Greenpeace welcomes the position taken by Ministers of the BASIC group of countries (Brazil, China, India and South Africa), who met yesterday in New Delhi, to continue negotiations on a fair and ambitious climate agreement within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. However, Greenpeace emphasised that such an agreement needs to be legally binding in order to ensure its implementation.

In their joint statement, ministers from the four leading emerging economies called for meetings of the climate convention’s working groups on long-term co-operative action and the Kyoto Protocol to be held in March 2010. They also want the working groups to meet at least five times before the next major UN climate conference which is scheduled to start on 29 November 2010, in Mexico.

The Ministers underlined that UN climate talks occupy a central position and they called for all negotiations to be conducted in an inclusive and transparent manner. They also outlined their desire for better South-South scientific co-operation and support for vulnerable countries to adapt to climate change.Greenpeace is encouraged by the willingness of the BASIC group to support vulnerable countries, both by ensuring their participation in open and transparent negotiations and by providing technological and or financial support.

However, Greenpeace is calling on the BASIC countries to make this support more tangible by the time of its next meeting that the South African government is to host in April 2010.

Greenpeace also noted the further consolidation of the BASIC countries as a group and urges them to assume the responsibilities that go with an alliance of such influential economic powers.
Though the BASIC countries demonstrating leadership in furthering negotiations on a fair, ambitious and legally binding agreement, Greenpeace wants them to exert pressure on industrialised counties tourgently reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make their own appropriate contributions in emission reductions.

“Continued inaction by governments would allow global warming to engulf us all,” said Siddharth Pathak, Climate and Energy Policy Officer, Greenpeace India. “If we are to keep this demon at bay and avoid dangerous climate change, industrialised countries must cut their emissions together, 40% below 1990 levels by 2020 and provide massive financial and technological support to enable developing nations as a whole to reduce their projected growth in emissions by 15-30% over the same timescale. It’s not easy but the consequences of failure would be among our worst nightmares,” he said.

The four 'Red Carpet Activists', from the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Switzerland, were arrested following a peaceful protest at the start of a State Banquet hosted by Queen Margret the II for world leaders attending the Copenhagen climate summit. The four activists are: Juan A Lopez de Uralde, (Spanish), Executive Director, Greenpeace Spain Nora Christiansen, (Norwegian), Development Manager, resident in Denmark Christian Schmutz, (Swiss), Greenpeace Switzerland Joris Thijssen, (Dutch), Climate Campaigner, Greenpeace International Photographer: © Klaus Holsting/ Greenpeace

Copenhagen, 6 January 2010 – Danish police today released from custody four Greenpeace climate protesters who have endured 20 days of pre-trial detention in Copenhagen prison following a harmless peaceful protest staged on the evening of 17 December. Their release comes a day in advance of their detention being reviewed by a Danish judge. The four activists still face trial in the Danish courts, and possible prison sentences.

The four “Red Carpet Activists”, from the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Switzerland, were arrested following a peaceful protest at the start of a State Banquet hosted by Queen Margrethe II for world leaders attending the Copenhagen climate summit. Mads Christensen, Executive Director, Greenpeace Nordic, welcomed their release from custody but was scathing of the Danish authorities. He said, “The unnecessary imprisonment of these four peaceful activists has effectively been punishment without trial. It has piled a further ‘climate injustice’ on top of world leaders’ failure to agree a legally binding treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The alleged ‘crime’ is that the Four aimed to impress upon world leaders the urgency of acting to prevent catastrophic climate change. The length of their detention without trial is out of all proportion to what was a simple and harmless protest with a legitimate objective.”

Following the arrests of the Four, Greenpeace guaranteed – as it does in cases where volunteers are involved in peaceful protests – that, if the activists were released, they would voluntarily return to Copenhagen to stand trial. To further facilitate the police investigation, Greenpeace consistently offered its full co-operation to Danish police and provided them with comprehensive details of the activity. A request from Greenpeace asking the Danish police to specify what additional information they needed to know in connection with the case was met with two weeks of silence on the part of the police. Only on Tuesday 5 January, did Danish police finally request the names of other individuals who had been in the Greenpeace ‘motorcade’ on 17 December. Today, these individuals volunteered their details, removing the last conceivable reason for detention.

On the evening of 17 December 2009, three of the activists posing as a ‘Head of State of the Natural Kingdom’, his ‘wife’ and a security detail were waved through the security cordon around the Heads of State banquet, that was held immediately prior to the crucial final day of the Copenhagen climate summit. The ‘Head of State’ and his ‘wife’ unfurled banners reading, “Politicians Talk, Leaders Act”. A fourth activist was later arrested. The protest was far from a sophisticated operation. It relied entirely on simple, readily available materials and had elements of farce. For instance, Greenpeace logos displayed on the windscreens of vehicles hired by Greenpeace to arrive at the banquet were in one case wedged in place by a pair of socks. One of the car number plates included “007″ – a reference to James Bond. Blue ‘police’ lights on top of another vehicle were purchased for DKK 50 (Euro 6.70) via the internet.

