UN Climate Change Summit

In the opening session of the Climate Summit at the UN on the 22nd of September, presidents and prime ministers spoke about the challenge of climate change.  General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon urged leaders to take action and to make the Copenhagen Climate Change conference a new path forward.  For me, the Climate Summit did not herald a new era of climate change politics.  Yet I could see in it the promise of new possibilities.   

Of the leaders who spoke, all appreciated the gravity of the situation and stated their commitment to taking action.  The two major countries on which any agreement in Copenhagen will depend, USA and China, extolled both their present level of commitment to clean energies and their intention of doing even more.  China stated its commitment to cut its carbon-dioxide emission intensity by a "wide margin."  And US President Obama pledged America's commitment, recognizing that developed countries have a responsibility to lead.  Neither sought to deny the existence of climate change, nor did they (verbally) shirk their responsibility for doing something about it. 

Promising as this was, I couldn’t help wishing that these leaders would put even more on the table, make more concrete proposals.  It was therefore encouraging to hear the newly elected prime minister of Japan express his resolve to make Japan a climate leader, and reduce emissions by 25% of 1990 levels by 2020.  The urgency of the challenge was poignantly presented by the President of the Maldives, whose country's existence is imperiled by rising sea-levels.  The Maldives have themselves committed to become carbon neutral by 2020. 

At first I didn’t know what to make of this.  The political changes on the topic of climate change have been slow.  And to me this was also too slow.  But they are moving in the right direction, and more than once did the speakers say that climate change is not just a challenge, it is an opportunity to change for the better.  And this consciousness is crucial in a world where oil is running out, where international cooperation is still a challenge, where global inequalities persist, and which has been marked by a mindset of short time-horizons. 

This aspect of the climate change debate has been explored in the Baha'i International Community statement on climate change.  Developing an adequate institutional framework for intergovernmental cooperation is crucial for our efforts to manage climate change. The cooperative skills and institutions we must develop for adequately dealing with the issue can serve as the basis for further cooperation on other international issues, such as economy and disarmament.  This challenge presses on us, yet again, something we should have learned long ago: humanity is one.  When we as individuals, societies, governments, fully understand what it means for humanity to be collectively facing a global challenge of tremendous consequences, we can no longer stand by and watch the suffering of others.  This is, in the words of the Baha'i International Community, the "opportunity to take the next step in the transition from a state-centered mode of interacting on the world state to one rooted in the unity which connects us as the inhabitants of one biosphere."