It is not only animal species we exterminating by letting the global temperature rise, but also tribes of indigenous people are be on the brink of extinction due to climate change. These people are often the hardest hit even though they have contributed the least to the carbon emission.

“The main concern of the report is about the livelihood of indigenous peoples who are entirely dependent on nature. Reindeer herders, in particular the Saami in the far north, already report that the thaw is setting in earlier and that further temperature rises will damage their industry. Hunting on the ice, an important source of income in Greenland, is growing increasingly dangerous.” (Felixson)

Besides negotiating for a deal at COP15, does the politicians also pass sentence on these peoples
destiny? How can they do that? Are we gonna accept the conviction?
 
Read Tryggvi Felixson’s, head of the Department for Environment and Resources at the Nordic Council of Ministers, article ‘Climate Change – the Nordic approach, which gives an overview of the Nordic initiative to reduce CO2 emissions, and with a discussion about who gets affected the worst, and could act upon the problem.

Read also the article ‘Between Weather and Climate’ where anthropologists Hannu I. Heikkinen and Mark Nuttall, based on their major research and fieldwork in indigenous people from Greenland and the north of Scandinavia, point out how a significant dissimilarity exists between the way scientists measure, perceive, talk about, and try to communicate climate change and the way local people in their social lives experience these very same changes.

BBC allows everybody to make a short video of themselves telling the world leaders what they want them to do at COP15 and why. The best videos will be featured in a special televised debate   on BBC News, at the climax of the conference.

•    Are you worried about climate change?
•    What deal would you strike in Copenhagen?
•    Who should cut their emissions? By how much? And      how should they make these cuts?
•    How would you improve the negotiation process?
•    How will climate change  affect you in future?
•    Is it already affecting you now?
•     Why does climate change matter to you?
•    How much are you personally willing to adapt, to live more sustainably?
•    Are you prepared to change the way you travel, the food you eat, or to have fewer children?
•    Would you pay more taxes - to invest in green energy and compensate countries hurt by climate change?
Whatever you do, we'd like to hear from you.

This is your change to tell how your social life is being changed by climate change, and how you are willing to change in the future in order to save the environment. Give the politicians an idea about how important it is for you, and that you will support their decisions.

Read the Danish Climate minister and host for COP15, Connie Hedegaard’s statement on the current situation and the required agreements in Copenhagen in December: COP15 IN COPENHAGEN MUST SECURE AN AMBITIOUS CLIMATE AGREEMENT

Hedegaard holds two main arguments:

1. “Therefore, we have to develop new green products and ways of production, if we wish to stay in the forefront of the international business community. The way for us to make money is through clever solutions and good ideas.” (Hedegaard). The minister believes, that the way in the future is to develop green products and energy solutions. With a reference to the Danish export of green energy technology, which was raised with 19% last year, she argues that this new way of doing industry is not only good for the environment, but is also of economical benefit to the businesses. These new technologies must be made available for the developing countries, if shall hope to get through the climate crisis, she says.

2. “Even though the poorest nations have not polluted the globe, they are a part of the solution.” (Hedegaard). The developing countries have to be a part of the climate agreements because they will account for about 85% of the worlds population in 2050. We have to make sure that these countries commit to building a sustainable society. But it can be of no debate, Hedegaard argues, that the rich countries must make the biggest commitments to reducing their carbon footprint.

Very well, I will say, but it does not seem like the politicians agree on this matter, if we look at what they have suggested so far. Is Hedegaard alone with her opinion? Or is it, as the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber says, because no politicians, in short-sighted fear of economic losses, dare to make an ambitious commitment as long as the other countries holds back? What can we do to make the politicians commit to the agreements the scientists hold as necessary?
 

“The only sustainable way to get out of the current global financial and ecological crisis is to promote new economic models, new production systems and new ideas of wellbeing. To define and implement these new models is, of course, very difficult. But it is not impossible.” (Manzini)

Ezio Manzini, Professor of Design, suggests in his article Small, local, open and connected a new model for designing social innovation towards sustainability. The new scenario is called SLOC (small, local, open, connected), and is based on tendencies are all ready developing in our society such as the green revolution, the spreading of networks and the rising interest in designing complex solutions for daily problems. Manzini argues, that to reach the goal of reduced CO2 emission, we have to reorganize our lives and that new socio-technical systems build on small, local communities that are open and connected globally is the way to go.