Leaders failed to heed Greenpeace’s call. The Copenhagen climate summit ended in failure by agreeing only to note the ‘Copenhagen Accord’, an empty document containing no legally binding commitments for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Despite the summit being seen as the moment for decisive action, world leaders failed to set legally binding targets to prevent the Earth from warming more than 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels. Beyond this crucial threshold, global warming’s impacts are expected to severely affect the survival and wellbeing of millions of people and countless species.

British human rights lawyer Richard Harvey questioned whether such detention is in line with European and international norms. Harvey said, “The Danish authorities must regard legitimate protest as an essential element of democratic discourse and freedom of expression. Such prolonged pre-trial detention appears to be a flagrant violation of key articles of international human rights agreements requiring those awaiting trial to be released when they guarantee to appear in court and for them to be entitled to trial within a reasonable time.” The Danish situation is in stark contrast to that in the United States where, on Monday 4 January 2010, 11 Greenpeace activists were sentenced for a climate protest staged in July 2009 at the Mount Rushmore national monument.

Their banner, placed alongside the image of President Lincoln, carried the face of President Obama and the text, “America Honors Leaders, Not Politicians. Stop Global Warming”. The court in South Dakota allowed the activists to return home pending trial. This also included an activist resident in the Netherlands. In sentencing the activists, the judge in South Dakota noted the care exercised by the activists, their motivations and the tradition of peaceful protest in the United States. The sentences ranged from 50-100 hours of community service to a maximum of two days in jail.

Copenhagen, 19 December 2009 – Greenpeace today staged a candle-lit vigil outside Vestre Fængsel (prison), in Copenhagen, calling for the immediate release of four of its activists who face spending Christmas in a Danish jail. Three of the activists took part in the peaceful protest at the Danish Queen’s Heads of State dinner, last Thursday, during the Copenhagen Climate Summit.

Over 100 Greenpeace staff and supporters holding banners reading “Freedom From Climate Injustice” took part in the vigil where the activists are being held in isolation and without trial.

“Copenhagen has become a ‘climate crime scene’ after over 120 Heads of State squandered an historic opportunity to agree a climate saving deal,” said Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace International Executive Director.

“While the perpetrators of the real crime fled the country on private jets, it is shocking that the Danish authorities have decided to detain, without trial, four peaceful protesters over Christmas.”

“Their families will spend a bleak festive season knowing that their loved ones will be languishing in isolation for acting to save the climate. For standing up in defense of the hundreds of millions of people and countless species which will be severely affected by catastrophic climate change.”

All three activists have children at home who will be missing a parent this Christmas. The activists – Juan Lopez de Uralde, Nora Christiansen and Christian Schmutz – are the climate heroes who brought home to world leaders attending last Thursday’s banquet with Queen Margrethe the message that leaders were failing the climate.

The activists joined Heads of State from over 120 countries en route to the banquet at the Danish Parliament. Arriving in a three-vehicle convoy, immediately in front of Hilary Clinton, a Greenpeace ‘Head of State’ and his ‘wife’ stepped out onto the red carpet as representatives of the millions of people around the world who wanted
a fair, ambitious and legally binding treaty to head-off climate catastrophe.

Holding up banners reading: “Politicians Talk, Leaders Act”, the activists demanded action and not merely words from Presidents and Prime Ministers during their Friday session of the climate summit.

Yesterday, police also arrested Joris Thijssen, a climate campaigner at Greenpeace International. He is being held under the same conditions as the other three activists.

“Like the outcome of the Copenhagen conference, this is a total sham and a climate injustice,” said Mads Flarup Christensen, Greenpeace Nordic Executive Director and husband of Nora Christensen. “The real crime was committed in the Bella Center, where the climate talks took place.”

New Delhi, 19 December 2009 – Global leaders have today failed to act to avert catastrophic climate change, says Greenpeace.

A weak outcome has so-far emerged from the UN climate summit. The deal is not ambitious, unfair, not legally binding and likely to put the world on a path to at least a 3C temperature rise.

Siddharth Pathak, Climate & Energy Policy Adviser who is in Copenhagen said: “The Indian Government’s attitude to climate change this year showed that it is willing to shoulder responsibility and be a global player on climate action. The Prime Minister had gone to Copenhagen from a position of strength only to squander it to the near-farcical accord and a weak outcome. He failed India and the world when he let the US and developed countries off the hook.”

