We Can Do This

Prior to the opening of the COP-15 conference on climate change, 56 major newspapers in 45 different countries took the opportunity to send the same message to the world:

“Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year’s inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals, the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world’s response has been feeble and half-hearted. Climate change has been caused over centuries, has consequences that will endure for all time and our prospect of taming it will be determined in the next 14 days. We call on the representatives of the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to fall into dispute, not to blame each other, but to seize opportunity from the greatest modern failure of politics. This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, or between East and West. Climate change affects everyone and must be solved by everyone.”

When I am in Copenhagen with Minister Prentice next week part of my message will be that the time for divisiveness is over. Now is the time for a realistic, strong, and politically binding, commitment to both mitigation and adaptation efforts.

To be successful any agreement must recognize that there are disparities in the world regarding the ability to engage in mitigation efforts. The agreement must contain mechanisms to address those disparities. We can do this, in fact we must.

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