[ccebook.cn]The World in 2010

International
Where survival is at stake
Nov 13th 2009
Mohamed Nasheed, president of the Maldives, argues that the rich must help the poor combat climate
change—or else all will face disaster
If environmental politics in 2009 were dominated by the build-up to the December
Copenhagen climate-change negotiations, in 2010 they will be dominated by post-
Copenhagen analysis. That analysis will include the creeping realisation that climate
negotiations are not really negotiations between nations at all. Climate change is not
a grand bargain between the United States and China; nor the European Union and
India. Rather, humanity is negotiating with Mother Nature. And mother appears in
no mood to compromise.
Less than one degree Celsius of warming since the pre-industrial age has unleashed
frightening and unforeseen change, including glacier-melt and unprecedented coralreef
degradation. A commitment to limit warming to two degrees by 2050, as
proposed by the G8 club of rich countries, will not halt climate change. Either
humans slash the amount of CO 2 in the atmosphere to near pre-industrial levels or
the world will continue to warm, with awful consequences.
In low-lying areas, people will watch the steady retreat of Arctic ice, a precursor to
rising sea levels, with increasing apprehension. Health officials will note with alarm
the spread of tropical diseases to more temperate climes. And the 1 billion people who rely on the world’s
coral reefs will await a potential 2010 El Niño, whose hotter temperatures can be devastating for reefs, with
trepidation.
Climate change will also be a multiplier of poverty, as increasingly erratic weather induces more drought,
flooding, erosion and soil degradation. Aid agencies already fear that this will undo decades of development
efforts in poor parts of the world.
More vulnerable nations will be forced to invest large sums of money in adaptation measures. In the Maldives,
the government needs to build a $40m seawall around our third-most-populous island, Fuvahmulah, to protect
it from coastal erosion. For a country with total government revenue of just $550m a year, this is more than
loose change. If the Maldives and other countries at risk are lucky, new finance mechanisms will help poor
countries pay for adaptation initiatives. Otherwise, climate-change adaptation will drain the reserves of
vulnerable nations.
The aftermath of Copenhagen will affect the international image of the world’s nations and their ability to
project “soft power”. Bogeyman, foot-dragging countries will have been identified at Copenhagen and America
is unlikely to be the sole environmental offender. Other countries with hitherto positive images could also find
themselves on the uncomfortable receiving end of global ire.
And it is not only soft power that comes into focus. In 2010 there will be a gradual shift from perceiving
climate change as a “soft” green issue to seeing it as a “hard” military one. Nowhere will this be more
apparent than in America. A 2007 report by CAN Corporation, a Pentagon-funded think-tank, gives a taste of
things to come. If greenhouse-gas emissions are not reduced, it concludes, climate change has the potential
to “create sustained natural and humanitarian disasters on a scale far beyond those we see today.” It adds
that “weakened and failing governments…foster the conditions for internal conflicts, extremism and movement
toward increased authoritarianism and radical ideologies.” Climate change will make the world an increasingly
unsafe place and military capabilities will have to respond accordingly.
Green shoots
However, 2010 will not be all doom and gloom. While some fossil-fuel industries pour money into climatedenying
lobbying, other nations, companies and entrepreneurs will invest in the green economy of the future.
In the Maldives, the government will continue to implement its ten-year carbonneutral
strategy. Spearheaded by a switch from oil to renewable-power production,
the strategy aims to all but eliminate the use of fossil fuels in the Maldivian
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More vulnerable
nations will be