Greenpeace action in Rio de Janeiro Brazil.
Fifteen activists unfurled this 50 meter (164 feet) x 30 meter
(98 feet) banner from the bridge at the Guanabara bay in Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil.
We decided to send this message from the birthplace of two of
the most important UN Conventions of modern times, addressing
climate change and biodiversity.
The huge wave of hope created by the World Summit ECO-92 (better
known as the Earth Summit) in Rio -- that all countries would work
together to save life on Earth -- has vanished. After 17 years
without serious action by the world's leaders to change the pattern
of carbon-based development, the planet is close to reaching the
point where runaway climate change cannot be averted unless we act
now.
Wasted opportunity
But will the G20 tackle the economic and climate crises at the
same time by greening their economies? Unlikely.
Wealthy G20 nations need to commit at least 1 percent of their
GDP to green measures, and the remaining countries should do all
they can to leapfrog dirty carbon-based development and shift to a
renewable energy future.
The G20 leaders represent three-quarters of global GDP,
three-quarters of energy consumption and three-quarters of carbon
emissions. So far, they appear not to have grasped that their
continuing prosperity is not in conflict with preserving the
environment, but dependant upon it.
Crisis? You call THIS a crisis?
In the long term, we don't face a choice of green jobs or dirty
jobs, but green jobs or ecological and social collapse. Until
climate change is at the top of the G20 communiqué and at the
centre of their thinking, they aren't just scientifically
illiterate, but economically illiterate.
Science shows climate change is accelerating. A full-blown
climate crisis raises the prospect of mass migration, mass
starvation and mass extinctions. It will make poverty permanent in
the developing world and strangle growth in the developed.
The decisions the G20 leaders take will affect the 172 countries
not represented at this meeting, many of which are both the poorest
and most vulnerable to the economic crisis and climate change.
The likely cost of climate change impacts is up to 20 percent of
global output; more than the Great Depression and both World Wars
combined - in addition to the human deaths and species extinctions,
according to former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern.
Save forests to help stop climate change
Developing countries must also take responsibility to fight
global warming, and in particular those which host tropical
rainforests. Brazil and Indonesia are the world's fourth and third
largest greenhouse gas emitters due to forest destruction in their
countries.
According to the Brazilian Institute of Space Research, which
monitors deforestation, close to 29 million hectares of the Amazon
rainforest have been destroyed since the creation of the UN Climate
convention in Rio 92. This has added some 8 gigatons of carbon
dioxide to the atmosphere.
Ending Amazon deforestation is the major contribution Brazil can
make to help the world to tackle climate change. Still, Brazil must
take the leadership by supporting the establishment of a funding
mechanism to stop forest clearance and associated emissions,
acknowledging the value of the standing forests.
In Bonn, Germany,
129 countries representatives are meeting to initiate a series
of negotiations culminating with the Copenhagen Climate Summit in
December, where a global deal to save the climate must be
agreed.
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