This editorial was published Sunday by 56 newspapers around the world in 20 languages including Chinese, Arabic and Russian. The text was drafted by a Guardian team during more than a month of consultations with editors from more than 20 of the papers involved. Like The Guardian most of the newspapers have taken the unusual step of featuring the editorial on their front page. In a behind-the-scenes look at the process which led to the editorial, Ian Katz writes:
As Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger put it: “Newspapers have never done anything like this before – but they have never had to cover a story like this before.”
Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.
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 prospects 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.
The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of people would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea. The controversy over emails by British researchers that suggest they tried to suppress inconvenient data has muddied the waters but failed to dent the mass of evidence on which these predictions are based.
Few believe that Copenhagen can any longer produce a fully polished treaty; real progress towards one could only begin with the arrival of President Obama in the White House and the reversal of years of US obstructionism. Even now the world finds itself at the mercy of American domestic politics, for the president cannot fully commit to the action required until the US Congress has done so.
But the politicians in Copenhagen can and must agree the essential elements of a fair and effective deal and, crucially, a firm timetable for turning it into a treaty. Next June’s UN climate meeting in Bonn should be their deadline. As one negotiator put it: “We can go into extra time but we can’t afford a replay.”
At the deal’s heart must be a settlement between the rich world and the developing world covering how the burden of fighting climate change will be divided — and how we will share a newly precious resource: the trillion or so tonnes of carbon that we can emit before the mercury rises to dangerous levels.
Rich nations like to point to the arithmetic truth that there can be no solution until developing giants such as China take more radical steps than they have so far. But the rich world is responsible for most of the accumulated carbon in the atmosphere – three-quarters of all carbon dioxide emitted since 1850. It must now take a lead, and every developed country must commit to deep cuts which will reduce their emissions within a decade to very substantially less than their 1990 level.
Developing countries can point out they did not cause the bulk of the problem, and also that the poorest regions of the world will be hardest hit. But they will increasingly contribute to warming, and must thus pledge meaningful and quantifiable action of their own. Though both fell short of what some had hoped for, the recent commitments to emissions targets by the world’s biggest polluters, the United States and China, were important steps in the right direction.
Social justice demands that the industrialised world digs deep into its pockets and pledges cash to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, and clean technologies to enable them to grow economically without growing their emissions. The architecture of a future treaty must also be pinned down – with rigorous multilateral monitoring, fair rewards for protecting forests, and the credible assessment of “exported emissions” so that the burden can eventually be more equitably shared between those who produce polluting products and those who consume them. And fairness requires that the burden placed on individual developed countries should take into account their ability to bear it; for instance newer EU members, often much poorer than “old Europe”, must not suffer more than their richer partners.
The transformation will be costly, but many times less than the bill for bailing out global finance — and far less costly than the consequences of doing nothing.
Many of us, particularly in the developed world, will have to change our lifestyles. The era of flights that cost less than the taxi ride to the airport is drawing to a close. We will have to shop, eat and travel more intelligently. We will have to pay more for our energy, and use less of it.
But the shift to a low-carbon society holds out the prospect of more opportunity than sacrifice. Already some countries have recognized that embracing the transformation can bring growth, jobs and better quality lives. The flow of capital tells its own story: last year for the first time more was invested in renewable forms of energy than producing electricity from fossil fuels.
Kicking our carbon habit within a few short decades will require a feat of engineering and innovation to match anything in our history. But whereas putting a man on the moon or splitting the atom were born of conflict and competition, the coming carbon race must be driven by a collaborative effort to achieve collective salvation.
Overcoming climate change will take a triumph of optimism over pessimism, of vision over short-sightedness, of what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature”.
It is in that spirit that 56 newspapers from around the world have united behind this editorial. If we, with such different national and political perspectives, can agree on what must be done then surely our leaders can too.
The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history’s judgment on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it. We implore them to make the right choice.
really? has your head been in the sand for the last 2 weeks. you have been sucked into the religion of AGW. this is the same song and dance that the elites have played on the meek since the beginning of time. at worst it is yelling fire in a crowded theater. for every scientist or Al Gore that talks about AGW, I can show you a scientist or Sen. Inhoffe that disproves your precious theories. the global warming theory is a farce. read something besides the New York Times and you will have discovered that you have been led astray. I am truly sorry for the followers of this unrelenting religion. think for yourselves. too many politicians are involved in this. too much money is involved in the “green movement”. I realize you may feel better, because you think you are making a difference, but you are not. you are simply playing into the hands of governments and large, large corporations that I am pretty sure you would otherwise despise. Am I generalizing, yes. but the same people that are believers in Global Warming: Man Made, also think a government can solve all of the world’s problems. I ask you to grow up a little. think. I enjoy the Salida Blog. I do not live here. My family has had a home outside of Salida now for 50 years. I love the town and love area, but I must comment on such blind lust for something that is at best untrue, and at worst enslavement of future generations and corrupt governments.
