We hear a lot these days about 'bullying'

We are writing to you from UN climate negotiations in Cancun, Mexico, where diplomatic cables exposed by WikiLeaks this week confirm what we'd already been hearing: The U.S. is bullying poorer countries into accepting an unjust and dangerous climate deal.1

Do you want your government to stop pushing poor countries around and start acting as a constructive force in international negotiations?

If the answer is yes, then we need your signature on our petition to the chief U.S. diplomat, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The leaked cables show how the Obama administration used its foreign aid budget to bribe some developing countries into supporting a deeply flawed climate proposal called the Copenhagen Accord, which could set the world on a path to devastating levels of global warming -- up to nine degrees Fahrenheit by this century's end.2

The U.S. followed up by cutting off aid funding to other poor countries that refused to do its bidding.

Just yesterday, the deputy prime minister of Tuvalu, a small island that could be wiped off the map by climate change, declared, "We cannot afford to be held hostage by the domestic political backwardness of one large developed country. It is now time to act."

Will you stand with Tuvalu and call on U.S. negotiators to stop undermining strong global action to fight climate change?

When President Obama came into office, he promised to engage cooperatively with other countries to address the climate crisis. But at last year's climate talks in Copenhagen, and now in Cancun, his negotiators have done the opposite.

The planet desperately needs industrialized countries like ours to commit to steep, science-based emissions reductions. But the Copenhagen Accord is based on a system of voluntary pledges that would allow each country to cut emissions however much it likes, without regard to science or what's fair.

Bullying poor countries into accepting the Copenhagen Accord undermines the global cooperation required to solve the climate crisis. The bullying must stop now. As American citizens, we need to demand better.

It's not too late for President Obama and his administration to change course.

Progress is still possible here in Cancun, and the work of achieving a comprehensive climate agreement will carry over into next year's UN climate summit in South Africa.

But progress is only possible if the bullying stops. Tell Secretary Clinton to give U.S. diplomats a fresh mission: acting as a constructive force for fair and effective climate solutions.

In solidarity from Cancun,

Nick Berning, Kate Horner and Karen Orenstein
Friends of the Earth

Notes:

1. The Guardian. "WikiLeaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord": http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-us-manipulated-climate-accord?mobile-redirect=false

2. United Nations Environment Program. The Emissions Gap Report: http://www.unep.org/publications/ebooks/emissionsgapreport