November 17, 2009 - 11:45am

Copenhagen: What you need to know

You may have heard the word “Copenhagen” being used a lot lately in the news. Why the sudden fascination with Denmark’s capital? Next month, the city will host a crucially important international meeting to decide how the world should tackle climate change in the coming years. We’re running out of time to get it right, and we need the cooperation of every country to be successful. As the world prepares for Copenhagen and Copenhagen prepares for the world, here’s a primer on what’s going on, and why it matters.

Where?
The Bella Centre in Copenhagen, Denmark

When?
December 7-18, 2009

What?
To fight climate change, we need a clear, ambitious, legally-binding contract to make sure each country upholds the greenhouse gas reductions it agrees to at the conference.The World Wildlife Fund says that this must involve reducing global greenhouse gases by 80% below 1990 levels between now and 2050. What isn’t in place right now is a roadmap for how to do that. This is the goal of the Copenhagen conference.

This international conference is sponsored by the United Nations. Because climate change reaches across individual jurisdictions, borders and oceans, it’s a global problem that will require global cooperation to solve. We have to stop thinking of ourselves as Canadian, Scottish, Japanese or Croatian, carrying all the particular political interests that come with each nametag. We all have to let that go, and start thinking of ourselves as one.