World must take decisive action on climate change

With the only result being a non-binding statement that temperature rises should be limited to 2 degrees Celsius, without specifying how this will be done, leaders of rich countries have shown themselves to be remarkably impotent. The citizens of this world have asked their leaders to act; polls show some nine in ten people are concerned about the environment. They expect nothing more of their leaders than to lead on this issue, to put aside self-interest, to rise above the threats of powerful lobby groups, to move beyond politics. These politicians have acknowledged what the science is saying but, by not acting, they will be complicit in the ensuing runaway climate change that is otherwise a certainty.

Developed nations - historically responsible for climate change - have offered developing countries financial assistance of up to US$100 billion (Bt3.33 trillion) annually by 2020, with priority given to vulnerable nations, while at the same time not committing to emissions cuts needed to avert runaway climate change. The funding for developing countries will go some way towards helping them adapt to the harshest effects of climate change that are already becoming a reality - rising sea levels, crop failure resulting from extremely frequent weather events and climate-related deaths. However there is no guarantee the Copenhagen Accord will even be implemented, since it has not been formally adopted by the Conference of Parties (COP).

Despite the fact that the US is the biggest polluter per capita in the world, it has to date only offered emissions cuts of a paltry 3 per cent based on 1990 levels, while painting China as presenting the biggest hurdle to a comprehensive agreement. Although China in 2009 overtook the US as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, when population is taken into account, China, like India and Brazil, still emits a relatively small proportion and millions of its citizens continue to live in poverty. Rich countries must show their willingness to commit to strong action on climate change before expecting poorer nations to pull their weight. But the public relations exercise in abdicating responsibility by those best placed to offer a solution has well and truly begun.

With the Copenhagen talks narrowly escaping collapse, the biggest gathering of world leaders in the history of the United Nations has merely resulted in deferred action, again. This is despite the fact that the sooner countries act on climate change, the lower the cost, in the findings of economics and climate-change expert Lord Nicholas Stern. And modelling presented by Greenpeace has shown how moving to a low-carbon economy is cheaper in the long run.

Greenpeace has undertaken extensive research and modelling to come up with our blueprint for change," Energy [R]evolution", in conjunction with specialists from the Institute of Technical Thermodynamics at the German Aerospace Centre and more than 30 scientists and engineers from universities, institutes and the renewable energy industry around the world. We have outlined how investments can move away from dirty energy resources, creating green jobs along the way. Living standards need not be compromised but the shift will be in an increased focus on energy efficiency, innovations in design and better use of 100 per cent renewable resources such as the sun, which alone can generate six times more energy than the world needs. So how can we make renewables more cost-effective? Simply by removing anti-competitive impediments - if the hefty $250 billion annual subsidies to the fossil fuel industry are removed (and their external costs such as climate-change related damage taken into account), renewable energy actually becomes cheaper than conventional energy.

Negotiations on the way forward have being going on for too long - indeed Copenhagen was to be the deadline for a global agreement on emissions cuts following the launch of the Bali Road Map two years ago. For heads of state to deliver, it is crucial that developed countries pledge deep emissions cuts within a month, as set out in Copenhagen, and that a legally bound agreement be signed at climate change talks in Bonn in six months.

There is no room for compromise because our future is threatened by temperature rises of 2 degrees Celsius and beyond. And as Tuvalu, Caribbean, African nations and others have made clear, even rises between 1.5C and 2C threaten the survival of low-lying islands and promise further hardship in less-developed countries. This is why Greenpeace is calling for cuts of at least 40 per cent by 2020 by industrialised countries. Rises of 2C should not be seen as the ideal, but as the best of a bad lot, because anything more condemns the world to dangerous climate change. Vulnerable nations may be the ones to feel the first and harshest effects of global warming but developed countries are in no way immune. For the sake of our planet and future generations, we must be uncompromising in our push to seal a legally binding deal for deep emissions cuts. Greenpeace and others have outlined how this is not only possible but also economically sound. The only thing needed is political will.

TARA BUAKAMSRI is a campaign manager of Greenpeace Southeast Asia.