I live in London and I find it a very exciting city, but Copenhagen is definitely more human and sustainable. Alright, it is like comparing pears with apples because the former has a metropolitan area of about 12 million inhabitants and the latter has got less than 2 million people, but I bet that there are many people in London who would happily come here and take a break every now and then. It is an incredible challenge to build sustainable metropolis for our children to live in, but do we have a healthy alternative to the current decline in life quality in huge cities?

Let’s start with what happened today at COP15 and see if there is any hope. In the opening ceremony the Danish Prime Minister showed leadership and urged his colleagues to take action. 192 Countries and their delegates have only 7 negotiating days left to agree on binding rules and targets that will have to be ratified by governments and Parliaments in every nation involved. It is not a joke! Then the ministries and the heads of State will come and sign or finalize the deal next week, or admit the failure (would they ever do that?). Public money is to be put on this problem and prioritized with respect to other ones; for example, even if the United States administration are trying to approve a historic health care reform, acting on climate change would help their citizens to suffer less from air pollution, heat waves and floods. Health is ultimately involved in the picture: we just have to be a bit more imaginative, shall we?

There is the right political momentum: over 100 heads of State and government have announced their participation to COP15 next week and no excuses would seem plausible to the public opinion. Achim Steiner, the Head of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) said that who thinks an ambitious deal is impossible is wrong…everybody hopes he is right. A recent study conducted by Lord Nicholas Stern¹ with UNEP estimates that the current pledges from all countries, if realized (it is a big if), would be very close to the 44 billion tonnes of CO₂ target for 2020.

Barack Obama is expected to participate to the conference next week: this is a good sign and there is growing consensus that a low carbon economy is the best exit strategy from the economic crisis and a vaccine against future crises. As European Union we are hiding our cards to see whether other countries’ targets are comparable to the 20% CO₂ reduction we committed to: if so the EU could raise the bar to 30% less emissions than 1990 by 2020. China and India, that have committed to rather serious targets, would be put under further pressure if the USA showed the courage and sense of urgency needed, especially after Bush’s climate denial. The UNFCCC Executive Secretary, de Boer, strongly asked the leaders to get this “Christmas cake” done because the time is up; he started his statement at the opening ceremony, visibly moved, reading what a child said about a flooding that took part of his family away from him. Natural disasters have always happened and will continue to happen unfortunately, but the evidence that a growing share of these are caused by excessive greenhouse gas emissions is out there unequivocal after decades of research.

Rajendra Pachauri defended the massive work of the IPCC and of all the honest scientists who contribute to it against the scandal of the emails hacked from the East Anglia University Climate Research Unit in UK. It is indeed sad that a few scientists overexcited by their own “belief” in their work on climate change put the credibility of the international community under attack, but it is suspicious that this happened just before COP15 (and it is illegal to crack passwords). The public opinion need researchers to explain the uncertainty and limits of their findings, but also to state when there is a real alarm and action is a must, like it currently is. Mr. Pachauri also underlined the Danish example on the generation and use of renewable energy: is it a case that, according to a survey, Denmark have the happiest people in the world or they simply made the best choices after the oil crisis in the 1970s?

The enthusiasm you can breathe during this and other COPs, from young people, members of NGOs, volunteers, but also some political leaders and many official delegates is great. The course of history can be changed only with realistic, but positive attitude: the worst thing it could happen is that we will have tried hard and we will still be able to say: “that’s all we could do”. On the other side there will be someone else evidently more influential who would regret not to have been brave enough or to have been too selfish, personally or as a whole country.

How can the world imitate Denmark to be greener, wealthier and more relaxed? This is like the last night before the exam and we’d better stay awake and study because we are late! Please express your ideas on the blog on how to pass tomorrow’s exam…

Luca Marazzi

1. http://www.unep.org//pdf/climatechange/ActionAndAmbitionForGlobalDealInCopenhagen.pdf.