Forget Copenhagen!

The EU and climate change

Desertification -- Trees dying in front of sand dunes

Attendees of the climate summit that begins in Copenhagen on December 7, 2009, will be trying to negotiate a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol. Yet it's already clear that prospects for achieving a meaningful outcome are virtually non-existent.

The world has been aware that climate change is a real threat for quite some time -- at the latest since the International Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Despite that, the international community has not been able to identify or implement workable global solutions to the problem. What are needed are binding targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions that apply to everyone, something that is apparently unachievable in a world whose economic system is based on growth.

Yet the poor prospects offered by the Copenhagen gathering are no reason for Europe to be satisfied with what it has already achieved. Those are the arguments advanced by the Bertelsmann Stiftung's Barbara Kunz und Daniela Röss in the current issue of "spotlight europe." In their article they look at the current situation and the opportunities presented by the summit in Denmark, including the scientific debate and the political developments that ensued following the Kyoto agreement in December 1997. Compared to other global regions, Europe has done an outstanding job of implementing climate-protecting solutions. That does not mean, however, that there is no longer room for improvement. As the stimulus packages created following the economic crisis show all too well, as in other parts of the globe political decisions crafted in Europe are hardly informed to any outstanding degree by an awareness of sustainability issues. This is where Europe can -- and must -- achieve more. While waiting to see what Copenhagen produces might be convenient, it would also be hypocritical, since sustainable policies are possible even without a global communiqué. To that end, the battle cry should be: Forget Copenhagen and take climate change seriously, no matter what happens elsewhere!

It's regrettable that such global agreements are currently seen as unachievable. Yet even without them Europe can still do quite a bit -- from promoting research and development to taking a leading role in helping developing countries adjust to the environmental shifts that have already occurred. Finally, Europe should also make use of the transatlantic channels that have recently opened, thanks to the receptive attitudes expressed by officials in the Obama administration.