Countdown to Copenhagen: The year the world tackles climate change
by Gavin Edwards
Cleantech Asia Online
1 July 2009
In Bali in December 2007, world governments agreed to begin negotiations for a strengthened global agreement to tackle climate change, to be concluded in December 2009 in Copenhagen. Bali itself was momentous – pressure mounted to begin such negotiations, but countries such as the US stood in the way. Finally after an all night session with the UN Secretary General and Indonesian President urging action, and a rousing speech by the Papua New Guinea government representative who urged the US to either lead or get out of the way, the Bali Roadmap was agreed so that negotiations could begin in earnest.
One and a half years later, with only six months to go before world governments meet in Copenhagen in December to seal a deal, progress has been painfully slow. And the odds of a deal with the strength required to avoid the worst impacts of climate change are small.
While world governments are acknowledging that action is necessary, there is not a single major player who is advocating climate action at the scale needed to drive down global emissions within a decade. If one takes the collective indications of world governments today in terms of their likely commitments on climate change, assuming this puts them into an agreement in Copenhagen that actually gets implemented, then towards the end of this century we will see at a minimum a four degree Celsius temperature rise.
Put simply, the climate impact of a world four degrees warmer would be significant extinctions of species around the world, widespread loss of coral reefs, mass crop failures in Africa, millions and millions of people forced to migrate and heat-waves and floods directly contributing to loss of life on a significant scale.
However there are a couple of positives right now which give some hope. Some governments have used the current financial crisis as an opportunity to stimulate growth through a Green New Deal agenda. This is most notable in the U.S. and China, countries that have committed tens of billions to energy efficiency, renewable energy and other positive infrastructure projects. And the renewables industry itself continues to enjoy stellar growth, including new innovations such as Concentrated Solar Power on the horizon, to capture more market share.
But despite this encouraging trend, the old-style power utilities that believe that coal should still be king when it comes to generating power continue to dominate and influence governments. For example right now in the US, Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman recently tabled some modest legislation to cap US emissions and set up a carbon trading system. This has since been watered down due to pressure from other Democrats whose states rely heavily on coal. So the draft legislation under discussion now advocates a cut in emissions of a mere 4% by 2020 (from 1990 levels), while the science shows that cuts of 25% to 40% are needed.
If Copenhagen is to succeed, then some bold leadership will be needed to face down the power companies and the coal and oil industries.
So what needs to happen in Copenhagen? Well first of all, governments need to show greater leadership in their scale of ambition in tackling climate change. First, this means agreeing to targets for slashing emissions in the developed world by close to 40% by 2020. Second, developing countries need to put national policy targets in place such as renewable energy targets, with some financial incentives and technology transfer from wealthy countries to aid in doing this. Third, developed countries need to raise money to pay for protection of tropical forests, and fourth, they need to raise more money for poorer countries to adapt to the impact that even a modest (and inevitable) warming will have, such as on coastal communities, on agriculture and other such impacts.
These key ingredients will spur an energy revolution on an unprecedented scale, leaving future generations with clean, reliable, and cheaper energy while tackling climate change and avoiding its devastating impacts. The stakes could not be higher in Copenhagen, nor could the opportunity.
Gavin Edwards is Head of the Climate & Energy Campaign at Greenpeace International