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Environmental Parliament’s Campaign to ‘Be in Copenhagen’ is a pledge by the World’s Leaders to Being There.

Being There Fully and delivering Leadership for Copenhagen is already a success…

So Go and create your country’s Environmental Parliament .org and lobby and work hard with your leaders to take the pledge to ”Be in Copenhagen”

Within  a month the environment ministers and various politicos and bureaucrats and professional career diplomats of various nations will gather in Copenhagen to finalize negotiating a 200 page behemoth of climate treaty roadmap.

Reaching an agreement hopes are rapidly dwindling, now that countries ready to sign a strong, ratifiable agreement aren’t represented by their leaders. They simply have nothing to lose if their leaders aren’t there. The professional diplomatic Kassandras are hard at work to deny us a fair deal. The lawyers and the climate deniers have banded together with the fossil fuel lobbyists and career diplomats, to throw the monkey wrench in the Copenhagen works. Congratulations fly all around in the oil industry because the diplomats and negotiators have delivered an unwieldy 200 pager for a start.

Sadly so far they are succeeding. The pessimism has spread so widely that it could be considered a global pandemic. News stories are already talking about the ‘failure’ of Copenhagen and squandered opportunities. Governments and NGOs wanting to mitigate the damages and manage people’s expectations and angst – are submitting the Mexico proposal.

Don’t worry after Copenhagen we have Mexico City…

And then we have Sahara’s capital too – and while we are at it we have the sunken cities of the world to meet at…

It’s an old trick. When you can’t be a leader – you delegate to the Future…

Only seventeen leaders so far have taken the Environmental Parliament pledge to ”Be in Copenhagen” – and out of those only five have publicly announced their willingness to be in Copenhagen and fight for a fair and equitable deal.

Rather disheartening you would think. Leaders simply don’t want to go there if there is no chance of a success….

But give us time – We’ll turn the tide around.

Even the ”Yes we can” man of Washington – Obama – doesn’t want to be associated with a failure in Copenhagen.

So he doesn’t commit to ”Be in Copenhagen.” But he’ll be there – Trust me.

Let’s show some smarts and spread out the hope of a success both for him and for the many other fence-sitters who will jump on the band wagon and show up in Copenhagen. 

Success has many fathers – Failure is a bastard

Let us make Copenhagen a success…

After all Obama will be going to Oslo on December 10th and so it follows that Copenhagen is just a logical stop after the Nobel prize.  So we need to lobby Obama to ”Be in Copenhagen” on the 12th of December to bring his special brand of magic into the talks.  

I believe Obama will be there. The issues are so gigantic that he cannot eschew his responsibilities. Even the disheartening news about the roadmap for an agreement cannot keep him away. 

It’s too important and he’ll be there.

Obama will ”Be in Copenhagen”

The reason is simple: Just viewed from the perspective of  a few years ago, the Copenhagen summit should be considered a catalyst and a success already.

In a short time, so many nations have pledged to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases by considerable amounts, well beyond any commitments they had made before, that the tide is turning.

Commitments, such as the 1997 Kyoto Protocol have been far surpassed and now seem archaic.

See the new trends are to follow the science and to reverse the trend of climate warming – not just slow it down.  

Norway, for example, offered this month to reduce its own emissions by 40% below 1990 levels by 2020. That’s leadership. Let’s take that for a Change – Yes we can.

Even the rainforest destroyer Indonesia said it would curb its emissions over that same time by 26% below the levels expected under a business-as-usual scenario, with even stronger cuts possible under an international agreement.

Even the always centre of the middle and never active European Union has committed to a 20% reduction below 1990 levels and would increase that to 30% with a global pact over the same time.

Lastly, for the first time, the US Congress is moving towards establishing the Obama Administration Cap & Trade legislation and laws that mandate CO2 emissions cuts and Carbon markets as a way to transfer wealth and technology to the developing world for Low Carbon economic growth.

However these verbal flourishes and spoken words are not to be confused with achievements, but at least they show that a sea change is afoot. Countries have started to analyse their own emissions seriously and to develop domestic agendas that would set them on course to meet their commitments. Such unilateral decisions are an essential starting point for an international agreement, and they suggest that countries are now ready to back up their rhetoric in a way that was not true 12 years ago, when they signed the Kyoto Protocol. This is real progress, and it would not have happened without the pressure to produce a treaty.

Nevertheless, such vows fall short of what is needed to protect against the dangers of global warming. Nations need to reduce global emissions far more in the longer term, and the endgame gets much tougher if leaders delay making those reductions.

In a package of deals in Copenhagen, we should focus on factors concerning the developing world, which will endure some of the severest effects of climate change and which will also be responsible for much of the future growth in greenhouse-gas emissions. At the moment, major gaps remain between the world’s wealthiest nations and those still in the process of providing their citizens with basics such as clean water and electricity.

The negotiating impasse can be breached only by concessions on both sides. Developed nations, particularly the United States, must agree to substantial reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions, both in the next decade and in the long term. And developing nations must commit to controlling their greenhouse-gas pollution in some fashion. China has recently taken over as the leader in carbon dioxide emissions and there can be no hope of containing global temperatures without Chinese action.

At the same time, developing nations will need monetary and technical assistance in steering their economies towards a low-carbon future. The wealthy nations have so far committed too little on this front, and the effects of the global recession have tightened budgets around the world. But as economies improve, the wealthiest nations should fashion innovative ways to assist the developing world, whether through the proceeds of carbon trading or through new technical collaborations.

Another major financial obstacle is the issue of support for adaptation. Some estimates suggest that the developing world will require in excess of US$100 billion in aid every year to cope with the effects of global warming. But the international funds created to help adaptation efforts in the world’s poorest nations contain orders of magnitude less money, and even the available funds have not flowed smoothly to countries in need. The process of distributing funds should be streamlined. But there must be safeguards to ensure that adaptation money is used effectively.

With such major issues still unresolved, pessimistic observers see no chance of success in Copenhagen. But there is still time left for leaders to reach significant agreements if they make it a personal priority and recognize the urgency of the problem. Some leaders, such as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, have indicated that they would be willing to attend the conference to seal a deal, but more should step forward and they should commit to going. This would lend stature to the negotiations and would raise the chances of achieving a substantial agreement.

It will not be possible to resolve many of the important issues in the remaining time this year. But leaders could make strong progress by building on the momentum at the national level. Many of the commitments made by nations this year are conditional — they depend on other parties taking specific actions as well. These could provide a model for approaching strong targets through a stepwise process.

In the end, successful international negotiations share some important characteristics with scientific research. Both are iterative processes, in which results from one step help to determine the path forward. They require time and perseverance. And they rarely travel in a straight line. Countries should endeavour to build on the positive actions of the past year, both before and after the Copenhagen summit.

Work and Lobby hard your leaders to ”Be in Copenhagen”

Only united leaders can bring change. And that’s what distinguishes real leaders from wannabes.

So we invite all real leaders to ”Be in Copenhagen” 

A simple act of greatness and a TIVOLI to play at, if you get bored at the negotiating all-nighters.

Just ”Be in Copenhagen” –  the party will be stupendous.

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