Tom Sharman, Climate Justice Coordinator from COP15
11th December 2009

Now that the row over the so-called 'Danish text' – a leaked draft Copenhagen Agreement – has subsided, it’s worth looking in a bit more detail at what kind of deal is being cooked up and who it benefits.

If you take a climate justice approach - a desire to marry environment integrity to social justice - as we do, then ownership and control are as important as targets and numbers.

Those most vulnerable to climate change, be they countries or groups of people, currently have very little say in the international institutions that are supposed to ‘save’ them.

The US has more than twenty times the voting power of Bangladesh in the World Bank and vulnerable peoples, such as women, children, indigenous peoples, and small scale farmers have no direct input whatsoever into that institution. Yet it remains a firm favourite amongst most of the rich countries who like its one dollar, one vote principle.

The one global climate fund that does show some sign of meeting the climate justice test – the Kyoto Protocol’s Adaptation Fund - is starved of the money it needs to even begin starting to do its job.

So it’s good to see that two of the world’s most respected former leaders, Mary Robinson and Gro Harlem Brundtland, have teamed up with European Commission Vice-President Margot Wallstrom to call for a radical overhaul of the ‘business as usual’ approach.

Not only do they call for those on the front line of global warming to have ‘immediate access to climate funds’ but also that they “play a key role in the governance of institutions that disburse climate finance”.

Climate justice demands it.