The National Catholic Reporter
, December
14, 2009
Copenhagen: The Beginning of the End, and, If So, Whose?
By
Joan Chittister
Welcome to Cop15, the UN Conference on Global Warming being
held in Copenhagen. Denmark is not easy to forget. In the first
place, every school child knows the tales of fearless, seafaring
Danes. In the second place,every traveler remembers Copenhagen
as the city of $20.00 hamburgers and $40.00 seven minute taxi
cab fares. Copenhagen is, in fact, the second most expensive city
in the world, just slightly less expensive to live in than Oslo.
But that will be nothing compared to the price the world pays
for this conference.
Without a doubt, the price for all of us will be high if some
kind of agreement passes here that limits gas house emissions
of fossils fuels in developed countries. The price will even be
higher if it doesn't. Worse, the price may well be catastrophic
if any kind of agreement passes that limits development for the
poorest countries of the world but is simply designed to allow
rich countries to get even richer.
The Conference on Climate Change isn't about climate change at
all, you see. The overwhelming body of scientists and politicians
know that global warming is real, that it threatens rich and poor
countries alike, that it is inevitable unless something is done
to reverse the process and soon. No, this UN conference on global
warming is not about science. It's about money. So, on Friday,
the demonstrations started.
The generation that knows that they will be the people left to
pick up the bill for the decisions not made here are being carted
away in police vans in order to lower the din of the world's cry
for equity, for help. So, the generation of young that will not
be allowed to make the decision whether to save the planet or
reduce it to dust have come to Copenhagen from all over the world.
Along with the voices of so many others.
People from island nations, for instance, facing immanent danger
from rising water levels in the world will be the first to have
to deal with the effects of dislocation. People in lands going
to dust and stone from the dried up river beds around them, will
soon be unable to eke out a living in those parts of the world.
People sweltering from rising temperatures and shorter growing
periods will watch as the Garden of Eden shrivels around them.
But as the world fills with ecological refugees, the rest of us
will bear the costs of what we do not spend now to avert it, as
well.
So, there is a tone of quiet desperation in the city now. And
an undercurrent of anger, as well, at the United States, in particular.
A young woman addressed a hall full of NGO delegates as UN delegates
canceled the second of Plenary sessions of the week in order to
flee into private committee meetings together. The disappointment
was palpable. "We are now at the point," she said, "where
the United States is using multilateralism to get the rest of
the world to agree to plans and programs that will simply justify
what the United States has already decided to do. And these plans
are being made despite their effect on other countries in the
world--especially the poorest of the poor."
Instead of plenaries, UN committees worked feverishly to design
a solution to the impasse over degrees of emission and amounts
of economic support necessary to bring poorer nations the willingness
to forego them. If as a human race we are to dissuade another
whole body of presently underdeveloped nations from seeking their
economic Eden in an economy based on fossil fuels-as we have-some
plan for underwriting the energy engines of the economies of the
poor while we control our own is imperative.
The young woman was not hopeful about the equity of it all. Nor
were all those many in the hall who applauded her analysis.
From where I stand, several strains were clear: Whatever agreements
come out of Cop15, enforceability is key. Classism-poor against
rich-is a danger. Multilateralism that does not support those
nations who stand to be as smothered by the effects of national
agreements that deny them economic development as they are by
the effects of achieving it through the energy sources of the
past will become a major political problem in the future. And,
finally, this is only the beginning of a real struggle to resolve
it.
And, oh yes, there is one more thing we might want to be aware
of as we use our water in unlimited quantities and fuel our over-fueled
homes and that is the African voice that answered the young woman's
analysis. "The only thing to do," he said, "is
to work with a coalition of smaller governments and isolate the
United States entirely. That is what we did to stop apartheid.
Then, eventually, the United States will have to come along."
Time is running out, they tell us. Maybe we should, for our own
sakes, if for nothing else, join the human race now-before it's
too late.
© 2009 National Catholic Reporter
A Benedictine Sister of Erie, Joan Chittister is a best-selling
author and well-known international lecturer on topics of justice,
peace, human rights, women's issues, and contemporary spirituality
in the Church and in society. She presently serves as the co-chair
of the Global Peace Initiative of Women, a partner organization
of the United Nations, facilitating a worldwide network of women
peace builders, especially in the Middle East. Sister Joan's most
recent books include The Way We Were (Orbis) and Called to Question
(Sheed & Ward), a First Place CPA 2005 award winner. She is
founder and executive director of Benetvision, a resource for
contemporary spirituality.
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