WHAT THE WORLD IS SAYING

European media on climate summit
December 7, 2009 (BBC News)

[From an editorial reprinted in 56 newspapers and 20 languages:] “The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history's judgment on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it. We implore them to make the right choice.”

[From The UK:] “…Success will also require enough money on the table — perhaps as much as $100 billion a year by 2030 — to allow China and India to make good on the welcome offers of emissions reductions that they have already made…Copenhagen needs to provide a deal that permits the developing world its ascent to prosperity. The main risk to success is that the developing world rejects the deal or that the mutual suspicion between the United States and China on the verification procedures scuppers the plan…Copenhagen could be a signal that there is good money in clean technology. It can help to make the market…Because, in the end, it is by doing things differently rather than by doing fewer things that we will reverse the trajectory of climate change…A credible deal with India and China just might.”

click to enlarge

[From Spain:] “The challenge is huge and the willingness scant. Environmental deterioration cannot be halted by a few measures, either by promising more windmills or by trading emissions. It requires a transformation of the economic model which nobody feels like or is in any hurry for…If they did not do it with the crisis - nor of course have they even been moved by the abject poverty and hunger this model causes - how could an imprecise and distant threat like that of the climate achieve it?”

[From France:] “In Copenhagen, Obama and his like have a mission statement of biblical simplicity: if their countries fail to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by half by 2050 compared to the 1990 figure, the point of no return will have been reached...The disaster scenario, with the melting of the arctic ice at a rate never seen before and glaciers feeding into the great rivers, an increase in sea levels and floods followed by great droughts generating world hunger…The repercussions of such a cataclysm are known: hundreds of millions of climate refugees and the prospect of a proliferation of 'water' wars…Copenhagen is not the emergency. It has already come to pass and it is more than time to move on from words to deeds.”

click to enlarge

[From Germany:] “A global climate protection agreement poses a huge threat to economic interests. That is why agreement in Copenhagen is not certain...Failure in Copenhagen would be a big setback, but future conferences could make up for that. So it will only be clear in a few years' time whether or not strict global climate rules will apply. If no long-term agreement has been reached by then, we would indeed have reason to despair."

[From Russia:] “Last week the front pages of the world's leading newspapers were devoted to the issue which in Russia is still considered to be more of a fad among the slightly eccentric Greens than something that serious people should be concerned about: the international summit on climate change that is opening in Copenhagen today...The heads of 98 states are planning to come to Copenhagen... However, the leaders of the Russian state have ignored the summit... The top Russian officials' disdain for environmental issues reflects the attitude that prevails in our society…Russians do not worry about global warming... To all appearances, Russia is still not part of the international community, as if we live on a different planet.”