Copenhagen offers the prospect of a robust political deal, endorsed by the world's leaders and witnessed by the world's people, that sets out clear targets and a timeline for translating it into law. To be a truly historic achievement, such a deal must do two things.
First, it must lay the basis for a global regime and subsequent agreements that limit global temperature rise in accordance with the scientific evidence. Second, it must provide clarity on the mobilization and volume of financial resources to support developing countries to adapt to climate change.
The stakes are enormous. Economic growth has been achieved at great environmental and social cost, aggravating inequality and human vulnerability. The irreparable damage that is being inflicted on ecosystems, agricultural productivity, forests and water systems is accelerating. Threats to health, life and livelihoods are growing. Disasters are also increasing in scale and frequency.
But despite the mounting evidence of negative impacts, reaching a deal will not be easy. It will require extraordinary political courage -- both to cut the deal and to communicate its necessity to the public.
A mindset shift is required. Distrust and competition persist between regions and nations, manifest in a 'no, you must show your cards first' attitude that has dogged the negotiations leading up to Copenhagen. This has to be overcome.
A deal that is not based on the best scientific evidence will be nothing better than a line in the sand as the tide comes in. But short term considerations, including from special interest groups and electoral demands, are working against long term solutions.
Success in reaching a deal will require leaders to think for future generations, and for citizens other than their own. It will require them to think about inclusive and comprehensive arrangements, not just a patched up compilation of national or regional interests.
A deal that stops at rhetoric and does not actually meet the needs of the poorest and most climate vulnerable countries simply will not work. The climate cannot be 'fixed' in one continent and not another. Climate change does not respect national borders. We are all in the same boat; a hole at one end will sink us all.
For it to work, climate justice must be at the heart of the agreement. An unfair deal will come unstuck.
Industrialized countries such as the United States must naturally take the lead in reducing emissions and supporting others to follow suit, but developing countries like India or China also have an increasing responsibility to do so as their economies continue to grow.
Tragically, it is the poorest and least responsible who are having to bear the brunt of the climate challenge as rising temperatures exacerbate poverty, hunger and vulnerability to disease for billions of people. They need both immediate help to strengthen their climate resilience as well as long-term support to enable them to adapt to changing weather patterns, reduce deforestation, and pursue low-emissions, clean energy growth strategies.
The deal must include a package of commitments in line with the science and the imperative of reducing global emissions by 50-85 percent relative to 2000 levels by 2050.
This requires a schedule for richer countries to move to 25-40 percent emission cuts by 2020 from 1990 baselines; clear measures for emerging economies to cut emissions intensity; and clarity about both immediate and longer term finance and technical support for developing countries, notably the poorest and most vulnerable among them.
Will we get there? The targets that have been proposed for emission reductions by many industrialized countries such as the EU, Japan and Norway are encouraging, as are those being made by the big emerging economies including Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, and South Korea.
Recent announcements by the US on emission targets represent a significant shift and provide a basis for scaling up commitments in the coming years. So does the recognition by emerging economies that they also have a role in supporting the most vulnerable countries.
Welcome too are the proposals for financial support to LDCs and small island states made at the Commonwealth Summit in Trinidad, as well as proposals by the Netherlands, France, and the UK, among others.
But much greater specificity on finance is needed. Existing ODA commitments to help the poorest countries meet the Millennium Development Goals need to be met. And significant additional finance that is separate from and additional to ODA needs to be mobilized to support them meet the incremental costs generated by climate change.
A deal which is not clear on the finance will be both unacceptable to developing countries, and unworkable. Finding the additional resources and communicating its necessity will not be easy, particularly in the current economic climate, but it must be done.
A successful deal could incentivize not only good stewardship of forests and more sustainable land use, but also massive investment into low carbon growth and a healthier planet, including in sectors such as energy generation, construction and transportation.
And it could usher in an era of qualitatively new international cooperation based upon common but differentiated responsibilities - not just for managing climate change, but for human development, social justice and global security.
Ultimately, at stake is whether our leaders can work to help us save ourselves from ... well, from ourselves. The legacy of today's politicians will be determined in the weeks to come.
Kofi A. Annan is Former UN Secretary-General, Chairman of the Kofi Annan Foundation and the Africa Progress Panel, President of the Global Humanitarian Forum.
Alun Anderson: The Real Victims Of Climate Change Have No Voice In Copenhagen (PHOTOS)
Look north and you will see the biggest and fastest change to our planet ever caused by humans. It won't go away as a result of talk or promises. The frozen Arctic seas are melting away now.
