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Democracy Now:
World leaders gathered at the United Nations on Tuesday for a one-day global summit on climate change. The conference drew nearly 100 heads of state and came 70 days before the major climate summit in Copenhagen in December to update the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon opened the talks saying the failure to reach a new treaty this year on fighting global warming would be “morally inexcusable.”
President Barack Obama, in his first speech at the United Nations, said the United States was “determined” to act on global warming but offered no specific proposals to jumpstart talks on a UN climate pact: "It is true that for too many years mankind has been slow to respond or even recognize the magnitude of the climate threat. It is true of my own country as well, we recognize that...I am proud to say that the U.S. has done more to promote clean energy and reduce carbon pollution in the last 8 months than at any other time in our history."
All eyes were also on China’s president, Hu Jintao. China and the United States account for more than 40 percent of the worlds carbon emissions. In his address, Hu Jintao spoke of reducing emissions by a “notable” margin but did not give a specific target.
Hu Jintao and Obama are scheduled to meet for one-on-one talks after the summit. Both leaders will then head to Pittsburgh for the G20 summit where climate change is a top agenda item.
Scientists and activists are warning that the international community is at a crossroads and must take decisive steps to tackle global warming. Earlier this week, Nobel peace laureate Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, warned that current emissions trajectories were speeding the world toward the panel’s worst-case possibilities, including heatwaves, droughts, melting glaciers, loss of the Greenland ice sheet and other dangers.
Continuing the discussion on Democracy Now: For more we are joined by three guests, Andrew Revkin is an award-winning science reporter with the New York Times and writes the “Dot Earth” blog for the Times website. He was at the UN covering the climate summit yesterday and he joins us in our firehouse studio. Joining us from Washington DC is Ted Glick, policy director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. And joining us from Pittsburgh is Anna Pinto, she is an indigenous rights activist from India who is there as part of the New Voices on Climate Change program. She represents the Meitei from northeastern India and is the co-founder of CORE.
Here are some of the highlights from the conversation:
AR: India could triple their emissions in the next 30 years, so they are offering a more specific position than the vague positions taken by the US and China. India almost matters more than China in the future because China's population will stabalize.
China and the US are basically equal on gross carbon emissions, with China having 3 times the population of us. Basically we've had a fossil fuel party the past century, and now nations that have done this are rich. Some are saying the established powers owe a climate debt to the developing nations if the developing nations are expected to cut emissions as well. Obama must get 2/3 senate approval before signing any treaty, therefore he must be realistic and sober about what he can and can't do. Environmental groups are unhappy about the lack of specifics caused by this real world stance taken by Obama. The Maldives are one of the countries very threatened by climate changed already.
AP: Tells the story of the sub Himalayan region in India where climate change has already directly affected the population, by causing melting of the Himalayan glaciers which causes flooding. Also erratic monsoon season rains due to climate change cause drought as well as flash flooding. When your land has dried out years in succession due to droughts, or your land is flooded, you don't have anything in terms of options but to move away. These severe weather effects are driving massive migrations and these people end up in slums and vunerable to human trafficking, among other dangers. Very often development is posited against climate change action and that is a fallacy.
TG: One of the underreported presentations at the UN was made by the president of the Maldives, "We come to these conferences , we rail against the injustices, we go back home and cool off, and the world continues as it is." Given the seriousness and the severity of this crisis, and the fact that it is here, its not in the future, the response is just not sufficient. This statement includes people who see themselves as progressive activists, as people who care about justice, as people who believe that we need to organize and mobilize to bring about change.
Fortunately there are opportunities this fall for those of us who get it, on the severity, the seriousness, and the immediacy, to take action. Most immediately, on October 24th, an international day of action is being organized by 350.org, and 115 countries are participating in this day. A very important way to keep building momentum leading up to Copenhagen. Non-violence/civil disobedience happening on November 30th around the world organized by Mobilization for Climate Justice. During Copenhagen, on December 12th, a global day of action is being organized by the Global Climate Campaign. Major opportunities at the grassroots level can, from below, bring the kind of pressure that absolutely needs to be brought. There has been movement on this issue but its absolutely time to step it up and intensify it.
The Obama administration certainly gets the issue in a way that the Bush administration did not. The problem is that Coal and Oil interests still have a major stranglehold on Capitol Hill. We need to break this stranglehold to get the kind of legislation we need to get on a clean energy path, and that wont happen without significant mobilization on a global scale.