“700 million Indians are dependent on climate sensitive sectors and resources. The failure to reach an ambitious and legally binding agreement pushes them further to the brink”, said Vinuta Gopal, Climate Campaign Manager, Greenpeace India.

Earlier, commenting on the outcome of the summit, Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo said: “The city of Copenhagen is a climate crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport. World leaders had a once in a generation chance to change the world for good, to avert catastrophic climate change. In the end they produced a poor deal full of loopholes big enough to fly Air Force One through. We have seen a year of crises, but today it is clear that the biggest crisis facing humanity is a leadership crisis.”

“Climate science says we have only a few years left to halt the rise in emissions before making the kind of rapid reductions that would give us the best chance of avoiding dangerous climate change. We cannot change that science, so instead we will have to change the politics – and we may well have to change the politicians.

“This is not over, people everywhere demanded a real deal before the Summit began and they are still demanding it. We can still save hundreds of millions of people from the devastation of a warming world, but it has just become a whole lot harder.”

Hope withers in Copenhagen

Like tens of millions of people around the world who have been working so long and so hard for a fair, ambitious and legally binding (FAB) treaty to come out of the Copenhagen climate summit, I held on to my hope until the very end. My hope our leaders would stop talking and start acting. That they would agree a treaty to avert the threat of climate catastrophe.

My hope has been dashed. Despite a mandate from citizens around the world, and over 120 world leaders attending the Summit, the bickering continued. Our leaders did not lead, they did not act. The summit has failed to produce anything that could be called a FAB deal.

The city of Copenhagen is a climate crime scene, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport in shame. World leaders had a chance to change the world. To seize the day, and put us on a path way to peace and prosperity. To embark on a path of climate justice. In doing so, they could have banished the spectre of catastrophic climate change.

In the end they produced a poor deal full of loopholes big enough to fly Air Force One through.

Trust went missing

A lack of trust between developed and developing countries played a large role in preventing any real progress. Leaders from industrialised countries have had plenty of time to commit to ambitious greenhouse gas emission reductions and to find the billions of dollars needed to help developing countries both adapt to and mitigate climate change.

Developing countries showed a willingness throughout the year to take on their share of the effort. Developed countries failed to move far enough. Bringing up the rear has been the US. It must take the lion’s share of the blame.

Beating climate change

Climate scientists around the world tell us we have to ensure global emissions peak by 2015 in order to avoid average global temperature rising more than 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels.

To achieve this, industrialised countries as a group – which have the greatest historic responsibility for the problem – must make the largest emission cuts. They also need to provide at least USD 140 billion a year to help developing countries get onto a clean energy pathway, to protect tropical forests, and to adapt to those climate change impacts that are unfortunately now inevitable.
Any agreement must be enshrined in a legally binding treaty. This is the job the politicians did not do in Copenhagen.

Make them finish what they started

It is now our job – yours and mine – to make sure our ‘leaders’ see sense, get back to work get the job done!

Greenpeace, like many other groups around the world, will continue to peacefully pressure our leaders to do what must be done to save human lives and protect species which cannot speak for themselves.

More and more people are recognising the urgency of climate change. We believe there is an historic inevitability of forcing nations to act. The question is, whether we can force them to take the necessary action soon enough.

The final rub

In a cruel irony I have just learned that the three Greenpeace activists who, posing as world leaders, entered the Danish Palace for the State Dinner on Thursday night to unfurl a banner calling for a real climate deal are to spend the next three weeks in jail.

They will be away from their families over Christmas and the New Year. The real leaders, who attempted to get real action are now in jail, while the alleged ‘leaders’ got clean away, and are fleeing the Copenhagen climate crime scene in private jets and 747s.

Kumi Naidoo

Executive Director

Greenpeace International

Right now heads of state from around the world are sitting in a conference centre in Copenhagen deciding the fate of the planet. This is the culmination of many months of hopes, prayers and above all hard work from millions of activists around the world. We’ve written, we’ve marched, we’ve debated, some of us have even been arrested and now we wait. While we wait all around the world we are holding a vigil of HOPE – a hope that our leaders will follow where we the people have shown the way. A hope that they will reach a fair, ambitious and binding deal at Copenhagen, a deal that will reduce emissions around the world and prevent dangerous temperature rises and the catastrophic results that would ensue.

This vigil also marks the end of the Climate Justice fast – in the spirit of real leaders past such as Gandhi, thousands of people have gone without food during the Copenhagen climate conference to convey their message to those inside making decisions. Over the last two days as the crunch point in negotiations approaches they have been joined by many more from all around the world, and we are here showing our solidarity. The candles represent the thousands from across India who could not be here today but joined us online to keep the heat on the politicians for a real deal.