I expect to be flamed for my thoughts, but please come at me with more than the “evil oil companies are behind this” and don’t blame George Bush for once. Our current President does that on a daily basis.
keep up the good word on all things Salida and Monarch. can’t wait until my next visit.
Brian
Brian
Go visit Greenland, Iceland and the Glaciers around the world. They are the sentinals of what the climate is doing. Go to Bangledesh or other third world coastal climes. Go to islands in the south Pacific. Try living in parts of Africa where drought has been ongoing for decades. Ask these people how their worlds have changed. But weather is not the only predictor of what’s to come. The melting at the polar cap is real. Check it out … There are comparison photos out there. Go visit a couple of polar bears. Or just stick your head in the sand and pretend that all this crap we put into our atmosphere is not causing a thing. Well, the piper has to be paid and you’re just as guilty for listening only to those on the other side. You obviously got your opinion from somewhere, and you are not the “know it all” of the universe. Do you not think the big oil companies have to delude those who will be deluded, in order to keep their resources pouring in? They are behind the scenes getting things in order so they can charge us for using the sun, the wind and whatever else will come about when our oil dependent world wakes up totally. They’re just getting their ducks in a row and meanwhile you swallow whole what they want you to believe. We all have to depend on sources to keep us as informed or ill informed as is given … everyone has an agenda, including you. No one person has caused this. The human race has caused this and it’s time for EVERYONE to step up and try to do what they can in every small way to turn things in a different direction. At least open up your mind to the possibility of what is happening. You are a problem and not a solution. Educate yourself and don’t you just repeat what your side says and take it as gospel either. Look around. Open your mind. Step outside the box you are in. There is truth to be had. Blessings.
Here’s an article from just today on CBS … go figure… they sure have some agenda for covering this story …. Right Brian?
Peru’s glacier vanishing, scientists warn
The world’s largest tropical glacier is in danger of disappearing within five years, according to international researchers meeting this week in San Francisco.
Ohio State glaciologist Lonnie Thompson and a team of scientists said they have found evidence the Qori Kalis glacier of the Quelccaya ice cap in the Peruvian Andes could lose half its mass in 12 months and could be gone five years from now.
An explorer looks on in the Pastoruri glacier in Huaraz in November 2006. Ice atop the Cordillera Blanca, the largest glacier chain in the tropics, is melting quickly because of rising temperatures.
(Karel Navarro/Associated Press)
Thompson gave his presentation Thursday at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He told reporters afterward there was little mankind could do to stop the decline of the glacier and others like it.
“The lower elevation tropical glaciers are going right now, no matter what we do we’re going to lose the glaciers on [Mount] Kilimanjaro and we’re going to lose the lower elevation glaciers in the Andes,” said Thompson.
The Quelccaya ice cap covers 44 square kilometres in the Cordillera Oriental region and is the world’s largest tropical ice mass. Its biggest glacier, the Qori Kalis, has receded by at least 1.1 kilometres since 1963, when the first formal measurements were taken. The rate of retreat has increased from six metres per year between 1963 and 1978 to 60 metres per year now, said Thompson.
The region also includes Peru’s Cordillera Blanca, or White Mountain Range, one of the Andean country’s most famous natural landmarks.
Climate change research has focused on melting glaciers in the north and south poles, but tropical glaciers also play a valuable role in local ecosystems as they feed rivers that supply fresh water to areas like Peru’s arid coast.
Thompson worries the problem of global warming won’t be addressed until things get worse.
“The question is, how far down this road do we go before there’s any meaningful action to reduce emissions, what does the evidence have to be?” he said. “And unfortunately as human beings — it doesn’t matter really what it is — we only deal well with crises.”
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a report two weeks ago saying evidence of global warming was “unequivocal” and that man-made greenhouse gases were “very likely” behind the rising temperatures and sea levels.
The second of four reports from the panel identifying at-risk regions will be released April 6.
“for every scientist or Al Gore that talks about AGW, I can show you a scientist or Sen. Inhoffe that disproves your precious theories.”
