Posted on: February 16, 2009
Why Copenhagen is important for the future of human civilization
My Institute TERI held the 9th Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS 2009) in New Delhi during the period February 5-7, 2009. This has become an amazing event with enhanced participation and an increasingly influential set of speakers each year drawn from all over the world. Additionally, the attention that this event is receiving from the media and globally influential leaders of public opinion is also growing year after year. In this year’s Summit not only were there a number of world leaders who spoke and participated, but three Nobel laureates also delivered keynote addresses including Mr. Kofi Annan, Prof. Sir James Mirrlees and Prof. Mario J Molina. There were 30 ministers from all over the world who spoke and participated in the event and a number of corporate CEOs who took part both in this and the preceding event called the World CEO Forum which was held on February 4, 2009. A particular feature of this year’s Summit was a special session on Africa, wherein the Under Secretary General of the UN responsible for the Economic Commission in Africa, Mr. Abdoulie Janneh and a number of ministers from African nations participated and discussed the special challenge that Africa faces with the growing impacts of climate change.
The overall theme of the Summit this year was "Towards Copenhagen: an equitable and ethical approach" because as Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General of the UN, who also addressed the Summit, has stated clearly, 2009 would be the year of climate change. It is crucial that in Copenhagen in December 2009 governments from across the world reach agreement on tackling the challenge of climate change on a collective basis. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has as its central objective actions to avoid a level of human interference with the earth's climate system that could be termed as dangerous. Yet, after 17 years of agreement on this Convention the world has still not agreed on what would constitute a dangerous level of anthropogenic interference. Scientific assessment of future impacts of climate change as clearly brought out by the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) provides a substantial amount of information on the impacts of climate change, but then the definition of dangerous is not a scientific issue. It is something that involves a value judgement involving considerations of equity and basic ethics. In my view, there is now overwhelming evidence on the serious impacts of climate change on some of the most vulnerable and poorest communities on earth. And if human considerations were to be regarded as a dominant factor in defining what is dangerous then clearly the fear that grips several regions of the world should be treated as a defining criterion for what is dangerous.
Several poor communities totally dependent on rainfed agriculture, as well as those deprived of water essential for their basic biological needs are truly vulnerable. So also are residents of small island states, some prominent mega-deltas and low lying coastal areas which are already in a state of fear and pessimism about their future. Surely, what is dangerous should be defined on the basis of these very real human apprehensions. I was very intrigued to see a beautiful illustration of an "offshore ecopolis" conceptualized by Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut. He is thinking of a floating ecopolis for climate refugees which would be an amphibious city designed to accommodate upto 50,000 inhabitants. This is indeed a novel idea and perhaps reflects the sensitivity to a possible crisis, but can we not do enough to see that we prevent a large scale movement of climate refugees in the future? To ensure this the world would have to bring about "deep cuts" in emissions of greenhouse gases as clearly identified in the Bali roadmap.
There is perhaps some basis for feeling optimistic on this score particularly with the change in leadership in the US, but we are certainly running out of time as some of the trajectories for stabilization of concentration of greenhouse gases assessed by the IPCC clearly bring out.
The answer lies in forward looking policies on the part of governments, which of course, will cause some discomfort in certain sectors and to certain actors. A complete reorientation of thinking among the leadership of the corporate sector and a significant change in lifestyles of people across the globe, most importantly in the rich countries, is now overdue. If a perceptible shift in all these three respects can be initiated adequately and soon, perhaps Copenhagen will be a success, for which future generations would have reason to thank those that bring about such a movement. The beauty of these desirable changes lies in the fact that they would produce a huge range of so called co-benefits which if anything will enhance the welfare of human society such as through higher energy security, lower levels of pollution at the local level, stable agricultural yields and additional employment. I wonder why we are dragging our feet in the face of such overwhelming logic.
