Too much hope for Copenhagen?

Everywhere you turn, there'e fear that a post-Kyoto climate change 
agreement won’t be reached at Copenhagen in December. More 
importantly, there's fear about the consequences of that failure.

There are a series of meetings remaining in the run-up to Copenhagen, 
but several issues remain to be resolved, such as who is going to pay 
for the transition to a low carbon economy (in the North but more 
especially in the South); whether developing economies will accept 
binding emissions targets when they still need to grow their 
economies; even agreement on when cuts need to be made. These are all 
huge obstacles to be overcome.

Stern’s latest paper says we’ve got to cut emissions in the atmosphere 
from 50 gigatonnes today to 35 gigatonnes by 2030 and 20 gigatonnes by 
2050. What’s worse, it’s no longer a question of simply cutting 
emissions if we’re going to have a ‘reasonable’ chance of keep 
temperature increases to about degrees over the next century, we’ve 
got to cut the amount of CO2e already in the atmosphere down to 
between 44 and 48 gigatonnes.

That means fairly drastic action. It will require a change in power 
infrastructure, resource management, design process, waste management 
and more. It’s not just a quesiton of North vs South, developed vs 
developing economies. There are inequities that arise from the need to 
change our economic patterns, and there are understandable concerns 
about economic growth and carbon leakage. But action must be taken, 
and soon, if we are to hope to avoid significant changes to the global 
climate.

One of the most difficult things we’re going to have to accept is that 
passionate belief in the protection of the ecosphere doesn’t always 
sit well with political realities. While we might hope that 
politicians are our representatives, their focus is usually more about 
supporting their own party, or getting back into power. And mostly, 
that includes not agreeing to treaties which will increase their 
countries industrial cost base, international taxes that they can’t 
control or even that they can’t afford to look weak on the 
international stage.

What we need to understand is that even if we don’t achieve a climate 
treaty in Copenhagen, it’s not the end of the road. In recent months, 
the message that action must be taken has been growing in volume. 
There is an acceptance that it’s time to draw a line, that 
individuals, companies, investor groups and even countries are saying 
together, the time to act is now. Recognition of the potential impacts 
of climate change are focusing many groups to reassess their approach 
to their relationship to the overall environment.

The one thing we have to keep in mind is that failure in Copenhagen is 
not necessarily about failure to address climate change – it’s about 
the failure of the political process to address change on a global 
scale. Given that we haven’t been trying very long, that’s hardly 
surprising. There is surprisingly little data for analysis on the 
impacts of climate change or where there is, it's based on modelling 
the future and we all know how reliable that can be. The reality is 
that we're trying to manage risk and that can be difficult to predict, 
especially if you don't understand what's going on. Just ask the 
finance community. But, if we don’t achieve our goals in Copenhagen, 
the important thing is that we keep trying. Because that's the only 
thing we all can do.