21 December 2009

News from the inside

Our verdict on Copenhagen? It was the week the whole world finally got serious about climate change

The BioRegional team is now back in the UK, with Greg going back to Canada tomorrow. We got caught up in the snow blizzard-induced closure of Eurostar this weekend and got home at 2.30am this morning. The irony of it isn’t lost on us, but it just reinforces the knowledge that freakish weather has a bad effect on our day to day lives.

Of course the first question everyone asks is “What do you think about what happened at Copenhagen?”

On Saturday in Copenhagen you could see the depression on the faces of the activists getting ready to go home, contrasted against the business as usual of the Danes getting on with their Christmas shopping. We were fed up too.

It would have been great to get a legally binding agreement but after reflecting on it this weekend I realised that most of the world just wasn’t ready. I don’t think that the world leaders had all been totally serious about it until this week. But something has changed now and perhaps that is more important than signing an agreement and then ignoring it.

We saw for ourselves that country after country said they wanted to come to an agreement and they wanted to negotiate but I think they left the serious discussion until too late to get a deal in Copenhagen. It is significant that 120 world leaders held a summit to discuss what they are going to do about climate change. It was good to see that the world leaders didn’t want to make a deal unless they felt it was a workable arrangement and that they could commit to it. I think the reason that they couldn’t make a deal was that they were all coming from totally different perspectives and national situations. But last week they finally had to listen and think about it from each other's point of view. It is important that the one thing they did agree on was that it is necessary to keep the global temperature rise below 2C in line with what the science dictates. As long as they keep the momentum up I think they could make the sort of deal in 2010 which the world needs to stave off dangerous climate change.

Does it really matter whether they make a deal? Yes it does. There are some things which can only be decided at a global and national level, which came out clearly in the workshops we held with the public at the Climate Exchange. This includes measures like carbon taxes and pricing, tackling aviation, support for public transport infrastructure, sensible planning, renewable energy and technology transfer, protecting and valuing forests and the role of nature in solving the problem. It’s not up to global players alone of course. Climate Change is everyone’s responsibility. So much good work is going on at a local level and that is also crucially important. 

So how have last week's events influenced us at BioRegional?

We got a better and more global perspective on the impact of climate change from government and NGOs alike. I personally feel a more direct empathy with what our developed country negligence means for African nations and the G77.  I was really moved by the words of the African nations protest (see last Monday’s blog). It’s a matter of life and death for them. I am sure that Copenhagen has made the global movement to tackle climate change and sustainability stronger.

Copenhagen reinforced for me the importance of our work with partners in China and the USA, the two biggest GHG emitters but with very different perspectives. In the end it came down to these two at Copenhagen. I think the bioregional and one planet living approach has much to offer in both countries. We know that if we show in real-life how we can put in place low carbon communities and businesses and that it is attractive and cost-effective then people change their views of what is possible. It helps them to embrace and go about making change for the better rather than fighting it or wishing it would go away.

I was really proud of the UK government’s role in this. Here in the UK we have legally binding targets and the start of plans to achieve them and the work of the UK government team really made a difference at Copenhagen. Most notably Ed Miliband’s last minute intervention to ensure that what commitments were made, were adopted, even if informally. Likewise I think that our work with partners here in the UK, focusing on our own bioregion or back yard is really important too.

The BioRegional team at Copenhagen worked very hard indeed, that’s both those of us that were there and those supporting us from the office back home. We all put a lot in and we got a lot out of it.  As Jennie said, it was epic.

Sue Riddlestone
Executive Director and co-founder