Hope in Hopenhagen

Copenhagen, where the climate change conference kicked off on December 7, has re-branded itself as Hopenhagen for two-weeks to imbue hope that the world has woken up to the threat of climate change. Danes take the issue of climate change seriously, as is demonstrated by their lofty aim to make Copenhagen the world’s first carbon-free capital by 2025. Hats off to them. But seriousness on the part of the host alone is not going to change things unless other countries--both rich and poor-- join hands. As things now stand, there are hopes that the Copenhagen conference is going to be a turning point--from where human beings will start to reverse their ravaging of mother earth. But there are also fears that we will, once again, falter and miss the opportunity.



World leaders--again from both the developed and developing countries-- must show maturity and seize this opportunity. The US announcement that President Barack Obama will join the conference towards its end and recent pledges on numerical targets for emissions reduction by the world’s big greenhouse gas emitters -- US, China, India and Brazil-- have given a boost to the climate conference. But reaching a deal that everybody will own remains uncertain still. If a legally binding emissions target is not possible, countries should agree to voluntarily set targets and these can be converted later on into legally binding ones. The developed countries must also show magnanimity in offering aid to the poorer ones so that the latter can also contribute their part in emissions reductions. In any case, there must be tangible progress in Copenhagen or else the mammoth participation at the conference will turn out to have been a self-indulgence.



Since the UN’s climate conference in Stockholm in 1972 or the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and the Kyoto Protocol signed in 1997, we haven’t made much progress in saving the planet. Since 1992, global carbon-dioxide emissions have risen by a third. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body constituted by the UN to establish a scientific consensus on the effects of climate change, has said world temperatures could increase in the range of 1.1-6.4ºC by the end of this century. If we are lucky, temperatures may rise by just less than two percent, but if they increase by over six percent we, as a species, are doomed. We must therefore recognize the long-term threat of climate change and not take comfort in the fact that there is no immediate danger attached to it.

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