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Mark the month: December, 2009. And the place: Copenhagen, capital of liberal, sophisticated, happy Denmark. And the significance, which cannot be overestimated. For it is then and there that the UN will negotiate the successor to the Kyoto Protocols, to be installed in 2012. Given the ever-diminishing window between the uneasy present and the likely appearance of runaway climate change once positive feedback loops check in, it may well be that the outcome of the meetings in Copenhagen will seal the fate of civilization. It is not too often one gets to say something like that.

Capital is already preparing. Something called the "Copenhagen Climate Council" sprang into being in May 2007. It's mission:

>>presenting positive, achievable and innovative solutions to climate change, as well as assessing] what will be required to make a new global treaty effective. The Council will seek to promote constructive dialogue between government and business, so that when the world's political leaders and negotiators meet in Copenhagen in 2009, they will do so armed with the very best arguments for establishing a global treaty that can be supported by global business. What is needed to succeed is to involve global businesses in the greatest innovation project on climate ever.<<

Good old capital, ever upbeat and optimistic. In a statement which could have come from Al Gore, we learn that "tackling climate change also has the potential to create huge opportunities for innovation and economic growth." Isn't it nice to know that huge opportunities are in the offing?

Global civil society is also gearing up, looking ahead to this year's December meetings in Poznan, Poland, as a prelude to Copenhagen in '09. The Global Climate Campaign can point to some 90 countries where people are organizing from below against the menace of climate change. This is a very good, indeed, necessary thing. It is heartening to see people coming together in so many places to express a new awareness. But the awareness scarcely begins to extend into the realization that capital accumulation is driving climate change; that capital controls the state, transnational organizations like the UN, and the production of ideology; and that, therefore, the existing climate protocols, as well as those likely to be developed in Poznan and Copenhagen, are recipes for doom. It is not reassuring to see on the Global Climate Campaign website a banner montage which includes an image of an activist holding aloft a sign on which appears the words, "Make Kyoto Strong," because the stronger accords like Kyoto are, the weaker will be our ecosphere, and the more threatened the firmament of life.

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[ 19 October 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

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On the 30th November 2009, world leaders will come to Copenhagen for the UN Climate Conference (COP15). This will be the most important summit on climate change ever to have taken place, and it will determine how the countries of the world are going to respond to the climate threat. The decisions taken there will define the future for all the people of the world. The previous meetings give no indication that this meeting will produce anything more than empty rhetoric and a green washed blueprint for business-as-usual.

There is an alternative to the current course and it's not some far-off dream. If we put reason before profit, we can live amazing lives without destroying our planet. But this will not happen by itself. We have to take direct action, both against the root causes of climate change and to help create a new, just and joyous world in the shell of the old. And so, we call on all responsible people of the planet to take direct action against the root causes of climate change during the COP15 summit in Copenhagen 2009. - Source

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