I was happy to read that my morning newspaper, The Irish Times, has joined another 55 newspapers in 45 countries, to launch an unprecedented appeal to the opening of the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen.
How unprecedented, you might ask. Well, all 56 newspapers are publishing the SAME EDITORIAL, run in each of the newspapers.
It is addressed to the heads of government at the 190-nation summit which, hopefully, will try to broker a new global pact to combat the ever threatening climate change.
Cross-posted from DK GreenRoots.
Here is the editorial: (link to the whole document in intro)
TODAY 56 NEWSPAPERS in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.
Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts are speaking: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting, and last year’s inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world’s response has been feeble.
Climate change, caused over centuries, has consequences that will endure for all time and our prospects of taming it will be determined in the next 14 days. We call on the representatives of the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to blame each other but to seize opportunity from the greatest modern failure of politics. This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor, or east and west. Climate change affects everyone. It must be solved by everyone.
Newspapers involved in this extraordinary exercise are from all over the globe. A few of the participants include the Economic Observer from China; The Jakarta Globe from Indonesia; the Politiken from Denmark; Al Shorouk from Egypt; Mail & Guardian from South Africa; Toronto Star from Canada; Zero Hora from Brazil; the Guardian from the UK, Liberation from France and so on.
The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to two degrees, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next five to 10 years. A bigger rise of three to four degrees – the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction – would parch continents, turn farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of people be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea.
Few believe that Copenhagen can any longer produce a fully polished treaty; real progress towards one could only begin with the election of President Obama and the reversal of years of US obstructionism. Even now the world finds itself at the mercy of US domestic politics, for the president cannot fully commit to the action required until Congress has done so.
But Copenhagen can and must agree the essential elements of a fair and effective deal and, crucially, a firm timetable for turning it into a treaty. Next June’s UN climate meeting in Bonn should be their deadline. As one negotiator put it: “We can go into extra time but we can’t afford a replay.” At the deal’s heart must be a settlement between the rich and developing worlds on how the burden of fighting climate change will be divided.
Add to this powerful message the following newspapers: Wyborcza from Poland; El Mundo from Spain; Kathimerini from Greece; Novaya Gazette from Russia, The Daily Times from Pakistan....and even the tiny Dubai has published its editorial in the Gulf Times.
Such is the strength of the message that it has angered the usual climate skeptics like the delirious Tory politician, Lord Lawson (yes, the father of the ubiquitous chef Nigella Lawson) among others.
Some climate change skeptics went as far as to suggest that the so-called "hacked emails" are manna from heaven! Saudi Arabia's leading climate change negotiator, Mohammad al-Sabban, is on record as saying that the emails suggested that climate change does NOT have a human cause. He added that the issue would have a huge impact on the negotiations. Surprisingly (not), no newspaper from that country has participated in this important event. Bleh to them!
Rich nations point to the arithmetic truth that there can be no solution until developing giants like China take more radical steps. But the rich world is responsible for most of the accumulated carbon in the atmosphere – three-quarters of carbon dioxide emitted since 1850. It must now lead – every developed country must commit to deep cuts which will reduce their emissions within ten years to very substantially less than 1990 levels.
Developing countries can point out they did not cause the bulk of the problem, and that the poorest regions of the world will be hardest hit. But they will increasingly contribute to warming, and must thus pledge their own meaningful, quantifiable action. Though short of what some had hoped for, the recent commitments to emissions targets by the world’s biggest polluters, the US and China, were important steps in the right direction.
Despite years spent by scientists warning of dire consequences, numerous summits and massive public pressure from a growing army of people like us, global emissions of carbon dioxide are growing so fast that we are on course with a 6C increase by end of the century, if not before. Prof. Bob Watson, former head of the IPCC, warned that a 6C rise is a realistic possibility: "if we stayed on the road of the last decade or two, we would be much more on the high emissions scenario of the IPCC and that would plausibly take us up to 6C."
Social justice demands that the industrialised world digs deep into its pockets and pledges cash to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, and clean technologies to enable them to grow economically without growing their emissions. The architecture of a future treaty must also be pinned down – with rigorous multilateral monitoring, fair rewards for protecting forests, and credible assessments of “exported emissions” so that the burden can be more equitably shared between those who produce polluting products and those who consume them. And fairness requires that the burden placed on individual developed countries should take into account their ability to bear it; for instance newer EU members, often much poorer than “old Europe”, must not suffer more than richer partners.
The transformation will be costly, but many times less than the bill for bailing out global finance – and far less costly than the consequences of doing nothing. Many of us, particularly in the developed world, will have to change our lifestyles. We will have to shop, eat and travel more intelligently. We will have to pay more for our energy, and use less of it.
Yvo de Boer, the UN climate chief, is confident that President Obama's late arrival to the closing of the summit, will present strong goals for cutting greenhouse gases in the world's biggest economy. The fact that President Obama will travel to the summit final days (as will most of world leaders) bodes well. He said, "President Obama has said right from the beginning that if he has the conviction that people are here to negotiate in good faith, then he wants to be part of that process and to ensure an ambitious outcome of the summit."
The final chapters of the editorial leave no room for second thoughts, IMO.
But the shift to a low-carbon society holds out the prospect of more opportunity than sacrifice. Already some countries have recognised that embracing the transformation can bring growth, jobs and better quality lives. The flow of capital tells its own story: last year for the first time more was invested in renewable forms of energy than producing electricity from fossil fuels.
Kicking our carbon habit within a few decades will require a feat of engineering and innovation to match anything in our history. But whereas putting a man on the moon or splitting the atom were born of conflict and competition, the coming carbon race must be driven by a collaborative effort to achieve collective salvation.
Overcoming climate change will take a triumph of optimism over pessimism, of vision over short-sightedness, of what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature”.
It is in that spirit that 56 newspapers from around the world have united behind this editorial. If we, with such different national and political perspectives, can agree on what must be done, then surely our leaders can too.
The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history’s judgment on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it. We implore them to make the right choice.
Amen to that.