How can the politicians at COP15 use this model to make decisions that revolutionize our society and create a more sustainable structure?
 

Pay attention to the youth.” This is Julia Levitt from Worldchanging’s command to the politicians at COP15.

But what can the youth give us in complex combats at the one we are facing with climate change?

“Few stakeholders out there have as pure an interest in finding viable, attractive solutions for a livable, sustainable, globally replicable future as the world's young people.” (Levitt)

Worldchanging were the organizers of the Bright Green Youth camp in Sønderborg, Denmark earlier this year. The camp was a 4-day crash course in cross-cultural solution seeking. More than 200 high school-age participants from around the globe were gathered to come up with the absolute best ideas to solve the current and the future climate problems. The best results will be presented at COP15.

Read here in Levitt’s article, Worldchanging on the Road: Bright Green Youth, how the camp went and why we should listen more to the youth when discussion solutions to climate change.
 

Tryggvi Felixson, Head of the Department for Environment and Resources at the Nordic Council of Ministers, gives in his article Climate Change – the Nordic approach an overview of the Nordic initiative to reduce CO2 emissions.

In the Nordic countries we emit around 7-10 tons CO2 per capita a year, which is not much different than the rest of EU. But our use of renewable energy is significantly higher than the rest of the world. The Nordic countries has different policies on their commitment to reduction of CO2 emission by 2020: Norway: 30%, Iceland 15%, and Denmark, Sweden, and Finland follows the rest of EU with 20-30%. Also the Nordic countries are in front when it comes to research and development within renewable energy sources and carbon storage, Felixson explains. Besides that Felixon quote a research report, which shows that the Nordic countries will hardly feel any effects of a temperature rise as long as it stays under 2 degrees Celsius.

But what does it help, that we in Scandinavia have relatively high ambitions reducing our CO2 emissions when only 25 million people out of a global total of 6 billion live up here in the privileged North? Felixson argues, “history shows that small countries can be instrumental in facilitating global change.” He also claims, that the world has the technology, the knowledge and the solutions to change the climate change immediately, but what is lacking is simply a strong leadership. “Such leadership has been lacking until now”. How can we make sure, that a strong leadership will rise at the COP15? “How can the Nordic countries help provide much-needed leadership and address this most crucial of issues?”
 

According to Neil Adger is is not political growth and prosperity that will help us solve the climate crises, but, to make progress in this matter, what we really need is to make politics move closer to the actual citizen—we need to localize democracy and develop sustainable societies.

“Perhaps bringing climate change to the human scale will generate the momentum for change. This is a difficult task for representative democracy, which weighs the needs and desires of all constituencies. And indeed climate change has all the constraints of being distanced in time and place from current actions. These are the reasons why climate change is so difficult to tackle.” (Neil Adger).

But how do we move politics closer to the people and make it more relevant and personal? How can the politicians at COP15 bring the human and the local scale into the negotiations?

Under the theme RETHINK Borders Erik Hylland Eriksen writes about how we should limit the crossing of borders and make our lives more locally based to get to terms with climate change and mitigate global warming. See the article Living in an overheated world.

Wangari Maathai is the founder of the Green Belt Movement – she is an environmentalist, a civil society and women's rights activist, and a parliamentarian. In 2004, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her astounding work for African communities and the environment.

In the article Climate Change: Road to Copenhagen in Africa, she explains how important it is for the security of Africa and for the entire environment, that a
strong plan, for funding the tropical forest nations to help them urgently stop deforestation and embark on alternative economic development paths, will be established in Copenhagen.

Africa is only responsible for 2,3% of the worlds fossil fuel consumption even though she holds 13,8% of the world’s population, which is why the western countries should recognize their responsibility and provide Africa with new technologies and sustainable energy methods to help Africa to not destroy their land – something that would cause additional suffering among those who already suffer due to climate crisis.

