‘Dengue fever infects over 12,000 in Pakistan‘, ‘Canadian Arctic nearly loses entire ice shelf‘, ‘Grim prediction says 9 more years of Texas draught possible‘… a quick look at just today’s headlines show that the world is changing faster than we feared. Every day, we hear about thousands of new problems connected to climate change.. At the same time, it isn’t hard to find just as many stories of inspiring leadership in tackling climate change through shifts in behavior, technology and policy.
As international climate negotiations resume in Panama on Saturday, participants are painfully aware that their work is moving too slowly and that impacts of climate change are already being felt in communities the world over.
We know that the greenhouse gases driving climate change come from stuff we’ve baked into every day life - things like the use of fossil fuel energy for our power plants and transportation, and clearing of forests for building materials or ranching. We know the impacts are global and getting worse. We know that efforts to cut greenhouse gases must also be global and baked into those same aspects of every day life that are driving the problem. It seems simple - we need a global climate deal that includes credible action to reduce greenhouse gases in every country; we need the resources to support that action and plans to adapt to impacts of climate change already underway; and we need accountability to that all promises of action and support are actually delivered. But it’s hard - really hard. We’re actually talking about a global shift from business as usual and the barrage of climate impacts that increasingly come with it - to a more sustainable form of development.
This slow and difficult shift is more than 20 years in the making. The UN climate talks, with country’s negotiators gathered from around the world, are where our national efforts to stop climate change must add up to a global solution. It’s our best chance of ensuring that the efforts to adapting to a rapidly changing world include everyone affected. And it’s where the world will make decisions over the next 7 days that will shape our hopes for the global climate deal that we know we need.
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About the author
Joshua Wiese is Adopt a Negotiator’s Project Director. He is based in San Francisco, where he spends most of his time thinking about how to use technology to make the world a better place.
