William Shakespeare’s most famous novel Hamlet sees its central character grappling with difficult moral decisions in a complex situation. On his choices depend the fate of people he loves and the kingdom to which he is heir, all revolving around a plot involving influential people of the time gathering in the state of Denmark. It was written in 1600, over 400 years before world leaders descend on modern-day Denmark this month to tackle climate change. Will one of this drama’s most famous quotes, ‘something is rotten in the state of Denmark?’, ring true in Copenhagen, or will world leaders step up and write a more constructive ending?
Firstly, some context regarding the action that’s desperately needed to avoid a climate catastrophe. In 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that if emissions cuts of 25 to 40% are needed by 2020 for wealthy countries, then we have a 50/50 chance of keeping the world below 2 degrees Celsius and avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. This is based on 1990 levels of emissions. While these numbers represent some pretty fundamental shifts in energy use and production for every economy around the world, emerging science says they may be on the low slide and even more could be needed. For example glaciologists aboard the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise this past summer have observed tropical ocean currents drifting to northern Greenland, exacerbating the melting of the ice cap. They are predicting even more rapid sea level rise as a result of these findings.
While the melting of the Arctic ice cap has been speeding up, climate negotiators have been plodding along at a far more leisurely pace since being given a mandate to agree a strengthened climate treaty two years ago in Bali. So it’s no too surprising that world leaders, the bosses of these negotiators, now feel compelled to step in and go to Copenhagen to help pick up the pace of negotiations and seal some sort of deal.
But instead of bringing a set of hefty commitments to curb their emissions, they’re travelling light, carrying with them something more akin to carry-on baggage for Copenhagen. For example Europe is committing to cuts of 20% (or 30% cuts if other countries agree a strong deal), Japan 25%, and the US one of the worst offenders of all, where they’re considering cutting emissions by a mere 4% by 2020. Taking all these numbers on aggregate, wealthy countries are talking about at best a 15 to 18% cut in emissions by 2020 – a long way from the 25 to 40% emissions cuts that are needed.
Equally important is finance, and providing a regular, predictable flow of money to tackle climate change. This is essential to help developing countries power their futures with clean energy instead of coal, to halt deforestation and also to cover the mounting expense of adapting to the inevitable impacts of climate change that even a modest temperature rise will create. Here, the EU has been calling for the scaling up of a 100billion euros per year global fund by 2020, though key details are unclear, such as whether this will be new money or simply re-counting of existing overseas development aid. Other key countries such as the US have been even more vague on finance.
The news is slightly better for developing countries, with China recently announcing targets to curb its emissions even though hundreds of millions of its people still live below the poverty line and will need access to more energy in order to increase their standard of living. And India has launched its solar mission for a massive solar energy uptake, should global finance be forthcoming. While these announcements are not as ambitious as needed, they are a bigger step forward than the western world.
Lastly there are the forests. Everyone agrees that cutting tropical deforestation is the fastest, most cost effective way to cut emissions. Here there is progress, with Brazil indicating a cut in deforestation of 80% by 2020. But key issues plague the negotiations, such as whether to pay for this reduction in deforestation through carbon offsets which will encourage the building of more coal power stations in wealthy countries (a bad idea) or instead create a specific fund to drive down deforestation (the way forward) remain unresolved.
At Greenpeace we are tracking countries commitments and measuring them not only against each other, but against the climate science. When one ranks each countries commitments against the kinds of real-world climate impacts that such positions are likely to cause, then a very sobering picture emerges. For example if every country took the kind of action China is taking then we could still expect a range of climate impacts such as a major increase in floods in Europe. If everyone did what the Europeans are committing to then on top of all those floods, the chances of the Amazon Rainforest ecosystem collapsing are high. And if every country took Barack Obama’s approach of only modest emission cuts, then we can add large-scale crop failure and famine in sub-Saharan Africa to the growing list of impacts too.
Worse, if we add the collective efforts of all governments as currently indicated and mapped out what this would mean for temperature rise in the next decades, then the answer is a world more than 3 degrees warmer. Compare this to Pacific Island countries who are calling for the world to be kept under 1.5 degrees Celsius in order to ensure their survival, and you start to see the yawning gap between climate science and climate politics.
Add to that a sprawling negotiating text for Copenhagen with many unresolved technical issues, debates over whether the outcome should be legally binding or just voluntary, a consensus emerging that it will take many more months to reach a final agreement, and a set of rogue states as diverse as Canada and Saudi Arabia looking to spoil the outcome at every opportunity, and you start to see the just how difficult and seemingly elusive an agreement will be.
A potential disaster scenario for Copenhagen is that a set of mediocre emissions reductions could be portrayed as some kind of success on the grounds that they represent a small step forward. This could be accompanied by a nice photo op in Copenhagen, and some smooth and positive words by leaders offering reassurance that the problem is solved. We need to guard against such greenwash, and judge the outcome as future generations will: on the impact it will have on planet earth.
All does not have to be lost though, if world leaders dig deep inside themselves and find the courage to step up. Developed countries can commit to a collective effort to cut emissions by 40% by 2020. Developing countries can commit to a range of ambitious actions to cut their own emissions. A fund can be agreed that would deliver predictable financing to the tune of 140billion. And commitments to ensure deforestation is driven down to zero are also possible. Realistically, some of the technical details to make these commitments actionable will need to be concluded early next year. This should only be done with a clear timeline for completion, with the understanding that such an outcome will be legally binding, and with the overall level of ambition agreed this year in Copenhagen.
Hamlet ultimately ends in tragedy, with the final act seeing Laertes, Gertrude, Claudius & Hamlet himself all dying from a combination of dueling and poison. As Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy, Wen Jiabao, Lula da Silva & others prepare to descend on Denmark, it’s time to stop dueling and political posturing between nations, and time to curb the poisoning of our atmosphere through strong emissions reductions. Climate science must replace climate politics. The stakes could not be any higher.
For more information on the positions of countries towards Copenhagen, see:
Gavin Edwards is the head of climate and energy campaign at Greenpeace International