What is the month of the year that usually sees the highest level of media attention for climate change? It’s December, because that’s the time when governments gather at the annual UN Climate Conferences to discuss how they will tackle the threat.
However, November probably follows right after December in the media statistics, because that’s the month when governments and observers gear up for the talks, pushing their positions in public and via the media, or down-playing expectations, or entering a blame game.
November is also a peak month for climate related publications by scientists, because media attention for these types of stories is higher than usual in the run up to the big conferences. And this November is no difference.
For the average newspaper reader, it’s difficult to get a sense of where things are headed and what to expect, because the mix of pessimistic and optimistic headlines can be truly confusing. “Success still possible”, says one headline, “Climate talks set to fail” says another.
So should we expect failure? Or should we expect success? And what do these words actually mean? Some governments might call an outcome a success, while observer organizations like WWF might judge the same outcome as a complete failure.
Of course, it’s a question of interpretation, and that depends on your criteria, on the benchmark against which you measure the outcome. The lower you set the bar, the easier it is to claim success, even though little has been achieved.
For some Heads of States, it might already be a success to leave Copenhagen without being singled out as the laggard who slowed progress. People who care about our planet and future generations, however, would have a different idea of a successful Copenhagen outcome.
A few climate news pieces stood out this week, highly relevant news in the overall noise created by spokes person X and spokes person Y on behalf of this or that organization. The most relevant piece was unfortunately no good news.
On Monday, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said that concentration levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – the major cause of global warming – are at their highest levels ever recorded and still climbing.
This is an important reminder, as we seem to easily forget it: Global emissions are increasing rather than declining, despite some major efforts by various countries and good initiatives by business and industry. We still have to reverse a negative trend, not just boost a positive trend.
According to WMO, this current trend could be pushing the world towards the most pessimistic scenarios for temperature rise over the coming decades. We are talking about threats facing people around the world, the survival of entire nations, major economic losses across the planet.
So here is your benchmark for success in Copenhagen: we have to keep people and nature safe, and in order to do so we have to reverse the emission trend. If Copenhagen doesn’t deliver on that goal, it will be difficult to seriously sell the outcome as a success.
To have a good chance for a fairly stable climate future with global warming remaining far below 2 degrees C, we have to peak global emissions by 2017, and make sure they decline rapidly once the peak has been reached.
In WWF’s view, Copenhagen must rise to these ambition levels, and agree emission reduction targets for countries that would deliver the peak and decline, and make these targets binding so that people can trust that countries will be forced to reach them.
If the newspaper articles on 19 or 20 December are about a global agreement along these lines, you can be fairly sure that Copenhagen was a success. If the articles are only about Heads of States claiming success without having such a strong agreement, doubt might be appropriate.
In WWF’s view it’s not only necessary to reach a fair, ambitious and binding deal in Copenhagen. It is also possible, and getting what we need mainly depends on political will and Heads of States working towards the right benchmark – a benchmark that’s about saving the planet. Will they?
Well, apart from the bad news over the last days and weeks, like the ever increasing emission levels as reported by WMO, there has also been some really good news. Copenhagen pessimism dominated the headlines for a while, but now there is fresh optimism and a more realistic balance.
Russia, for example, increased its emission reduction target. Higher ambition levels are always good for the dynamics in the negotiations, even though calculations show that Russia could and should do much more.
While the Russians strengthened their target, the US announced that they will bring one to Copenhagen. For a long time this had been uncertain, and it was seen as a potential obstacle to progress – an obstacle that might now have been cleared.
Even better: US President Barack Obama has decided to come to Copenhagen and personally put the US target on the table. We will need our leaders to reverse the negative emission trend, so it’s good that so many of them are now coming to the conference.
Success or failure in Copenhagen: it is probably completely open what we will get. But the most important recent news pieces shows two things clearly: there is no alternative to success in Copenhagen, and leaders seem to understand that, so there is good reason to be hopeful.