If you’re in Delhi, join us now at Jantar Mantar from now until negotiations finish.

Greenpeace activists stage ‘die in’ outside US Embassy in New Delhi

A Greenpeace activist is taken away by police outside the US Embassy

New Delhi, 17th December 2009 – On the eve of President Barack Obama’s arrival in Copenhagen, Greenpeace activists today staged a protest outside the US Embassy in the Indian Capital. “Obama it’s about survival” read the banner, held by 2 while 5 activists staged a “die-in”. The message on the white sheets that covered the “bodies” said “ACT NOW”.

“Obama must break the stalemate at the Copenhagen summit. It falls upon the leader of the United States to show that he is not going to hide behind the developing world, but be the leader that we trust he is”, said Vinuta Gopal, Climate & Energy campaigner, Greenpeace India. “We are here to remind him that his action or lack of it, in coming day, is going to determine the very survival of people on the planet”, she added.

“For the President to be a true Nobel Peace Laureate, he must commit to long term finance and targets that are based on science of climate change. Only this would reverse the United States’ blocking role in the climate negotiations to secure a fair, ambitious and binding deal for the climate this December” asserted Ms Gopal.

Activists from the Climate Satyagraha Camp in New Delhi continued to organize mobile “Green Booths”, so people could “Call to Save the Planet”.

Meanwhile, Greenpeace International Executive Director wrote an open letter to President Barak Obama.

We all know about Al Gore’s campaign against climate change, but former presidential candidate John Kerry added his voice: “If Dick Cheney can argue that even a 1% chance of a terrorist attack is 100% justification for preemptive action—then surely, when scientists tell us that climate change is nearly a 100% certainty, we ought to be able to stand together, all of us, and join in an all out effort to combat a mortal threat to the life of this planet.”

Obama, these men could have been president – you ARE president – please live up to all the hope that people put in you.

Here’s the speech in full…

Senator Kerry Delivers Speech at COP15

COPENHAGEN – Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and lead author of the United States Senate’s comprehensive climate change legislation, today delivered a major address at COP15, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Video of the address will be available later today at kerry.senate.gov.

The full text of the speech as prepared is below:

Thank you also for the privilege of allowing me to share some thoughts at this historic meeting.

For seventeen years now we’ve been coming together. Through enormous transitions in our politics — new Presidents, new Prime Ministers, new friends who quickly became old friends; we’ve taken a long journey together.

From Rio to Copenhagen, with 14 COPs in between, through all the hurdles and the challenges, two constants have remained: First, the urgency of the science that tells us we must act. Second, we have never wavered from our determination to get the job done. And that’s why we’re on the brink of making history now.

Back in 1992 an American President personally traveled to climate talks in Rio to help plant the seeds of possibility, the promise of a beginning; But that promise was allowed to wither on the vine. In the years that followed the United States joined with other major polluters to delay, divide and deny. We simply failed to lead in the manner this challenge demands.

But this is a new day. Just as in Rio, an American President is now coming to these talks in good faith—this time, to promise a new beginning and to re-commit the United States to being part of a global solution.

Seventeen years is a long time to pursue an urgent goal. But history reminds us that sometimes even urgent struggles take time. Consider the hundred years of conflict in Northern Ireland. At the moment when peace was finally achieved after tireless efforts, Senator George Mitchell, said simply: “We had seven hundred days of failure and one day of success.”

And that’s why we’re gathered here again: Because we know that, in one day, with one agreement, we can put the world on a safer path. And in the coming hours and days, the world expects us to get the job done.

Even back in 1992, we all came together for a simple reason: we accepted the science. I’ve often said that global climate change is an issue where no one has the luxury of being “half-pregnant.” You either are or you aren’t. And so it is with climate change. You either understand and accept the science – or you don’t. Folks this isn’t a cafeteria where you can pick and choose and accept the science that tells us what is happening, but then reject the science that warns us what will happen.

If Dick Cheney can argue that even a 1% chance of a terrorist attack is 100% justification for preemptive action—then surely, when scientists tell us that climate change is nearly a 100% certainty, we ought to be able to stand together, all of us, and join in an all out effort to combat a mortal threat to the life of this planet.

In recent days it has been interesting to watch people who have never even accepted the basic science now suddenly transform themselves into climate change investigators, wannabe Inspector Clouseaus looking for some sort of smoking gun to erase decades of constant and unequivocal research.

There isn’t a nation on the planet where the evidence of the impacts of climate change isn’t mounting. Frankly, those who look for any excuse to continue challenging the science have a fundamental responsibility which they have never fulfilled: Prove us wrong or stand down. Prove that the pollution we put in the atmosphere is not having the harmful effect we know it is. Tell us where the gases go and what they do. Pony up one single, cogent, legitimate, scholarly analysis. Prove that the ocean isn’t actually rising; prove that the ice caps aren’t melting, that deserts aren’t expanding. And prove that human beings have nothing to do with any of it. And by the way — good luck!

