[Reader-list] 56 newspapers

[Nagraj Adve]

This editorial was I believe carried by 56 newspapers today in 20 languages.
Naga



Today 56 newspapers <http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/newspapers> in 45
countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a
common editorial<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/06/climate-change-leader-editorial>.
We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.

Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate
change<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/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 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/copenhagen> 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 emails 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 towards one could only begin with the arrival of President
Obama in the White House and the reversal of years of US 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 US
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 UN climate meeting in Bonn 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 tonnes of carbon that we can emit before the mercury rises to dangerous
levels.

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<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2009/nov/26/us-china-targets-mean>by
the world's biggest polluters, the United
States<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/25/barack-obama-copenhagen>and
China<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/26/china-targets-cut-carbon-footprint>,
were important steps in the right direction.

Social justice demands that the industrialised 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 EU 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.

*This editorial will be published tomorrow by 56 newspapers around the world
in 20 languages including Chinese, Arabic and Russian. The text was drafted
by a Guardian team during more than a month of consultations with editors
from more than 20 of the papers involved. Like the
Guardian<http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/theguardian>most of the
newspapers have taken the unusual step of featuring the
editorial on their front page.*