SlamDown Day 1 - update

So we're off and running. Marc Hudson has valiantly put this update together despite the collapse of his internet access. You can either click to enlarge the jpeg or, better still, click here for the pdf

And so it begins...

Regardless of what demonstrations take place in Copenhagen this week the horse trading will follow its own course inside the (no longer smoke filled) rooms. There have ben a lot of hopeful statements made and a lot of goal posts nudged gingerly in the right direction. If there is to be social change capable of embracing what must be done, it will require the mobilisation of more than the thousands on the Copenhagen streets.
This joint editorial from the Guardian and 56 other newspapers worldwide is a good start. They've taken the unusual step of making the text available under a creative commons license, so here it is in full.

Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.

Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year's inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world's response has been feeble and half-hearted.


Climate change has been caused over centuries, has consequences that will endure for all time and our prospects of taming it will be determined in the next 14 days. We call on the representatives of the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to fall into dispute, not to blame each other but to seize opportunity from the greatest modern failure of politics. This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, or between east and west. Climate change affects everyone, and must be solved by everyone.

The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of people would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea. The controversy over emails by British researchers that suggest they tried to suppress inconvenient data has muddied the waters but failed to dent the mass of evidence on which these predictions are based.

Few believe that Copenhagen can any longer produce a fully polished treaty; real progress towards one could only begin with the arrival of President Obama in the White House and the reversal of years of US obstructionism. Even now the world finds itself at the mercy of American domestic politics, for the president cannot fully commit to the action required until the US Congress has done so.

But the politicians in Copenhagen can and must agree the essential elements of a fair and effective deal and, crucially, a firm timetable for turning it into a treaty. Next June's UN climate meeting in Bonn should be their deadline. As one negotiator put it: "We can go into extra time but we can't afford a replay."

At the deal's heart must be a settlement between the rich world and the developing world covering how the burden of fighting climate change will be divided — and how we will share a newly precious resource: the trillion or so tonnes of carbon that we can emit before the mercury rises to dangerous levels.

Rich nations like to point to the arithmetic truth that there can be no solution until developing giants such as China take more radical steps than they have so far. But the rich world is responsible for most of the accumulated carbon in the atmosphere – three-quarters of all carbon dioxide emitted since 1850. It must now take a lead, and every developed country must commit to deep cuts which will reduce their emissions within a decade to very substantially less than their 1990 level.

Developing countries can point out they did not cause the bulk of the problem, and also that the poorest regions of the world will be hardest hit. But they will increasingly contribute to warming, and must thus pledge meaningful and quantifiable action of their own. Though both fell short of what some had hoped for, the recent commitments to emissions targets by the world's biggest polluters, the United States and China, were important steps in the right direction.

Social justice demands that the industrialised world digs deep into its pockets and pledges cash to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, and clean technologies to enable them to grow economically without growing their emissions. The architecture of a future treaty must also be pinned down – with rigorous multilateral monitoring, fair rewards for protecting forests, and the credible assessment of "exported emissions" so that the burden can eventually be more equitably shared between those who produce polluting products and those who consume them. And fairness requires that the burden placed on individual developed countries should take into account their ability to bear it; for instance newer EU members, often much poorer than "old Europe", must not suffer more than their richer partners.

The transformation will be costly, but many times less than the bill for bailing out global finance — and far less costly than the consequences of doing nothing.

Many of us, particularly in the developed world, will have to change our lifestyles. The era of flights that cost less than the taxi ride to the airport is drawing to a close. We will have to shop, eat and travel more intelligently. We will have to pay more for our energy, and use less of it.

But the shift to a low-carbon society holds out the prospect of more opportunity than sacrifice. Already some countries have recognized that embracing the transformation can bring growth, jobs and better quality lives. The flow of capital tells its own story: last year for the first time more was invested in renewable forms of energy than producing electricity from fossil fuels.

Kicking our carbon habit within a few short decades will require a feat of engineering and innovation to match anything in our history. But whereas putting a man on the moon or splitting the atom were born of conflict and competition, the coming carbon race must be driven by a collaborative effort to achieve collective salvation.

Overcoming climate change will take a triumph of optimism over pessimism, of vision over short-sightedness, of what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature".

It is in that spirit that 56 newspapers from around the world have united behind this editorial. If we, with such different national and political perspectives, can agree on what must be done then surely our leaders can too.

The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history's judgment on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it. We implore them to make the right choice.

This editorial will be published tomorrow by 56 newspapers around the world in 20 languages including Chinese, Arabic and Russian. The text was drafted by a Guardian team during more than a month of consultations with editors from more than 20 of the papers involved. Like the Guardian most of the newspapers have taken the unusual step of featuring the editorial on their front page.

This editorial is free to reproduce under Creative Commons

A good clean fight (in Spanish)

Thanks to Carolina Scarinci for the translation

Good Business Guide

We really do have to keep the pressure on.
Copenhagen kicks off tomorrow. What with the private jets and the limos and the luxury smorgasbords, it should be an expensive affair.
We at Throbgoblins International will be following the conference, along with Climate Slamdown , and keeping you supplied with lots of cartoon goodness throughout.

More Noblesse Oblige again

A shameless regurgitation of old material here, suggested by the following - forwarded to me by my co-conspirator Marc Hudson.

Four days before global climate change talks kick off in Copenhagen, more
than 850 UK and international companies are urging Prime Minister Gordon
Brown to push for an ambitious and equitable deal that can promote
sustainable growth, jobs and prosperity.
The organisations are endorsing a communiqué that is being presented to the
Prime Minister tonight by the Prince of Wales Corporate Leaders Group on
Climate Change.
The communiqué sets out the business case for a strong and effective UN
climate framework and underlines that economic development will not be
sustained unless the climate is stabilised, making it critical that we move
beyond the global downturn in a way that lays the foundation for low-carbon
growth.
The Corporate Leaders Group includes John Lewis, Shell, Tesco, Kingfisher,
Vodafone, Unilever and Lloyds Banking Group. The communiqué has already
secured the support of more than 850 companies based in over 50 countries,
including the US, most EU member states,

Slamdown - A good clean fight.

In the final countdown to Copenhagen, the West is accused of underhand tactics in climate negotiations. Imagine my Surprise!.



Yes, I know the Phillipines aren't exactly low-lying, but sometimes punch-lines are hard to come by.

Elsewhere, James Hansen weighs in with some perspective

...and the Angry Mermaid seeks some assistance!

xenophibics anonymous

The ignorant and small minded also have their representative at Copenhagen. We're all in the same boat. They're the arseholes mooning out the back.