Ladies and Gentlemen: Here in Copenhagen, now and forever, amateur hour is over. It’s time for science fact to trump science fiction.

Experts from the world’s leading universities and think tanks—including The Fletcher School and the Heinz Center—have created a new “climate scorecard” called C-ROADS that more accurately predicts where we’re headed. It shows that if you take the best, latest offers of every country, and assume they will be perfectly, completely implemented—guess what? None of it is nearly enough to get the job done.

Right now our best efforts may limit us to a rise of 3.9 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels, even though the world’s major economies agreed this year in Italy that anything beyond 2 degrees would be catastrophic. That’s why Copenhagen is not about one country or one faction simply making a demand of another. It’s the science itself, demanding action from all of us.

As fingers point in one direction or another, as frustration grows with the politics of one country or another, let’s not lose sight of the reality that no country individually, and none of us collectively, are doing enough.

So why then are these next three days so important? Because it is crucial that we get started. By setting a price on carbon and committing ourselves to reduce emissions, we send a signal to the marketplace that will revolutionize global supply and use of energy. It will forever alter the patterns of capital investment and consumer behavior. I believe in the power of the free market. And when the free market is unleashed to solve a problem, our innovators and entrepreneurs can eclipse all the predictions and render all the models obsolete. If you don’t believe me let me remind you that in 1992 when we met in Rio there were about 26 sites on the internet. Type Copenhagen into Google today and you get 43 million hits.

The 12 months since we gathered in Poznan have seen a series of successes that add up to a changed and changing world. And I’m proud to say that nowhere has that change been more pronounced than in the United States, where we are at last moving in the right direction.

In January, we swore in a President who promised to “mark a new chapter in America’s leadership on climate change.” And he has.

Since January, we have made the single largest investment in clean energy in our nation’s history: eighty billion dollars which will result directly in emissions reductions. At the Major Economies Forum we led the world in agreeing to cut global emissions in half by 2050. We have set bold, binding targets to raise the fuel economy of America’s cars and trucks for the first time in three decades—and now accelerated those targets by four years. This Monday, our Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced a $350 million dollar clean energy fund for advanced economies to help pay for wind, solar, and efficiency projects in the developing world.

Thirty-three of our fifty states have voluntarily entered into compacts to reduce emissions. As a result, over half the American economy is already preparing to implement mandatory emissions reduction policies, and three regions are currently setting up emissions trading systems. More than 1,000 mayors are taking strict measures to aim towards Kyoto targets–and a number of cities are actually getting close on their own. Across America, grassroots initiatives are sprouting up as citizens lead their leaders.

It was against that backdrop that the House of Representatives finally passed comprehensive climate change legislation with billions of dollars for international adaptation, technology transfer, deforestation and, for the first time in American history, a national mandatory emissions target.

And just last week, the Environmental Protection Agency sent a wakeup call to Capitol Hill: If Congress won’t legislate, the EPA will regulate.

In the last ten months, we’ve accomplished more than we did in the previous ten years. Two years ago in Bali, in a room much like this one, a delegate from Papua New Guinea chastised the United States saying “If…you are not willing to lead, then please, leave it to the rest of us, please get out of the way.” Well, we’re here today. The United States is back and President Barack Obama is coming to Copenhagen to put America on the right side of history.

But, as energized as I am about all we’ve done this year, we still need to complete the task in the United States Senate. Frankly, meeting that challenge early next spring can be significantly assisted by what is achieved here. In the Senate and in America, the concerns that kept us out of Kyoto back in 1997 are still with us today, and we need to preempt them here in Copenhagen.

Make no mistake: I don’t offer these insights to defend inaction. I simply want to describe for you the reality of what it will take to get this done.

Some of my colleagues in Washington– like some leaders elsewhere— remain reluctant to grapple with a climate crisis mostly measured in future dangers, when they’re confronted every day with the present pain of hardworking people in a tough economic time. To pass a bill, we must be able to assure a Senator from Ohio that steel workers in his state won’t lose their jobs to India and China because those countries are not participating in a way that is measureable, reportable and verifiable. Every American – indeed, I think all citizens—need to know that no country will claim an unfair advantage.

Shared responsibility must include an obligation to share information about each country’s good faith efforts to keep its commitments. After all – that’s what an agreement means. People need to trust the process, and that trust is built through transparency.

There is nothing new or threatening about such transparency. We have it in nuclear arms agreements and in trade agreements. Countries have accepted the international rules and enforcement mechanisms of the WTO and flourished, and today we must share with each other, in good faith, our efforts to meet the new standards that come with our international climate commitments.

