But What If They Don't?

A recent news article titled "When They Meet At The Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen" this December begins with the sentence,

The single most important action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is for all nations of the world to agree to binding emission limits when they meet at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

That is the ideal outcome, but what if it doesn't happen? What if there is agreement that emissions must be reduced but the reductions are not significant enough to begin to slow down a process already well underway? What if emissions targets are agreed upon but they are non-binding, or there are no enforcement measures attached to them?

For Inuit it will mean that instances like the permafrost melting in Pangnirtung (Nunavut), causing a bridge to fall into a river are more likely to happen.

It will mean that communities like Tuktoyaktuk (Inuvialuit Region of the NWT) will experience greater instances of coastal erosion and more community infrastructure will have to be relocated as the sea advances.

It will mean that the community of Salluit (Nunavik) will experience more issues with community growth - the average air temperature there has risen more than 3 degrees Celsius since 1990.Mudslides resulting from melting permafrost now pose a danger, and options for placement of new infrastructure and housing are limited because of that.

To our cousins in Newtok Alaska it will mean that their decision to move their community 14 kilometers inland, as warming temperatures began melting coastal ice shelves and permafrost caused flooding and sinking, was the right one. They had little choice. According to US Government Accountability Office reports the rising waters were taking over 83 feet of community land per year.

To Britain it will mean that the discussions they are already having about which coastal communities may have to be abandoned to the rising seas may well have to take on a more urgent tone.

To President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom of The Republic of Maldives who spoke so openly and eloquently at the recent UN Climate Change Summit in New York, and Prime Minister Apisai Ielemia of Tuvalu, it will mean that the flooding of their island nations will continue unabated.

And to future generations of people all over the world it will mean that the international community was unwilling to accept responsibility for its actions and in doing so make the hard decisions that are necessary today, so that their children and grandchildren do not have to make even harder ones tomorrow.

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