping to hide climate change completely at a domestic level (Education Secretary in the UK is trying to remove climate change from the school curriculum!).

How can the UK perform so poorly domestically yet tell us they are so Green? How can the UK paint themselves as good guys at international talks yet not step up to their own historical obligations when the progress of the talks demands it? These mixed messages are more than confusing, they are obscene.

There is a great opportunity in the Durban Platform for some leadership to be shown that will start to repair the breakdown in trust and provide the climate talks with some sort of meaningful pathway to avoiding further catastrophic climate change.

So, like I said, I am confused just now… EU - do you really not care about me? And UK? I thought we were getting somewhere…but they you turn your back on me like this. Show us you care…

More in FEATURE, UNFCCC Bonn - April 2013, United Kingdom (3 of 141 articles)