It’s Getting Hot In Here

Leadership is contagious. President Nasheed of the Maldives delivered a powerful speech yesterday at the opening of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, which included leaders from Bangladesh, Barbados, Bhutan, Ghana, Kenya, Kiribati, Maldives, Nepal, Rwanda, Tanzania and Vietnam and other countries. The focus of his speech was to bring attention to the dire consequences of coming out of the Copenhagen Climate Talks this December with a weak or non-binding agreement. His words speak for themselves:

Members of the G8 rich countries have pledged to halt temperature rises to two degrees Celsius.
Yet they have refused to commit to the carbon targets, which would deliver even this modest goal.
At two degrees we would lose the coral reefs.
At two degrees we would melt Greenland.
At two degrees my country would not survive.
As a president I cannot accept this.
As a person I cannot accept this.
I refuse to believe that it is too late, and that we cannot do any about it.
Copenhagen is our date with destiny.
Let us go there with a better plan.

Nasheed called on all nations to push for carbon neutrality in order to ensure the survival of his country and all the most vulnerable people around the world:

After all, it is not carbon we want, but development.
It is not coal we want, but electricity.
It is not oil we want, but transport.
Low-carbon technologies now exist, to deliver all the goods and services we need.
Let us make the goal of using them.

Finally, he made the distinction between what might be considered a good deal in Copenhagen, and one that would ensure the end of his people:

At the moment every country arrives at the negotiations seeking to keep their own emissions as high as possible.
They never make commitments, unless someone else does first.
This is the logic of the madhouse, a recipe for collective suicide.
We don’t want a global suicide pact.
And we will not sign a global suicide pact, in Copenhagen or anywhere.
So today, I invite some of the most vulnerable nations in the world, to join a global survival pact instead.

Today, President Nasheed and leaders from vulnerable countries around the world signed a declaration calling on developing countries to up the ante and develop using clean energy and sustainable technology, and for rich nations to commit to fast and deep carbon reduction paired with significant assistance to poor nations.

Let’s join with heads of state from the most vulnerable countries in calling on our leaders to go to Copenhagen and sign a fair, ambitious, and binding deal that gets us back to 350ppm. Anything less would be a suicide pact. Leadership is contagious, and we can be the virus.