Challenge and hope at Copenhagen

Dr Robyn Eckersley talked about the challenges for the south and north

The stakes, politics, and science of climate change were the subject of a recently-held symposium held at Aberystwyth University. Dr Grant Dawson, the deputy director of the David Davies Memorial Institute of International Studies at Aberystwyth University tells us more about the event.

The 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference on climate change convenes in December.

Although world leaders have cautioned that a legally binding treaty is unlikely to be achieved, the summit may still advance discussion on mitigation and adaptation.

The conclusions presented have implications for Copenhagen and for the climate change fight in the years and decades to come. Grant Dawson

Whatever occurs, the Copenhagen conference is a major event for Wales, the UK, and all countries.

This is because the decisions made there and in the next decade or two on climate change may well decisively influence the future of human habitation on earth.

The international political dimension of the debate recently came to Wales.

The stakes, politics, and science of climate change were the subject of a symposium in early November that was hosted by the David Davies Memorial Institute of International Studies (DDMI), which is part of the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth University.

The symposium is part of the DDMI's developing research agenda on climate change that also includes a role in the Climate Change Consortium of Wales, the new multi-million pound four-university initiative.

The event featured respected international and UK experts, Welsh eminent persons, and prominent Wales-based intellectuals and professors.

Trigger conflict

Climate change was examined from the perspective of the north (the developed world), south (the developing world), and United States.

A vidcast of the event is available for viewing on the DDMI homepage.

The conclusions presented have implications for Copenhagen and for the climate change fight in the years and decades to come.

Opening the event was Sir Emyr Jones-Parry, President of Aberystwyth University.

He had been the Permanent Representative of the UK to the UN, and in that capacity had participated in the first-ever UN Security Council debate in 2007 on how climate change could trigger conflict.

Sir Emyr noted that while a comprehensive treaty at Copenhagen is doubtful, the need for something substantial from world leaders is all too apparent.

Sir John Houghton believed that action would be forthcoming

Dr. Peter Christoff and Professor Robyn Eckersley, Australian experts on the international politics of climate change and green politics, talked about the challenges as seen from the south and north.

Christoff predicted that the shifting and toughening of the scientific evidence on climate change trends is so powerful that any deal under the existing framework would be highly unstable and exceedingly temporary.

Eckersley drew our attention to consumption targets on carbon emissions.

Developed states don't want to talk about such targets, she said, even though they might make an agreement with developing countries easier to achieve, because they could limit standards of living.

Professor Ian Clark from the Department of International Politics argued that a political solution to these problems cannot be found, and the negotiating logjam cannot be unblocked, without United States leadership.

But the Obama administration faces many internal obstacles to effective action overseas. Progress at Copenhagen and after is tied-up in the United States domestic discord.

The DDMI symposium concluded with a roundtable discussion chair by the Director of the DDMI Professor Nicholas J. Wheeler. Dr. Marek Kohn, from the University of Brighton, called climate change the 'ultimate collective action problem.'

He said that more involved civil society will be essential to meeting the challenge.

The second roundtable participant sounded a hopeful note.

Sir John Houghton, a former chair (later co-chair) of the Scientific Assessment for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, referred to the dire consequences of failing to act against climate change.

But he believed that action would be forthcoming.

'The world can do this,' he said. 'We just have to get on with it, do it sensibly, and carefully, and the result will be...very positive.'