Climate change: a post-COP15 diagnosis

| December 21, 2009

Not surprisingly, interpretations of the outcome from COP15 range from an outstanding success to an utter disaster, and everything in between.  Political leaders claim a big step forward towards climate protection, while the vast majority of the NGOs who flocked to Copenhagen blast the outcome as, at best, a wasted opportunity.

In many ways, views on the outcome of COP15 were strongly conditioned by expectations, especially for those who thought that the Copenhagen conference would ‘seal the deal’ for limiting anthropogenic climate change to a temperature rise of no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. But a comprehensive, final agreement was never really in the cards, even months before the meeting itself. The real question was whether COP15 would make enough progress to build unstoppable momentum towards a much tougher, legally binding agreement sometime in the next 6 to 12 months.

In judging COP15, it must be remembered that this was by far the most complex negotiation that humanity has ever attempted. What important messages did we learn from the effort?

First, we learned that managing the global commons is really complex and difficult. The atmosphere is owned by no single country or group of countries, and yet affects all of us. The climate system, which includes not only the atmosphere but also the oceans, land and cryosphere (snow and ice), is claimed in part by 192 human jurisdictions (and many more at sub-national level) and is partially managed in piecemeal fashion by some of them. Yet the climate behaves as a single, complex system at the scale of the planet. We are nowhere near having the institutions and governance arrangements necessary to build effective stewardship of the climate system.
 
Second, we are paying a big price for not dealing effectively with equity issues, which is coming back to haunt us. Large and stubborn gulfs separate groups of people within countries, and separate the wealthy countries, the emerging economies and the poorest nations on Earth. I suspect that humanity will never be able to act as an effective steward for the global commons until these persistent inequities are significantly reduced or eliminated, once and for all.
 
Third, the enormity of the risk we are taking has not really sunk in yet. We are running the very real risk that we could rapidly drive our own life support system into a state much less amenable for humanity’s well-being. In a worst case scenario, unabated climate change could lead to the unravelling and then collapse of globalised, contemporary society, driving a rapid and uncontrollable drop in population, rampant disease and massive suffering, shattered economies and broken societies, and causing a wave of extinctions and ecosystem disruptions in the natural world. The global patient – human society – has been diagnosed as having the symptoms of a serious and potentially fatal disease, and yet is acting as though it is a mere headache – a couple of aspirins, a glass of water, a good night’s sleep and everything will be okay in the morning.
 
So what is the scorecard from Copenhagen? It was a step forward, but not nearly as big as many hoped for. The ultimate criterion is whether the momentum continues to build through 2010 towards a much more comprehensive and effective agreement. The science is absolutely clear and growing even stronger – unabated climate change means serious, and perhaps even existential, risks. Has COP15 delivered a big enough push to switch society onto a no-carbon, sustainable pathway?
 
The jury is still out.
 
This blog was first published by the East Asia Forum on 20 December 2009 and is republished at Open Forum with their kind permission.
 
 
 
Professor Will Steffen is Executive Director of the ANU Climate Change Institute.
 
SHARE WITH:

0 Comments

  1. Gab J

    December 1, 2010 at 8:37 am

    This issues are being

    This issues are being discussed in climate summit, a conference wherein concerns on environment are being tackled. Many delegates participate in this meeting. Cancun, Mexico is the site of an international climate meeting that began Monday. The Cancun climate summit began with little fanfare and reduced goals from environment change analysts. The belief that the United Nations has failed to bring creating and developed countries together on environment change leads many to assume the Cancun summit is absolutely nothing but “climate change theater.”