EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- Corporate Win: Supreme Court Says Monsanto Has 'Control Over Product of Life'
- Cornel West: Obama 'Is a War Criminal'
- Patent Filing Claims Solar Energy ‘Breakthrough’
- Disaster Capitalism Strikes as Hedge Funds Circle Near-Bankrupt Municipalities Like Vultures
- Ignoring Bee Crisis, EPA Greenlights New 'Highly Toxic' Pesticide
Popular content
Today's Top News
December 12th Was a Tipping Point
COPENHAGEN - I have been working on climate change for many years, first as a researcher in my native Bangladesh and later as head of the climate change group at the International Institute for Environment and Development, and as a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.I have seen first-hand the threats climate change poses in places such as the drylands of Africa, the mountains of the Himalayas and the vast low-lying deltas of Asia. I have observed years of inaction at UN climate change summits that have failed to deliver the response needed because negotiators have chosen to protect narrow national and economic interests instead of rising to the challenge of protecting future generations.
I have jousted verbally with climate-change deniers who have strong links to polluting industries and who have never set foot in the vulnerable villages and urban communities where climate change is already having impacts. If they did they would realise the damage their ideology does to the people who have contributed least to this global threat.
And now, in Copenhagen in December 2009, I believe we have reached a tipping point. I truly believe that Copenhagen will be remembered in years to come, not for what happens on 18 December when world leaders meet here, but for what just happened on 12 December.
This marked the day that people from all walks of life all over the world seized the initiative from our so-called leaders. Regardless of the words these presidents and prime ministers decide in a "protocol" or "agreement" next week, it is the people of the world who have put the writing on the wall!
The leaders who choose to read those words will take us forward. Those who ignore them will be swept away by the tide of history.
Yesterday marked the point when a large part of the world rose up as one to tackle a truly global challenge. Although there may be temporary setbacks (like a less-than-ambitious deal next week) the tide has already turned. It cannot be turned back.
Regardless of how much we achieve next week - and I remain optimistic in spite of the political manoeuvrings last week - we are set on a new and inexorable path. The leaders who understand that may come from the most unexpected of quarters. Keep your eye, for instance, on President Mohamed Nasheed of tiny Maldives.
In a few months I shall be moving back to Bangladesh to fight real climate change, as opposed to fighting against bad (or inadequate) climate change policies. My ambition over the coming years is to help the people of one of the poorest and most vulnerable - and yet resilient and innovative - countries transform itself from being the world's iconic "vulnerable" country to being recognised as perhaps its most "adaptive" country.
I am going home to set up a new International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) where we aim to ramp up the capacity of governments, civil society organisations, researchers, academics, journalists and many others from developing countries to respond to the challenges that climate change poses.
The new centre will provide training and share knowledge on how to survive (and indeed even thrive) in a globally warmed world. It will focus primarily on adaptation to climate change in the least developed nations but will not stop there.
Indeed we are planning to provide capacity building for industrialised countries on how to face adverse climatic impacts. Ironically, unlike most of the world's poorest countries, the rich world that has caused this problem has not done detailed planning on how to adapt.
I am returning to the front line of climate change where the real fight is already underway. I go there knowing that millions of people around the world share my hopes and my optimism that humanity can unite to tackle the challenge that now defines our life on Earth.
- Posted in
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
12 Comments so far
Show AllBring home the COP15 requirements. It is a must.
Competition for market share for their products the capitalist invest in to support the COP15 requirements will I believe surpass the requirements.
Push hard.
toophat for you!
best wishes, saleemul. it is an ugly battle. your approach is admirable.
Thank you, Saleemul, for your love and dedication to this planet and its people! I know we can do this, and I wish you godspeed!
I wish the world luck. The powers-that-be have the final say on earth's survival and their vote will hinge on their bottom line, which is another way of saying that they'll vote for short-term profits and won't give a hang about the long term outlook of this planet. As GW Bush once observed, "Why should I care about my legacy? A hundred years from now I'll be dead."
I hope for the best in Copenhagen, but my money is riding on the extinction of mankind in a few hundred years because of self-serving decisions being made this moment at the highest echelons.
Don't you just love the darling optimists?
You mean like Joe2aT? He sure is. He gives us an hundred and more years before we cook ourselves. Now that is optimistic! Hot Damn!
/cm
The article reads "...who have never set foot in the vulnerable villages and urban communities where climate change is already having impacts. If they did they would realise the damage their ideology does to the people..."
I do not believe so. It is not that I don't think they care. I think they care very, very much. But, people's mistake is not to realize that desperate, impoverished, dis-empowered people is what the ruling elite want. They don't want to solve the problem or even mitigate it. The worse off the people are, the more power the ruling elite has; the more they see themselves as "winning". Until, of course, the guillotine is reinvented.
Reinvent Guillotine! When? You know the answer.
Great show of purpose and sense of mission. Can't go much wrong with that. Millions are going to die, though, on and on from climate change effects, as already happens.
Make sure while you're there you consider that the population of the planet increases at three additional people per second.
Each of these people wants necessities and luxuries.
Who decided which is which?
So, as you fly there with your computer, remember that consumer goods require resources. As they run out, wars get worse for what is left.
Finite planet, increasing population. Those who own the dminishing resources have families too.
You do the math.
Spay and neuter your heterosexuals.
I hope and pray that your courage never fails and that you prevail.
if i could humbly add to such a well articulated mission by Mr Huq
The poor will adapt with some measure of dignity dependent on how they work through their meager resources. Your dignity comes from your mission, the resilience of deprived people in the face of climate extremes.
How you can help us regain our dignity in the West is by establishing a bold list of world leaders Climate Criminals CC who failed to act when prompted. So our neighbors will measure their immediate goals by how they must punish them, without which this giant corrective machine will not re-direct. And thus no CC is ever awarded some laughable nordic prize, again
Something to remember- the fight has just begun.....
The injustices of this world are many. Working together- as all nations and peoples- we can solve our common problems and stop these injustices. This is not an easy task and no nation or group enjoys a monopoly on virtue. But while we may experience anger and passion- we must not turn to violence and hatred. Hatred is the ancient elixir that thrown upon a world on the brink of destruction will move us only closer to that destruction. We have the right and responsibility to oppose violence and to name injustice wherever and whenever it takes place. But if we resort to the very violence we oppose than all is lost- nothing good will come-nothing. The reverse is also true- if we oppose violence without resorting to violence- than great good will come- far greater than we could have imagined.
None of these words should console the unjust. What it means is that we will fight harder, our sacrifices will be greater- we will leave no stone unturned- all will be brought to light.....We will not assume the mantle of violence- but they shall fall nonetheless.