Three Months to Go

The clock is ticking. In just three short months negotiators from across the globe will meet in the Danish capital, Copenhagen to thrash out a new climate agreement. It is safe to say that what happens – or doesn’t happen – in Copenhagen will shape our future for many years to come.

The talks in Copenhagen represent the deadline for agreeing a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which runs out in 2012. The Kyoto Agreement – which currently governs worldwide reductions in greenhouse gas emissions – was inadequate for two main reasons. Firstly because the emissions reductions signed up to were insufficient and secondly, because major states like the US refused to ratify it! The same cannot happen at Copenhagen.

New figures estimate that over 300,000 people are dying every year because of climate change. The vast majority of these people live in developing countries where people are suffering the worst effects of climate change despite having done the least to cause it. Industrialised countries like the UK are historically responsible for climate change, having emitted over 76% of global greenhouse gas emissions since records began. Therefore it is up to wealthy nations like ours to act first and act fast.

While industrialised countries have committed to keeping global temperature rises below 2°C – the amount identified by science as what is necessary to avoid run-away climate change – their rhetoric has not been matched with action. To meet this target, wealthy nations must cut their greenhouse gas emissions by more than 40% by 2020 (based on 1990 levels). But to date, industrialised countries have pledged to reduce their emissions on average by just 15%. Australia has agreed to reduce its emissions by between 5-15% and the US – one of the worst offenders – has pledged just 4-5% by 2020 on 1990 levels – and that’s only if draft climate change legislation doesn’t get thrown out of the US Senate in the coming weeks!

History must not repeat itself – we cannot end up with a replica of Kyoto. That is why, as SCIAF’s Policy Analyst, I have been following the UN climate negotiations this year in person and will continue to watch them closely (and hopefully help to influence them) over the coming weeks and months. I’ll be writing a blog tracking progress in the negotiations right up to the final day of the Copenhagen Summit so bookmark this page for the latest updates from the front line of the climate negotiations!