NGOs: profit-hungry polluters won at COP17

Following the recent UN climate talks which ended this weekend after 14 days of deliberation, several NGOs said that the interests of profit-hungry and polluting corporations have won at 17th United Nations Conference of Parties (COP 17), News24 reports.

"Polluters won, people lost," said Greenpeace International's executive director Kumi Naidoo in a statement, adding that in the past two weeks, "our governments listened to the carbon-intensive polluting corporations instead of listening to the people who want an end to our dependence on fossil fuels and real and immediate action on climate change."

Earlier, International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane expressed satisfaction at the outcomes reached at the COP17 talks on climate change. The talks, she said, yielded a roadmap aimed at enforcing a legal framework to enforce carbon emission cuts from major greenhouse gas emitters. "We have 'worked together to save tomorrow, today!'".

Greenpeace International's Kumi Naidoo criticised the agreement reached at the talks which stipulated that the next deal on climate change matters need only be implemented in 2020. "Right now the global climate regime amounts to nothing more than a voluntary deal that's put off for a decade." Friends of the Earth International climate justice coordinator Sarah-Jayne Clifton told News24 that the resolution of the talks indicated that ordinary people had been let down by their governments. "The noise of corporate polluters has drowned out the voices of ordinary people in the ears of our leaders," she said.

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