I’ll take that 1 for 1 bet. Next week the American Geophysical Union will be meeting in San Francisco. This is the largest gathering of researchers working in the natural sciences in the world – typically 10,000-15,000 of the world’s best scientists (http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/index.php). Many of these researchers are working on climate change issues and I dare say most of these scientists have more than a passing interest in and working knowledge of climate change issues, much more so than Fox News commentators. Sure there are handful of legitimate scientists who dispute anthropogenic global warming and we should listen what they have to say. But to discount the opinions of thousands of other scientists just because what they are saying is inconvenient to our lifestyles is reckless. I would bet that Brian can’t find more than a few hundred of these scientists (of at least ten thousand in attendance) who would back his position.
Respectfully,
Steve (unwittingly playing into the hand of the gubment minions)
Whether or not you believe we should be regulating CO2 emissions, you might find this Google Earth application interesting. It maps the distribution of CO2 emissions across the nation by county. If you click on Project Vulcan, you can download the county-level data to see how Chaffee county stacks up against the rest of the nation.
http://www.purdue.edu/eas/carbon/vulcan/GEarth/index.html
Thank you for your comments. We are asking that everyone use their full names when commenting. It is part courtesy, and part practicality; Three Steves, or Daves or Rogers writing comments is not unrealistic, and presumably you don’t want to be misquoted.
That said, we cannot stop you from making up fake names. However, the Citizen was founded, in part, on the idea that the level of discourse about important issues could be higher than we see in other local publications, and we believe that transparency is an important component to this mission. So, refraining from fake names is certainly appreciated by all.
Sharing reference material, asking questions and becoming better informed is something we are interested here at the Citizen, and we believe is desired by the community as a whole.
Knowing that you will likely find yourself next to the person with which you are discussing issues with at Safeway, or the hardware store, may even help shape the tone with which you present information. In short, by including your full name, you can then shake hands with that person when you meet them out in the real world.
This site is the new town square. So, when you log in, bring your opinions, but introduce yourself —and bring your neighbor a ham sandwich. In this way we can solve the world’s problems together.
Thanks for your understanding and thoughtful words! Keep writing.
It’s an important issue as we now have thousands of page views. If you need assistance modifying your name, give us a shout. salidacitizen@gmail.com
I’ve included this note as an opinion piece as well.
-bd (Citizen Team)
@Steve – Thanks for the link to Vulcan. Interesting to see that Chaffee County CO2 emissions are more than 100x less than San Juan County, NM — home of several large power plants. Of course, the beauty of a greenhouse gas is that we all get to share.
@Steve CO2 levels is not the problem. Water Vapor is. read a little book called Super Freakonomics and some of you might change your mind.
“Like all the best religions, fear of climate change satisfies our need for guilt, and self-disgust, and that eternal human sense that technological progress must be punished by the gods. And the fear of climate change is like a religion in the vital sense, that it is veiled in mystery, and you can never tell whether your acts of propitiation or atonement have been in any way successful.”
-Boris Johnson, Mayor of London
on and @steve, your 10K -15K of scientist are wrong…
I had to read Superfreakonomics before I made this comment. I just finished it and it is pretty good. As an economist, I can say that the economic content is pretty good – lots of fascinating behavioral economics views on topics like prostitution, altruisim, suicide bombers and regrettably, climate change solutions. It is written by an economist and a journalist, not exactly experts in climate science. But as good journalists do, they use “experts” to corroborate their story. In chapter 5 of the book they make the case that while global warming is VERY REAL (although they assert that the models used are not very accurate), the costs of combating global warming by seeking reductions in human activity (mainly CO2 emissions reductions) is cost-prohibitive.
While water vapor is the largest single greenhouse gas, humans have little appreciable influence on water vapor, and it is largely self-regulating. I think the “water vapor” that Brian mentions is actually from a potential geoengineering solution to climate change that the authors mention – create water vapor by thousands of gigantic agitator devices to stir up vapor over the oceans to create clouds that have a cooling effect. They suggest this would cost just a “few billion dollars” to solve the warming problem until 2050.
The other – and main – solution proposed in the book is to create a pipe running straight to the sky for 18 miles until it reaches the stratosphere. Into this pipe we will inject sulfur dioxide continuously (until the end of time?) to block out some of the sun’s solar radiation from reaching the earth. Cost: about $250 billion. This approach was conceived by the group Intellectual Ventures, headed by Nathan Myhrvold, former CTO for Microsoft.