What is the month of the year that usually sees the highest level of media attention for climate change? It’s December, because that’s the time when governments gather at the annual UN Climate Conferences to discuss how they will tackle the threat.
However, November probably follows right after December in the media statistics, because that’s the month when governments and observers gear up for the talks, pushing their positions in public and via the media, or down-playing expectations, or entering a blame game.
November is also a peak month for climate related publications by scientists, because media attention for these types of stories is higher than usual in the run up to the big conferences. And this November is no difference.
For the average newspaper reader, it’s difficult to get a sense of where things are headed and what to expect, because the mix of pessimistic and optimistic headlines can be truly confusing. “Success still possible”, says one headline, “Climate talks set to fail” says another.
So should we expect failure? Or should we expect success? And what do these words actually mean? Some governments might call an outcome a success, while observer organizations like WWF might judge the same outcome as a complete failure.
Of course, it’s a question of interpretation, and that depends on your criteria, on the benchmark against which you measure the outcome. The lower you set the bar, the easier it is to claim success, even though little has been achieved.
For some Heads of States, it might already be a success to leave Copenhagen without being singled out as the laggard who slowed progress. People who care about our planet and future generations, however, would have a different idea of a successful Copenhagen outcome.
A few climate news pieces stood out this week, highly relevant news in the overall noise created by spokes person X and spokes person Y on behalf of this or that organization. The most relevant piece was unfortunately no good news.
On Monday, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said that concentration levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – the major cause of global warming – are at their highest levels ever recorded and still climbing.
This is an important reminder, as we seem to easily forget it: Global emissions are increasing rather than declining, despite some major efforts by various countries and good initiatives by business and industry. We still have to reverse a negative trend, not just boost a positive trend.
According to WMO, this current trend could be pushing the world towards the most pessimistic scenarios for temperature rise over the coming decades. We are talking about threats facing people around the world, the survival of entire nations, major economic losses across the planet.
So here is your benchmark for success in Copenhagen: we have to keep people and nature safe, and in order to do so we have to reverse the emission trend. If Copenhagen doesn’t deliver on that goal, it will be difficult to seriously sell the outcome as a success.
To have a good chance for a fairly stable climate future with global warming remaining far below 2 degrees C, we have to peak global emissions by 2017, and make sure they decline rapidly once the peak has been reached.
In WWF’s view, Copenhagen must rise to these ambition levels, and agree emission reduction targets for countries that would deliver the peak and decline, and make these targets binding so that people can trust that countries will be forced to reach them.
If the newspaper articles on 19 or 20 December are about a global agreement along these lines, you can be fairly sure that Copenhagen was a success. If the articles are only about Heads of States claiming success without having such a strong agreement, doubt might be appropriate.
In WWF’s view it’s not only necessary to reach a fair, ambitious and binding deal in Copenhagen. It is also possible, and getting what we need mainly depends on political will and Heads of States working towards the right benchmark – a benchmark that’s about saving the planet. Will they?
Well, apart from the bad news over the last days and weeks, like the ever increasing emission levels as reported by WMO, there has also been some really good news. Copenhagen pessimism dominated the headlines for a while, but now there is fresh optimism and a more realistic balance.
Russia, for example, increased its emission reduction target. Higher ambition levels are always good for the dynamics in the negotiations, even though calculations show that Russia could and should do much more.
While the Russians strengthened their target, the US announced that they will bring one to Copenhagen. For a long time this had been uncertain, and it was seen as a potential obstacle to progress – an obstacle that might now have been cleared.
Even better: US President Barack Obama has decided to come to Copenhagen and personally put the US target on the table. We will need our leaders to reverse the negative emission trend, so it’s good that so many of them are now coming to the conference.
Success or failure in Copenhagen: it is probably completely open what we will get. But the most important recent news pieces shows two things clearly: there is no alternative to success in Copenhagen, and leaders seem to understand that, so there is good reason to be hopeful.
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