CAPE TOWN--The intense debate about dealing with climate change has mostly taken place in rich countries.The United States, European Union and China have driven negotiations, and every top-level conversation has been about what’s thought to be possible--and often what’s convenient--for these strong forces.
But as the countdown begins to the decisive Copenhagen climate talks in December, new voices are making themselves heard. These victims have become more demanding as the realities of climate change have become more apparent.
Maplecroft, a global risks security group, lists 28 countries as most vulnerable to climate change, and 22 of them are in Africa.
Last month, the African Union’s chief negotiator at the climate talks, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, said Africa would not only demand fair compensation for climate damage from the countries that caused the problem, but would also demand that rich nations cut emissions and hold global warming to as few degrees as humanly possible.
The new African assertiveness stems from new science. After Arctic sea ice melted dramatically in 2007, scientists began re-evaluating their predictions.
It became clear that basic survival was at stake for many countries. The low-lying islands of the Maldives, though poor, have begun saving a portion of each year’s national budget to buy a new homeland if, and when, their current home sinks beneath the waves.
Kenya’s ongoing drought vividly illustrates what uncontrolled climate change might bring to the African continent.
Many top scientists agree that there’s a number the world needs to know.
It’s 350--as in 350 parts per million of the heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The growing consensus is that it’s the most carbon we can have in the atmosphere without causing terrible climate havoc.
Since we’re already past that level, at 390 parts per million, it also implies that we need much swifter political action than governments have supported in the past to reverse this trend.
It also means, among other things, that we need a rapid effort to replace the burning of polluting coal with cleaner energy sources everywhere.
Normally, voices from places such as Ethiopia, the Maldives and Kenya are sidelined in international forums. But this time, it might be different because a determined movement is building around the world.
Saturday, an organization that I support, 305.org, coordinated thousands of events and rallies in 170 countries to bring the number 350 to global attention.
Sharing the goals of 350.org will be internationally prominent messengers, including the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, and NASA’s top climate scientist, James Hansen.
Groups gathered in the world’s most iconic places--from Table Mountain in Cape Town to the tops of Himalayan peaks.
Across the planet, churches will ring their bells 350 times that day.
Two weekends ago, Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed led 13 cabinet members in an underwater meeting to highlight the country’s rising sea levels.
People in almost all the nations of the Earth are involved--it’s the same kind of coalition that helped make the word “apartheid” known around the world.
In South Africa, we showed that if we act on the side of justice, we have the power to turn tides.
Worldwide, we have a chance to start turning the tide of climate change with just such a concerted effort today.
Desmond Tutu is the former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town and a Nobel Peace Prize winner.