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I wrote before you left office at the UN, I see that letter made it's way to the secretarial pool. The U.N. requires a delicate balance, or as the librarian there told me, you won't find the truth here.
It didn't act on this issue decades ago because of politics. Many issues of mental and physical health, and health of the planet have been ignored for decades. Look at the ITU Mandate.
In the 80's I investigated the impact of cell phones and electronic technology on health. Despite WIPO having studies of the effect on humans being bombarded with ELF technology they didn't act. We know how the cell phone issue is turning just now, Britian has banned cell phones for small children.
While corporations sponsoring governments flouri$h from their patents nobody acts. It's a pattern discoverable by study of UN records.
Climate change isn't the biggest issue. The world's poor are being oppressed by invasive technology that deprives people of civil rights and depresses their wages. I watched my mother driven mad by manipulative technology. I don't believe the rage will quell until journalists in Florida are impaled from one end of the State to the other. I was told this technology, both by the U.N. and by scholars, was designed to impoverish, defame, isolate and kill. So how is it 20 years later you are still writing like you have political toes to step on and not like lives matter?
The second is the number of cities thousands of years old across Asia and Africa that are mow abandoned because the rains changed thousands of years ago. I know this is petty to bring up, but like everything else we know, humans still have not been around long enough or have had written knowledge threw the ages to explain the rise and fall of ice ages and the temperate thousands of years inbetween...Yes, if you had been awake in science or history there were words to the effect that there have been ice ages but little is said about the worth between them or what makes up this cycle.
If humans had any brains, few do, they as a species would be working for a way to escape if ice again covers the globe.
Casey
We're simply not equipped as a species to cope with this right now. Unfortunately, Nature doesn't care if a species is "ready" for the test that is coming.
This makes the needed sea change that much more difficult given the amount of time we are rapidly running out of against al the empirical evidence that is continually mounting before our eyes around the globe; i.e. Antarctic ice shelf break-offs, coral reef bleaching, marine organism toxicity, and mutagenic and terotogenic effects in all living organisms..
When faced with a finite amount of natural resources, and the aggregate effect of a fossil fuel laden biosphere, and the collective damage being done, there is not enough time left to make that mass social change in lifestyle values, with an off the shelf framework that reverses this centuries old model.
It’s going to take billions of people who share in a consensus of values that maintaining the quality of life for our biosphere must come before everything else, no matter the sacrifice we must make. I for one have already begun that transition by eliminating my carbon based footprint to near zero.
I don't chase too few dollars with stagnant wages an under-developed economy in scheme of globalization to secure a consumer driven materialistic way of life. It took a change in spiritual values for this to take place.
I hope that my fellow humanity can see what it is they must do to provide a sustainable biosphere and reverse this self-destructive trend that will leave all of humanity and other living organisms on the brink of what I believe could be a mass extinction event.
Especially when you have a country like China with a huge population, and India all wanting to emulate a Western Civilization model of having a lifestyle driven by the same myopic consumptive materialism that uses the same blueprint of fossil-fuel laden production.
We need a sea change of internal moral and ethical values on our personal roles in society and what energy we put forth to maintaining a quality of life standard which is not based on a fossil-fuel laden framework.
For example, there will always be those who want to drive muscle cars, hummers, have boy's toys, homes on top of the hill, and have all the conveniences of a high tech home and modern conveniences. AKA-Progress as defined by a centuries old Western Civilization philosophy. All of which for many serves to fuel the ego, and personal comfort.
I am not necessarily saying these are evil human traits, but need to reexamine how we do what we do as they relate to consequences. It seems immediate gratification or results driven ideologies without putting consequences into the equation has been a long standing process, especially in the domain of industrial processes to promote progress.
Replacing these personal values based on a fossil fuel economy to one built on sustainable resources will be the challenge.
Most people will not give up what they have labored for so easily without a change in values, as time is not on our side to make this happen.
Koffi Annaan(FREEMASON) was corrupt as ahead of the UN.
Those abilities are exactly polar opposite to most politicians we've seen over the past century or more. With the power of corporate money - in all countries - and with corporations never thinking beyond the next quarter's earnings, there is no way to get politicians to do otherwise.
Part of the problem with global warming is the population of the planet. Mr. Annan played a significant role in the reduction of the world population back in 1994. In such a short time as well. Few people, except perhaps Bagosora, could claim to tackle the problem of over population so fast as Mr. Annan.
attempting to retain their positions of world power and wealth.
A full scale shift to clean energy with change that lucrative balance of power.
Sadly, I fear the only way we will see any meaningful change is after most of Florida
ends up under water and the remaining voters are screaming.
That alone should give you pause...
Make them move to Alaska!!