Copenhagen or Bust?
Many of you will have heard recent reports that hopes are fading for completion of a new global climate treaty at the UN summit in Copenhagen, starting just 21 days from now. You might even be wondering, why should I bother campaigning on climate, when so many world leaders seem to have given up?
I'd like to give you some reasons to fight – in fact, to shout louder and demand more. I hope these encourage you to join us on December 5th, at one of the climate rallies in London, Glasgow or Belfast – and to lend your voice to ours in the weeks and months ahead, in the continuing battle against dangerous climate change.
Ye cannae change the laws of physics.....
The first and best reason to keep going, is that whilst summits come and go, climate change continues along at just the rate dictated by science – no faster, no slower.
Every week brings new evidence of the gathering pace of that change. Methane is leaking in ever larger quantities from permafrost fields; massive changes to rain-fall patterns are leading to prolonged and devastating droughts; and we are witnessing further dramatic ice-loss at the poles.
In the wake of this, come human misery, and a heightened threat to the wildlife we know and love. There can be few sadder sights than that of whole peoples abandoning their countries forever, knowing that they are lost to the sea; and unseasonably heavy rains deluging our northern cities as people scramble to bolster flood defences.
And yet our politicians tell us they have had no time to address this crisis. We cannot accept this excuse .
Will the real economists please stand up?
It is these same men and women who worked day and night in the midst of the economic crisis, to reconstruct the world’s financial institutions.
The Climate Action Network - the group of NGOs lobbying for a good UN climate deal in December - estimate that something like $200 billion a year of public money will needed by 2020, to address the planetary emergency of climate change. Rich nations say they cannot afford it. And yet in 2008, these same nations mobilised 8.4 trillion dollars, much of it in a matter of days, to underpin the banking system.
Every single one of these leaders knows that tackling climate change is also a real and immediate economic necessity. A recent study by the International Energy Association estimated that every year of delay will cost $500 billion per year.
The case for action is clear; the excuses for inaction are feeble; and the consequences of inaction are morally and economically unacceptable. So who is telling us to wait, and why?
Will Uncle Sam please come to the departure lounge?
The calls for delay began in the United States, where President Obama is struggling to get climate legislation through the Senate before December. Without it, the US President feels constrained in what he can offer the international community - and so he is trying to ‘buy time’. But is it right or rational, that the rest of the world simply shrugs its shoulders and says 'ok'?
In fact, the international community must press harder, to help concentrate the President's mind, and create the political momentum needed for action.
Binding, ambitious and fair.
In the UK, Secretary of State for Climate and Energy, Ed Milliband, has tried recently to redress the balance and show what is still possible and necessary from Copenhagen. In a recent interview, Mr Milliband turned up the pressure on those like Canada's Premier Steven Harper, who are using the calls for delay to argue the case for inaction.
Mr Milliband stressed the need for real numbers on emissions cuts and finance to be agreed in December, and for Heads of Government (including President Obama), to be there to back them up. He also gave the strongest indication yet, that the UK and the EU as whole, will not stand for a final outcome that is 'political' rather than 'legal' in nature. Don't let statements like these be a 'voice in the wilderness'. Civil society should be speaking up, louder than ever before, reinforcing this call to action.
Lets be clear, then. Targets, finance, a legally binding outcome, and the timetable for delivering them, are all still at stake in December. But none of them will be won, if we are silent now. Never has the need been greater for people to speak up for urgent government action on climate change.
Doing the hard work at home....
Finally, consider this. In the real world, emissions cuts do not come about simply because nations sign up to an international treaty, binding or not. They happen because of domestic laws and policies, put in place as a result of political pressure - the kind of pressure which UK activists are exerting (for example) to stop new, dirty, coal-fired power stations.
In the UK, concerned citizens must keep up the call for action that delivers on our own ambitious climate targets - targets we fought so hard for when we lobbied for the UK's Climate Change Act. Similarly, the most important step the United States government can take is to cut the excuses, get back home, and legislate. And if that's the message coming loud and clear out of Copenhagen, we will all have done our job.
Ruth Davis, Head of Climate Change Policy at the RSPB