“The agreements and the financial mechanisms will bear no fruits if not translated into workable projects that deliver results especially for the poor.” (Maathai)

The only way this will happen is, Maathai says, if African governments on the road to Copenhagen get together and create one common voice, rather than 53 different weak states. If this were done, COP15 could present a great opportunity for Africa and prevent the western countries from taking advantage of Africa’s weaknesses, according to Maathai.

How can we make sure, that Africa will be heard in Copenhagen in December? How would the western countries take advantage of Africa’s weakness? How much responsibility do the industrialized countries have with regards to developing regions as Africa?
 

If anybody wonders what happened to Prof. Schnellnhuber’s third MAD, I can assure you that this one is a positive one, which we can hopefully all agree opun. Read more in his article Three Ways of Going MAD.

Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, makes in his article Three Ways of Going MAD a comparison between the current climate crisis and the conditions during the cold war where an atmosphere of MAD (mutually assured destruction) ruled the world. By building the power structure on mistrust and fear of a nuclear attack, the world was destructing itself. That is the same we see happening now, Schnellnhuber argues. Today all countries have the C-bomb (carbon-bomb)-- throwing the bomb is the same as not doing anything to reduce our carbon emission. The difference is though, that where the dangers and the result of using the a-bomb was obvious to everybody (or should have been), the complexity of the eco-system, the long time-span from cause to effect and the difficulty of directly attributing single actors, using the C-bomb seems so much easier than the terrifying A-bomb, but this doesn’t make it less dangerous.

Because all countries posses a short-sighted fear of economic loss we do not dare to be the first pioneers not throwing the C-bomb, and bet as much as possible on the fight against climate change problems. Even if it’s what we actually want, we don’t trust that other countries will do the same and not just take advantage of our effort. Schnellnhuber writes: “The United Nations Climate Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen in December 2009 can only be successful if the logic of MAD is turned upside down, transforming it into “mutually assured decarbonisation”.

We have to aim for a balance where “all will commit themselves to the strongest climate-protection actions, which are economically and technologically feasible. Such a novel spirit of trust would optimally induce a global competition for the most innovative ways out of the carbon trap. In such a leadership race, the disastrous arms-race logic of “mutually assured destruction” (MAD1) would be turned on its head, transforming it into a new cooperative logic of “mutually assured decarbonisation” (MAD2).”(Schnellnhuber).

But how do we build a globally mutual trust? Who will have to start? Can the politicians at COP15 make agreements and documents to sign about trusting each other? Or is this one of the things politic just cant solve? Where should the trust come from? And is such a novel spirit of trust really the answer to the whole problem?

Read Prof. Schnellnhuber’s article Three Ways of Going MAD.
 

Welcome to the debate forum for rethinking and discussing politics in the age of climate change. It is my hope to establish and moderate a discussion that covers a broad variety of perspectives on the subject of politics. The debate forum is still only in its in its initial phase but more content will soon be added.

The decisions the politicians are to make at the COP15 might very well be of the very most important ever made in the history of human kind.

Is it, and how is it at all possible to make decisions that are going to change the very foundation of our way of living by reducing CO2 emissions by 90% before 2050, as the experts recommend? To make decisions like that politics have to include entirely new sectors of our everyday life, which are normally not included in political negotiations—read about suggestions to how this can be done here at this debate forum.

Will the politicians get even remotely close to the recommendations of the experts? If so, what has to be changed in the way we think, discuss and practice politics? How can the nation states tackle the serious consequences of climate change? What will we in the western countries do about increasing amounts of climate refugees? How does the inequality between North and South affect the political discussions? How is our nature being politicized? What role does trust and distrust have in the COP15 negotiations? Will local problems lead to a decline in the international community and a return to protectionism of national interests? Or is it possible to develop long-term intergovernmental models with a global perspective? Which role will geopolitics and international organizations such as the United Nations have in the future landscape of politics?

These questions and many more you will be able to read about and debate here on this blog.

Besides the all ready published articles you will soon be able to read contributions by:
•    Connie Hedegaard, Minister of Climate, Denmark
•    Simon Caney, Philosopher, USA
•    Niels Fastrup, Klimaforum09, DK
•    Ailun Yang, Greenpeace, China