Issues with this:
1. remember the authors assert that climate models are not very accurate? In reality, no one has any idea how this scheme would work outside of laboratory experiment precisely because our models are not accurate enough. All I can think of, given the originators of the idea, is Blue screen of death.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/why-levitt-and-dubner-like-geo-engineering-and-why-they-are-wrong/
2. The authors rely on the credentials of Stanford atmospheric scientist Ken Caldeira to show the merit of this proposal. Unfortunately, that same scientist says his work was misrepresented in the book. http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/12/superfreakonomics-errors-levitt-caldeira-myhrvold/
3. While the source is mostly the same climate scientists you disagree with Brian, you could spend the next 8 hours straight reading the comments (mostly negative) on the scientific merit of the climate chapter of Superfreakonomics.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/an-open-letter-to-steve-levitt/
4. And if you value the opinion of an economist more than hundreds of atmospheric scientists, here is what Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has to say about Superfreakonomics. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/16/a-counterintuitive-train-wreck/
Kia Orana,
This is a belated response to the Copenhagen Conference. My wife Mary and I were fortunate to spend nearly the entire time that Copenhagen was in progress in the island nation of the Cook Islands which is a wonderful spot in the Pacific with ten islands and roughly 12,000 inhabitants. Every winter draws us there via Air New Zealand on our way to Nelson, New Zealand.
I can honestly say that we saw no better coverage of Copenhagen in any news media then we saw in the Cook Islands News. Why? Because the Cook Islands had a full delegation present for the entire conference. Why? Because the Cook Islands will cease to exist if sea level rise continues. The Cook Islands News gave two full pages of coverage to Copenhagen every day! Think about this for a moment. A nation spread over thousands of miles of the Pacific Ocean with a population smaller then Chaffee County and yet that newspaper is 100 times better then the Mountain Mail which refuses to accept climate change much less give the conference any coverage.
The group in attendance went by the name “Project Survival Pacific”. The members were young, well educated and all love their small island nation.
They knew they had a problem when they first arrived at the conference. A large map of the world showing countries in attendance did not even bother to show the Pacific island nations attending. That was immediately corrected by one youth with a black marker with which he put ten dots on the map in the correct location and penned the name Cook Islands with an arrow pointing to those dots.
The island nations attended the full conference then the powerful countries including the United States and China rolled in at the end with a “deal” already made in a back room.
One speaker for the Cook Islands put it best: “We will not accept 2 degrees. We will not agree to our own demise. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. People of the Pacific have an inherent connection with our land and without it we face the threat of extinction due to forced migration”.
Mary and I have visited the Cook Islands for fifteen years and worked with the Cook Islanders on environmental issues including an attempt at an insane 18 hole golf course. Those damned things are in our lives no matter where we go.
This is a wonderful nation with little crime and corruption, (the police ride motor scooters and do not carry weapons) and a minimum wage of $13. NZ an hour. Yes that is correct. Cook Islanders love their long heritage, they have no poverty, they keep the old ways alive including old religious ways, dance and music. If a minister or priest of a Christian faith is sent to the Cooks, that person quickly “goes native” as they say. A “tidiness minister” makes rounds on Rarotonga quarterly to insure that properties are kept “tidy”.
Cook Islanders know that sea level rise is real and will continue to drown their beautiful barrier reefs around the islands. They see the erosion of their pristine beaches and the warming of the waters in pristine lagoons.Those reefs also preserve the islands from large waves during typhoons and provide a bounty of food.
No nation has the right to decree that any island nation is expandable in a continuing insane quest for positive economic growth and for more wealth and power for a few. The biggest villains in Copenhagen were the United States and China. President Obama was a major disappointment to all Cook Islanders. They had hoped for and expected better. After all they also accepted his message of “Hope”.
Copenhagen was a complete farce in the opinion of Cook Islanders and any attempt to describe it as a success can be debated with the members of that small island nation who saw their work and dreams crushed in the last few days.
We traveled on to New Zealand and returned to the Cook Islands for a week on our way back home and were greeted by friends with the traditional hugs and phrase “Kia Orana”. That same Cook Island group was asked to attend a climate conference in late January in India. They declined. We do not blame them for doing so. In Copenhagen they saw a lot of big egos which to a modest Cook Islander are threatening and heard a lot of jaw wagging ending in a stinking agreement in a back room which essentially kept the status quo so bit more wealth could be accumulated by those who already have more then enough.
Ed and Mary Rogers