On the eve of his arrival
at the Copenhagen Climate Summit - 16 December
2009 - Copenhagen, International — Kumi
Naidoo, Executive Director
of Greenpeace International, writes to Barack
Obama on the eve of his departure for Copenhagen
for the COP15 climate talks.
Mr. Barack Obama
President of the United States of America
December 17, 2009
Dear Mr. President,
Now is the time to give hope more than a
voice. As you depart for the UN Climate
Summit in Copenhagen, I feel compelled to
express my hope and desire for the role
you will play when you join the other heads
of state in reaching an agreement to avert
catastrophic climate change: the role you
must play in keeping hope alive for many
millions of people around the world.
My Name is Kumi Naidoo,
I am the International Executive Director
of Greenpeace, I also chair the Global Coalition
for Climate Action (www.tcktcktck.org) and
serve as a co-chair of the Global Call to
Action Against Poverty (www.whiteband.org).
But, most of all, like you, I am a global
citizen. I am also a child of Africa.
Like so many people
around the world, I was uplifted during
your presidential campaign. I had great
hope as I listened to you speak to the perils
of global warming, and about the promise
of a clean energy economy. I was delighted
by the promise that the US would return
to multilateral engagement. After so many
years of denial and inaction by the Bush
Administration, you restored my hope that
a fair, ambitious and legally binding climate
agreement was possible. My hope that a deal
which would banish the specter of catastrophic
climate change could be struck. I believed
and still believe you could be the leader
to ensure that happens.
As a child growing up
under apartheid, I learned that it is possible
for a leader seeking change to keep hope
alive. I also learned that, sooner or later,
transformative leaders must make difficult
decisions. Tomorrow you will face such a
decision. Your choice could change the course
of history.
As you well know, no
region or nation is immune to the ravages
of climate change. Melting glaciers, blazing
forests, and acid seas are some of the well-documented
ecological impacts of climate change. But
too often, we lose sight of the inextricable
link between the environment and how real
people are affected. It is now estimated
that some 300,000 people, mostly the poor
and politically disenfranchised, die every
year in our warming world.
Water, food, and habitable
land are becoming scarcer, compounding human
suffering and multiplying political tensions.
The latest figures suggest that if we don't
act now, as many as one billion people will
be uprooted by climate impacts by mid-century.
That will inevitably
lead to insecurity and conflict. Something
an already unstable world can ill-afford.
Already climate impacts, such as the drying
up of Lake Chad, one of the largest inland
seas in the world, have exacerbated the
tragedy in Darfur, where water scarcity
and competition for land have destroyed
the lives of millions. Indeed, climate change
arguably constitutes the biggest threat
to peace. The costs of inaction will be
measured in human lives, and you well know
that women and children, as always, will
bear the biggest burden.
The poor and voiceless
will suffer most; they will be hit hardest
and fastest. The unfairness of that pains
me. They are the least responsible for causing
climate change.
At home, you have taken
important steps to make up for lost time
by enacting policies which will simultaneously
limit greenhouse gas pollution and put Americans
to work. From afar, it appears that the
ambition of these plans has been stifled
by powerful fossil fuel and energy corporations.
To date, your negotiators have only agreed
to a paltry provisional cut in US emissions
of 3 percent on 11000 levels by 2020 - dangerously
below the 25-40 percent cut the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change says is necessary
to avert catastrophic climate change. The
US has also failed to put a long-term financial
assistance package on the table. Long-term
cash injections are desperately needed to
allow poor countries to adapt to the climate
impacts they are experiencing and will experience.
They need money to invest in clean energy
sources as they develop their economies.
I feel a responsibility
to inform you that this lack of ambition
has profoundly discouraged many of the same
people who were so energized by your promise
of hope and pledges to rejoin the international
community in this common struggle.
I cling on to hope,
because as you have so vividly demonstrated,
anything is possible. The prospect of personal
leadership at the negotiations allows me
to retain some 'audacity of hope' that you
will have both the courage and the vision
to make history.
This is not a simple
political crisis: it is a moral crisis.
I want to continue to believe in you Mr
President. I appeal to your humanity - please
don't condemn the peoples of low-lying island
states and the world's most vulnerable countries
to uncertainty. Do not let them be wiped
off the map.
You have given the world
hope that we will finally put this crisis
behind us. You have the opportunity to turn
hope into action and into reality.
Those from the most
vulnerable states face a clear and present
danger, but let us be clear, all of the
world's 6.8 billion people will suffer from
the consequences of unchecked climate change.
They need a leader with the courage and
vision to act. I pray and hope you are such
a leader.
I end by reminding you
of something you said often during your
campaign. You frequently invoked the powerful
words of Martin Luther King: "The fierce
urgency of now".
Sadly, according to
the science the urgency of now has become
even more fierce. I humbly appeal to you
to reject the voices of short-term interest,
of political expediency and of compromise.
Listen instead to the
call of history. Listen to the voices of
those most at threat. Listen to the voices
of future generations, of our children and
grandchildren. Of your children. Of your
grandchildren, as yet unborn. Then, please,
take the action that you know is needed.
Sincerely,
Kumi Naidoo
Executive Director
Greenpeace International