Without an agreement here in Copenhagen that addresses this core issue of transparency, it will be exceedingly difficult to persuade already doubtful elected officials that they are safe in asking their citizens to go along. Senators and Congressmen alike are determined that there must be consequences for any country that thinks they can duck altogether or fake their participation in a solution. Once a treaty is in force, countries that fail to make a good faith effort toward reducing emissions will find that they cannot dump high carbon intensity products into our markets. That is a fair response to non-compliance with a binding international agreement.

One of the last barriers to bold American leadership is the knowledge that even if we take tough steps forward, our efforts can be totally eclipsed by rising emissions from others. You may not know it, but when the US Senate talks about climate policy, fundamentally, all of you are in the room—because our debate always comes back to the need for a global effort.

Let me be clear: America will continue to honor the bedrock principle of common but differentiated responsibility. “Differentiated” means less developed countries can adopt different reduction targets at different rates reflecting their economic and energy realities. But let’s be honest here: our common responsibility demands that if we’re serious about solving climate change, then every country that contributes significantly to the problem today or will contribute in the future, must be a part of the solution in a way that is transparent and accountable.

I recognize that there is an inconsistency in asking other countries to grow differently than we did. Industrial pollution did not begin in the developing world. For a century and a half the United States and the countries of Europe became modern economies with scant knowledge of the damage we were doing to our climate. But for the last twenty years, at least, we have known—and that only adds to our responsibility.

I am sympathetic to developing countries’ concerns: because of our emissions it’s their crops that will disappear; because of our inaction, it’s their fields that turn to desert; and their people, who will be worst affected, are least equipped to meet this challenge. Those are legitimate issues. But for developing countries, winning the right to repeat our mistakes will be cold comfort if it leads us all to climate catastrophe—especially when there are alternative technologies and energy sources available to allow them to develop sustainably. To help developing nations take responsibility, climate finance must be resolved in negotiations this week to become a core element of a Copenhagen agreement.

Today, there is no excuse for America not to act when we account for just five percent of the world’s population, but 20 percent of its emissions. By the very same token, when 97 percent of new emissions over the next two decades will come from the developing world, that is more than “an inconvenient truth” in our larger struggle. It is a core issue. By 2020 China’s emissions will be 40% larger than America’s. It is inescapable that ultimately, the only workable way forward will be a global solution where all major emitters take on binding commitments.

The developing world is already making enormous progress. China has committed to a 40-45 percent carbon intensity reduction; Brazil has pledged a remarkable 80 percent cut in its all-important emissions from deforestation; and India too has broken new ground with an offer to cut its emissions intensity by 20-25 percent. Yes, many would like to see more, and yes these commitments must be made part of an international agreement, but these countries’ decision to join in announcing targeted reductions is an historic breakthrough and they deserve our applause for getting this far.

And in America, we too are making progress. Every day we are building support in the Senate, across the political spectrum. Lindsey Graham, a conservative Republican Senator from South Carolina, has become a trusted partner. Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who wrote the amendment that effectively ended U.S. participation in Kyoto, who has championed American coal for fifty years, said just this month, and I quote: “To deny the mounting science of climate change is to stick our heads in the sand and say ’deal me out.’ West Virginia would be much smarter to stay at the table.” Twelve years after the Byrd-Hagel Amendment, we finally have Robert Byrd at the table. The two key Senate Committees have already advanced major proposals and the Leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, has stated publicly that we will take this on early next spring.

Let me say to all of you wondering about whether we will pass something: the naysayers predicting defeat are wrong. With a successful deal here in Copenhagen, next year, the United States Congress—House and Senate—will pass comprehensive energy/climate legislation that will reduce America’s emissions. And though we have yet to reach full agreement on a method, more and more businesses and lawmakers are convinced that the only way to meet an emissions reduction target is to price carbon.

Today in Copenhagen, we are close to making history. This can be a watershed moment if we go home with a comprehensive political agreement at the highest level that includes a global emissions reduction target and commitments by all countries to take actions to achieve that target. We also need to support developing nations in improving the frequency and transparency of their reporting, and establish a structure to assess our progress toward our stated goals. In addition, we should build on the Bali Action Plan to ensure that REDD plays an important role in the agreement here.

A final but critical component of any agreement here in Copenhagen is finance. Earlier this week, the U.S. Congress injected over $1.2 billion into a variety of international climate change priorities, including efforts to advance clean energy technologies and reduce deforestation. This is a beginning to support a global fast-start financing contribution on the order of $10 billion. I believe the United States should be prepared to do more as other countries clarify their own efforts for transparency and mitigation. Clearly, funding must ramp up significantly in future years as part of a global deal which includes a structure to direct financing in an effective and accountable way. We need to consider innovative ideas to meet this financing challenge, including focusing and expanding the efforts of our development banks, dedicating revenues from putting a price on carbon, and exploring other internationally-agreed sectoral mechanisms.

