A postcard from Barcelona

john clare — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:03:00 GMT

This week sees world leaders gathered in Barcelona to try to find a way forward before December’s crunch meeting of the UN climate change convention in Copenhagen. Here, our Head of Climate Change Policy, Ruth Davis, gives us her thoughts as the talk begins.

Once again, representatives from 192 nations are gathering to discuss how (and indeed whether) to avert the end of the world.

This time the climate change cavalcade has pulled up on the warm but rather desolate concrete spaces of portside Barcelona and for once, it seems minds are beginning to concentrate.

The question is, will it all be too late? There are only five days of official negotiating time left before Copenhagen.

Many think a deal in December without the USA is unthinkable, yet the Americans cannot make firm offers on emissions cuts or finance without domestic legislation to back them up. There is no chance of that before December, and so little chance they can play a full part.

Other countries will ask why the world should wait. Why should America be given yet more time and patience when people in Africa are already dying because of climate pollution?

So, should we push for an ambitious, legally binding treaty in December or counsel patience and look for the foundations of an agreement that could allow the US to join later?

In the end, it isn’t our call. What power we have comes from our ability to watch, analyse, explain and complain. We are, simply, here to tell the truth.

The truth is that time is running out for the Arctic, for the Amazon, for the millions of people who live in land threatened by floods and droughts.

We need a legally binding deal with the kind of ambition that will rescue us from dangerous climate change. That means deep, deep cuts in emissions from developed countries like ours, and action to halt and reverse tropical forest loss. We need a fair deal, which protects vulnerable people and ecosystems from the impacts of climate change, and helps poor countries cut emissions without stifling development.

If world leaders cannot deliver this in December, then shame on them. Yet, if they do fail we will not give up. We will demand they keep coming back until that fair, ambitious and binding deal is concluded.

News blog : climate change

A postcard from Barcelona