Hurriyet,
Turkey
History's Judgment
of Our Generation Depends on Climate Summit
"Unless
we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and
with it our prosperity and security."
JOINT EDITORIAL from 55 newspapers around the world
December 6, 2009
Turkey - Hurriyet -
Original Article (English)
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, Denmark, 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 e-mails
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 toward one could
only begin with the arrival of President Barack Obama in the White House and
the reversal of years of U.S. 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 U.S. 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
United Nations climate meeting in Bonn, Germany 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 tons of carbon that we can emit before
the mercury rises to dangerous levels.
[The
Economist, U.K.]
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 industrialized 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 European Union
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.
Participating publications:
Süddeutsche Zeitung – Germany,
Gazeta Wyborcza - Poland, Der Standard - Austria , Delo – Slovenia, Vecer –
Slovenia, Dagbladet Information – Denmark, Politiken – Denmark, Dagbladet –
Norway, The Guardian – England, Le Monde – France, Liberation – France, La Reppublica – Italy, El Pais –
Spain, De Volkskrant – Netherlands, Kathimerini –
Greece, Publico – Portugal, Hürriyet
Daily News – Turkey, Novaya Gazeta – Russia, Irish Times – Ireland, Le Temps –
Switzerland, Economic Observer – China, Southern Metropolitan – China, CommonWealth Magazine – Taiwan, Joongang
Ilbo - South Korea, Tuoitre
– Vietnam, Brunei Times – Brunei, Jakarta Globe – Indonesia, Cambodia Daily,
The Hindu – India, The Daily Star – Bangladesh, The News – Pakistan, The Daily
Times – Pakistan, Gulf News – Dubai, An Nahar –
Lebanon, Gulf Times – Qatar, Maariv – Israel, The
Star – Kenya, Daily Monitor – Uganda, The New Vision – Uganda, Zimbabwe
Independent, The New Times – Rwanda, The Citizen – Tanzania, Al Shorouk – Egypt, Botswana Guardian, Mail & Guardian -
South Africa, Business Day - South Africa, Cape Argus - South Africa, Toronto
Star – Canada, Miami Herald, United States, El Nuevo Herald, Jamaica Observer,
La Brujula Semanal –
Nicaragua, El Universal – Mexico, Zero Hora – Brazil,
Diario Catarinense –
Brazil, Diaro Clarin –
Argentina.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US, Dec. 9, 6:20pm