And vitally, we must agree on a process to come back together next year to transform the Copenhagen political agreement into a binding international treaty. That process should not delay and I believe an early summer date of June or July 2010 is realistic and necessary.

The truth is we are reaching the limits of how far each of us can go if we go it alone. People in every country are asking, “If we go forward will others follow?” We need to build trust—in the process and in each other. Brazil and Indonesia must be confident that the international community will provide sufficient financial support. Europe and Japan need to be convinced that the rest of the world will join in taking sufficient steps forward.

It is easy to get lost in the ups and downs of a week like this one. Emotions run high. While we may sometimes want to walk away from each other, none of us can truly afford to walk away from this problem.

An old American patriot described today’s situation very well. As America fought for its independence, Benjamin Franklin said, “we must all hang together, or assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

When the desert is creeping into East Africa, and ever more scarce resources push farmers and herders into deadly conflict, then that is a matter of shared security for all of us. When the people of the Maldives are forced to abandon a place they’ve called home for hundreds of years—it’s a stain on our collective conscience, and a moral challenge to each of us. When our own grandchildren risk growing up a world we can’t recognize and don’t want to, in the long shadow of a global failure to cooperate, then—clearly, urgently, profoundly—we all need to do better.

There are issues of war and peace. And then, there are issues of life and death like this one that are no less morally compelling than war itself. We have an obligation to save the lives of millions of people who risk famine, dislocation, disease and death, simply because they are forced – not called on—but forced to suffer the indifference of wealthy nations and their addiction to the status quo.

We can stop the climate-driven wars of the future. We can keep would-be climate refugees in their homes. We can keep islands on the map and stop climate-fueled droughts and storms before they ever start.

Here in Copenhagen we have an opportunity to realign the way nations have dealt with each other. By reaching agreement on finance, emission targets, and a transparent system for global action, we will be recognizing globally that the stewardship of the planet and our appetite for resources will be managed in a new way in a new era.

None of this will be easy– we know that — but we can find the answers if we find the will to demand them. This is not a moment when the world can afford to settle for less. This is a moment to demand what is necessary and deliver what is right—not to weigh what is the least that our country can offer up in Copenhagen—but to act boldly and find out what is the most we can accomplish here together.

I have seen this process through more highs and lows than I care to remember. Today we are closer than ever to getting the job done.

People fail for seven hundred days and succeed for one. People strive for 17 years and succeed for one. We need to trust the science. We need to trust each other, put aside our grievances, focus on the bottom line and have the courage to take risks together and make Friday our day of success.

# # #

———————
Whitney Smith
Press Secretary
Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.)
202-224-4159

COPENHAGEN – Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace International, writes to Barack Obama on the eve of his departure for Copenhagen for the COP15 climate talks.

Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace International

December 17, 2009

Dear Mr. President,

Now is the time to give hope more than a voice. As you depart for the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen, I feel compelled to express my hope and desire for the role you will play when you join the other heads of state in reaching an agreement to avert catastrophic climate change: the role you must play in keeping hope alive for many millions of people around the world.

My Name is Kumi Naidoo, I am the International Executive Director of Greenpeace, I am also chair the Global Coalition for Climate Action (www.tcktcktck.org) and serve as a co-chair of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (www.whiteband.org). But, most of all, like you, I am a global citizen. I am also a child of Africa.

Like so many people around the world, I was uplifted during your presidential campaign. I had great hope as I listened to you speak to the perils of global warming, and about the promise of a clean energy economy. I was delighted by the promise that the US would return to multilateral engagement. After so many years of denial and inaction by the Bush Administration, you restored my hope that a fair, ambitious and legally binding climate agreement was possible. My hope that a deal which would banish the specter of catastrophic climate change could be struck. I believed and still believe you could be the leader to ensure that happens.

As a child growing up under apartheid, I learned that it is possible for a leader seeking change to keep hope alive. I also learned that, sooner or later, transformative leaders must make difficult decisions. Tomorrow you will face such a decision. Your choice could change the course of history.

As you well know, no region or nation is immune to the ravages of climate change. Melting glaciers, blazing forests, and acid seas are some of the well-documented ecological impacts of climate change. But too often, we lose sight of the inextricable link between the environment and how real people are affected. It is now estimated that some 300,000 people, mostly the poor and politically disenfranchised, die every year in our warming world.

Water, food, and habitable land are becoming scarcer, compounding human suffering and multiplying political tensions. The latest figures suggest that if we don’t act now, as many as one billion people will be uprooted by climate impacts by mid-century.

