Observers from Russian Socio-Ecological Union will work at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen

The world summit on climate change opens on 7 December in Copenhagen. Preparations for this conference lasted for years. The expected result of the conference should be a legally binding document with commitments of countries on mitigation of climate change and joint actions on adaptation, to replace the Kyoto Protocol. However, the summit results are not definite still. Some states took unconstructive position at preliminary talks, and the agreement is under threat. There is a possibility that the summit will adopt a political declaration only instead of a legally binding document.

The RSEU strongly opposes the idea to make a legally non-binding political declaration the sole result of the summit. The RSEU believes that the conference in Copenhagen should make a formal decision to continue work on an international agreement with a clear indication of the legal status of the negotiations and of the completion date. The RSEU position is expressed in the Statement of non-governmental organizations from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine> on the forthcoming summit. The RSEU delivered this Statement to the President of Russian and to the Russian Government in advance of the conference. The Statement calls the leaders and Governments of the three states to facilitate adoption of legally binding documents at the summit, to create adaptation financial mechanisms, and other proposals (please see the full text of the Statement).

RSEU members will take part in the conference as public observers. During the two weeks of the negotiations, they will express their position to the public and the media, and interact with representatives of official delegations and public organisations of Russia and other countries.

Alexander Fedorov, RSEU co-chairman, +7 921 9250833
Olga Senova, head of the RSEU Climate Secretariat, +7 921 9117986