We are less than 90 days away from the COP 15 (15th Conference of the Parties) meeting, which will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark. Beginning early December world leaders will come together to establish a global agreement that would come into effect after 2012 when the Kyoto Protocol expires, and which will serve as a plan of action to tackle Climate Change.
Because Climate Change is already occurring, we will do three things with respect of it: mitigate, adapt, and suffer. What we can still do is chose the ‘mix’ of these, depending on our leadership and action. If we act now and reach a good international agreement in Copenhagen, we will mitigate a lot, have to adapt less, and suffer little because of Climate Change. If we fail to act we will hardly mitigate its intensity, hence need to adapt much more to its effects, and suffer much from them!

We can all contribute to the effort of stopping Climate Change – the most important challenge humanity has ever faced! All of my life I have been a part of this ‘battle’. During ten years in business it meant working on energy efficiency, using less resources and overall being more efficient. During the next ten years of public service it meant instituting a Carbon Tax to constitute an Environmental Services Fund. This Fund then purchased environmental services from small farmers such as carbon sequestration through the planting and growing of tress, or the protection of aquifers that fed into hydro energy projects. During the last ten years of international work, it has meant working on different initiatives to broaden understanding about Climate Change, and mobilize groups to concrete actions in the fight against it.

In the run-up to Copenhagen, I have also taken an active part in two promising efforts.

One is called the “Carbon War Room”. Together with a group of progressive entrepreneurs, Sir Richard Branson came up with the idea of establishing a “Carbon War Room” (www.carbonwarroom.com) Its mission is to select ‘battles’ in the war against Climate Change that can be fought and won, with victory constituting important emission reductions in these sectors. I chair the Executive Committee of this effort, and we are well on our way to identifying the first battles we will fight!

The other one is called the Global Observatory. Last June while participating in the Tallberg Forum I launched the idea of constituting a “Global Observatory” (www.globalobservatory.net) to inform people around the world how and what their governments were doing with respect to the up-coming Copenhagen negotiations. A group of participants immediately sprung up to the challenge, and thanks to their efforts the Global Observatory is becoming a reality in Copenhagen. How will it operate? We will receive in real-time reports from the negotiation center in Copenhagen, on how the negotiation process is going. A group of undisputed experts from around the world will analyze the information coming from the negotiation center, and interpret this as being good or bad for the world. They will inform selected global leaders who are already volunteering for this effort, who will then share these perspectives with peoples around the world through old and new media. We hope to empower people to act – either congratulate their government for good actions at Copenhagen, or demand from them greater responsibility if they are not helping to reach a high quality agreement at the negotiations.

We all need to get involved. What can you do that contributes to win the war against Climate Change?

Peter Wadhams, professor of Ocean Physics and Head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at the University of Cambridge, lectured on “what we can learn from the ice”. He reminded us of some interesting facts I want to share with you:
1. There are three massive ice caps on the planet: the Arctic, the Antarctic, and the Himalayas. All three play important roles in the Global Climate System.
2. The Arctic is water (ice) surrounded by land. Antarctic is land surrounded by water.
3. The Arctic region has four million people, and no penguins. The Antarctic has no people, and twenty million penguins.
4. The Arctic ice cap plays two vital roles with respect of climate: it acts as giant mirror that reflects the sun’s rays thus avoiding heating, and it cools the winds that blow over it towards the north Atlantic where they cool the water currents.
5. This ice cap is shrinking. In the summer of 1978 it measured 8.4 million square kilometers. In the summer of 2007 it measured 5.3 million square kilometers.
6. The Arctic ice cap is also thinning at a scary rate.
7. The Arctic Ocean surface temperature was -2’C back in 1985. Last year it was +.2’C.
8. If the present trajectory holds (which means we do nothing or little to stop mitigate Climate Change), within a decade or two we will have an ice-free Arctic every summer!

All these facts point to one conclusion: what’s happening in the Arctic is worse than the worst-case IPCC predictions!

After the presentation, and the usual 200 e-mails that were waiting for me, I managed to sleep four hours before waking up this morning at 06:00hrs. Shortly afterwards we where at the Airport, ready to board Greenland Airways’ four hour flight to Kangerlussuaq. I took a picture of the plane – bright red – for you to see below.

I also took some pictures of the route we followed.

As summer gives way to autumn weather in Europe is between still hot and mild. But Greenland is a different story. Temperatures have dropped from the high 20’s (Celsius) they reached during a few days in the middle of the summer, to the low teens in the best of cases during these days. Within another thirty days it will easily be -20’C.

In preparation for the trip I packed some of the lighter clothes my daughter Eugenia help me purchase for a scientific expedition to the Arctic Circle two years ago. Then, the coldest it got was -56’C.

The flight to Copenhagen, our point of departure, was a good one – if you can identify yourself with a sardine in a can. Airlines are so squeezed by the present economic crisis, they have put more rows of seats into their planes to carry more passengers. As a result, when I sat down for the four-hour flight from Madrid, I felt my knees being forced into my chest! Thanks Spanair Airlines for the almost yoga position!

Landing in Copenhagen brought, as it always does, all types of fond memories to mind. Farfar and Mormor - my Danish grandparents; my mother with her Danish way of doing things; extended and beloved family in Denmark; open-faced Danish sandwiches; Royal Copenhagen porcelain, and the list goes on and on…

Already in the city, Copenhagen also brought clear images of how sustainability can be achieved, and of some of the re-learning we need to do with respect of our development styles. Take transportation.

The first picture I took to the left, is the bicycle rack outside the Prime Minister’s Office. Most people who work there come to the office on their bicycle!

And the second picture I took to the right, is around the time everybody starts leaving their offices - many again on bicycles!

In Copenhagen quality of life includes riding a bicycle every day to work. In developing nations, quality of life means forgetting your bicycle and buying a car – except we will be running out of oil, and there are not enough raw materials on the planet to keep on building cars for a population of 7 Billion, and growing. Something has to change!

This is all out war! As battle lines are drawn between those that favor a positive outcome and those that doubt Climate Change is occurring in spite of overpowering scientific evidence, every organization is doing its best to shape the debate, and contribute to the outcome.

Four organizations I respect, the European Environmental Agency, Executive Learning Partnership, Active Philanthropy and Climate Action Initiative, organized a fact-finding expedition to Greenland, to observe first hand the effects of Climate Change on this most important ecosystem for the Climate Global System. Upon receiving their invitation to join the team travelling to Greenland, it took Henrik Lund, My Chief of Staff, quite some time and effort to clear my agenda in order to make the trip. Henrik came through with the ‘agenda miracle’, thus allowing me to join the mission (thanks Henrik)!

When in the past I have flown over the Atlantic, I have often found myself looking out the window of my plane to imagine Greenland, that vast expanse of ice - now melting.

Climate Change is happening, and we need to stop it! To better understand what’s at stake, I’m off to Greenland – this time not 10,000 meters above it, but on it, close to what’s happening on the ground…

Mucho más en las próximas, horas, acompáñeme en este viaje por medio de este blog…..