That will inevitably lead to insecurity and conflict. Something an already unstable world can ill-afford. Already climate impacts, such as the drying up of Lake Chad, one of the largest inland seas in the world, have exacerbated the tragedy in Darfur, where water scarcity and competition for land have destroyed the lives of millions. Indeed, climate change arguably constitutes the biggest threat to peace. The costs of inaction will be measured in human lives, and you well know that women and children, as always, will bear the biggest burden.

The poor and voiceless will suffer most; they will be hit hardest and fastest. The unfairness of that pains me. They are the least responsible for causing climate change.

At home, you have taken important steps to make up for lost time by enacting policies which will simultaneously limit greenhouse gas pollution and put Americans to work. From afar, it appears that the ambition of these plans has been stifled by powerful fossil fuel and energy corporations. To date, your negotiators have only agreed to a paltry provisional cut in US emissions of 3 percent on 1990 levels by 2020 – dangerously below the 25-40 percent cut the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says is necessary to avert catastrophic climate change. The US has also failed to put a long-term financial assistance package on the table. Long-term cash injections are desperately needed to allow poor countries to adapt to the climate impacts they are experiencing and will experience. They need money to invest in clean energy sources as they develop their economies.

I feel a responsibility to inform you that this lack of ambition has profoundly discouraged many of the same people who were so energized by your promise of hope and pledges to rejoin the international community in this common struggle.

I cling on to hope, because as you have so vividly demonstrated, anything is possible. The prospect of personal leadership at the negotiations allows me to retain some ‘audacity of hope’ that you will have both the courage and the vision to make history.

This is not a simple political crisis: it is a moral crisis. I want to continue to believe in you Mr President. I appeal to your humanity – please don’t condemn the peoples of low-lying island states and the world’s most vulnerable countries to uncertainty. Do not let them be wiped off the map.

You have given the world hope that we will finally put this crisis behind us. You have the opportunity to turn hope into action and into reality.

Those from the most vulnerable states face a clear and present danger, but let us be clear, all of the world’s 6.8 billion people will suffer from the consequences of unchecked climate change. They need a leader with the courage and vision to act. I pray and hope you are such a leader.

I end by reminding you of something you said often during your campaign. You frequently invoked the powerful words of Martin Luther King: “The fierce urgency of now”.

Sadly, according to the science the urgency of now has become even more fierce. I humbly appeal to you to reject the voices of short-term interest, of political expediency and of compromise.

Listen instead to the call of history. Listen to the voices of those most at threat. Listen to the voices of future generations, of our children and grandchildren. Of your children. Of your grandchildren, as yet unborn. Then, please, take the action that you know is needed.

Sincerely,

Kumi Naidoo

Executive Director
Greenpeace International

Nationwide poll shows Americans want a strong treaty at Copenhagen

Majority supports a legally binding climate deal that peaks emissions by 2015

A new poll commissioned by global campaign network Avaaz.org in the middle of the Copenhagen climate negotiations shows widespread American support for the Obama administration to lead the world to a real climate deal in Copenhagen.

“This poll shows that the majority of Americans want a real deal — an ambitious and binding global climate treaty that peaks global emissions by 2015,” said Ricken Patel, Executive Director of Avaaz.org.

The poll showed a majority of Americans support a legally binding climate treaty that peaks emissions by 2015. By a two-to-one margin (61% in favor, 33% opposed), Americans want the US to sign a treaty in Copenhagen that peaks global emissions by 2015. Moreover, a majority (53%) want that treaty to be legally binding, with only 40% opposed.

“Americans know who the villains are in the fight against climate change. Sixty-four percent of Americans believe that oil and coal companies have too much influence over Congress”, said Patel.

The poll showed that 64% of Americans say that oil and coal companies have too much influence on Congress and decisions on climate change policies, with only 11% saying they have too little influence and 19% saying the right amount of influence. Obama’s base of strong Democrats feels that way even more strongly, with 74% saying too much influence — but over two-thirds of independents (68%) agree, and even a majority of strong Republicans (52%) agree.

“Americans are fully aware that political promises are not sufficient in the fight against climate change — only 6% of Americans trust world leaders fully to cut emissions without a legally binding treaty,” added Patel.

According to the poll, only 6% of Americans say they have “a lot” of trust in world leaders to reduce emissions without a legally binding climate treaty, and only an additional 20% say they have “some” trust — with fully 71% saying they have very little trust or none at all (26% saying “very little” and a stunning 45% saying “none at all”.

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Avaaz.org is a global campaign network of 3.6 million citizens who take action for a more just and peaceful world. Avaaz means ‘voice’ in many languages www.avaaz.org