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	Can our leaders work together to save us from ourselves by Kofi A. Annan AllAfrica / Global Humanitarian Forum   Dec. 2009   Copenhagen must lay the basis for a global regime and subsequent agreements that limit global temperature rise in accordance with the scientific evidence.   Any agreement must provide clarity on the mobilization and volume of financial resources to support developing countries to adapt to climate change.   The stakes are enormous. Economic growth has been achieved at great environmental and social cost, aggravating inequality and human vulnerability.   The irreparable damage that is being inflicted on ecosystems, agricultural productivity, forests and water systems is accelerating. Threats to health, life and livelihoods are growing. Disasters are also increasing in scale and frequency.   But despite the mounting evidence of negative impacts, reaching a deal will not be easy. A mindset shift is required. Distrust and competition persist between regions and nations, manifest in a "no, you must show your cards first" attitude that has dogged the negotiations leading up to Copenhagen. This has to be overcome.   A deal that is not based on the best scientific evidence will be nothing better than a line in the sand as the tide comes in. But short term considerations, including from special interest groups and electoral demands, are working against long term solutions.   Success in reaching a deal will require leaders to think for future generations, and for citizens other than their own.   It will require them to think about inclusive and comprehensive arrangements, not just a patched up compilation of national or regional interests.   A deal that stops at rhetoric and does not actually meet the needs of the poorest and most climate vulnerable countries simply will not work. The climate cannot be "fixed" in one continent and not another.   Climate change does not respect national borders. We are all in the same boat; a hole at one end will sink us all.   For it to work, climate justice must be at the heart of the agreement. An unfair deal will come unstuck.   Industrialized countries such as the United States must naturally take the lead in reducing emissions and supporting others to follow suit, but developing countries like India or China also have an increasing responsibility to do so as their economies continue to grow.   Tragically, it is the poorest and least responsible who are having to bear the brunt of the climate challenge as rising temperatures exacerbate poverty, hunger and vulnerability to disease for billions of people.   They need both immediate help to strengthen their climate resilience as well as long-term support to enable them to adapt to changing weather patterns, reduce deforestation, and pursue low-emissions, clean energy growth strategies.   The deal must include a package of commitments in line with the science and the imperative of reducing global emissions by 50-85 percent relative to 2000 levels by 2050.   This requires a schedule for richer countries to move to 25-40 percent emission cuts by 2020 from 1990 baselines; clear measures for emerging economies to cut emissions intensity; and clarity about both immediate and longer term finance and technical support for developing countries, notably the poorest and most vulnerable among them.   Much greater specificity on finance is needed. Existing ODA commitments to help the poorest countries meet the Millennium Development Goals need to be met.   And significant additional finance that is separate from and additional to ODA needs to be mobilized to support them meet the costs generated by climate change.   A deal which is not clear on the finance will be both unacceptable to developing countries, and unworkable.   A successful deal could incentivize not only good stewardship of forests and more sustainable land use, but also massive investment into low carbon growth and a healthier planet, including in sectors such as energy generation, construction and transportation.   And it could usher in an era of qualitatively new international cooperation based upon common but differentiated responsibilities - not just for managing climate change, but for human development, social justice and global security.   Ultimately, at stake is whether our leaders can work to help us save ourselves from well, from ourselves.   * Kofi A. Annan is the former UN Secretary-General, Chairman of the Africa Progress Panel and President of the Global Humanitarian Forum. Visit the related web page
	450 Parts Per Million is still Self-Destructive by Bob Burton Center for Media and Democracy USA   Dec. 2009   Whatever the outcome of the final hours of wrangling at the COP15 conference in Copenhagen, the odds are that the leaders of some of the world"s richest countries will earnestly declare that they are working hard to stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at 450 parts per million (ppm) and ensure that global average temperatures don"t exceed 2 degrees centigrade. Barring spectacular last-minute breakthroughs, such claims would be outlandish greenwash.   There are two problems with such claims. Firstly, is the suggestion that the current emission reduction commitments of major emitters is enough to stabilize emissions at 450 parts per million. (By way of background, the pre-industrial carbon dioxide concentrations were approximately 280ppm and current concentrations, as of November 2009, are just under 386 ppm.)   An analysis by the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which was prepared on Tuesday night and subsequently leaked to the Guardian, warns that unless developed countries substantially increase their proposed emission cuts the world is on track to exceed 550 ppm and average temperature increases of 3 degrees.   Other analysis have estimated higher end points. Climate Action Tracker estimates that the current national commitments on the table would end up stabilizing carbon dioxide concentrations at approximately 650ppm. Another estimate, by the Sustainability Institute, estimates that it would put the global climate on track for 780ppm.   Even if the UNFCCC"s figure is the most accurate, it is a huge increase over pre-industrial levels and a lot, lot more than current concentrations.   Secondly, a bland statement that the goal is to keep the global average increase to 2 degrees masks the fact that averages can be very deceptive. Desmond Tutu, referring to an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) analysis he had been shown, told a side event at COP15 that "to keep temperature increase in Africa to below 1.5 degrees C requires a global goal of less than 1 degree C; keeping it below 2 degrees in Africa would require a global goal of less than 1.3 degrees C. that is the crux of the matter. A global goal of about 2 degrees C is to condemn Africa to incineration and no modern development. And then of course there is the matter of funding mitigation and adaptation."   For this reason, the Africa Group has been an outspoken critic of the failure of the industrialized countries to put forward ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. The Alliance of Small Island States, a coalition of low-lying countries vulnerable to even small increases in sea-level, have also been insistent on adopting the target of 350 ppm in order to keep global average temperature increases below 1.5 degrees increase. Without the industrialized countries putting ambitious targets on the table, China, India and Brazil have balked at taking on substantial commitments themselves.   If nothing else comes out of COP15, the strength of the advocacy for a 350 ppm limit by an increasing number of very vulnerable countries and a broad global citizens movement has profoundly changed the dynamics of the global climate change negotiations. (The 350ppm goal followed the publication of Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?, an influential paper by James Hansen, the director of NASA"s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and several colleagues).   If political leaders emerge from Copenhagen claiming that they are on track for achieving a 450 ppm stabilization target, it is worth remembering that the evidence just doesn"t support that. And even if they did, why would anyone proclaim that adding another 64ppm of carbon dioxide into the global atmosphere is something to be proud of, given what we already know about the impacts of current concentration levels?
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