From Kyoto to Copenhagen

Are the global consequences of climate change worsening? Are cap-and-trade schemes the best way to reduce CO2 emissions? With a global recession looming, does the path to economic recovery lead through low-carbon technologies? Can we fight climate change and improve energy security at the same time?

In 2012, the Kyoto Protocol, the landmark agreement to combat climate change, expires. In December 2009, Denmark will host the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 (COP15), the last stop for a new global treaty to preserve the world’s environment. As the dangers of climate change – rising sea levels, drought, and other extreme weather events – grow, increasing awareness of the urgent need to act has never been higher.

To explore the grave issues at stake, the Danish government, as organizer of the Copenhagen Conference, and Project Syndicate are cooperating to create an exclusive series of commentaries, From Kyoto to Copenhagen, in which a who’s who of world leaders will address the challenges that lay ahead in tackling climate change.

From Kyoto to Copenhagen will provide commentaries written by heads of state and government and leading opinion-makers from business, academia, and civil society on subjects ranging from the effects of global warming to energy security, green economic growth, and how to assist the poorest countries in adapting to climate change.

Among the commentators invited or to be invited to appear in From Kyoto to Copenhagen are UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, Virgin CEO Richard Branson, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Chairman of BP Capital Management T. Boone Pickens, and Indian author Arundhati Roy.

For climatologists, "perfect storms" occur when natural forces combine to unleash disturbances of vast power. Likewise, global warming and energy security may combine to form a "perfect crisis." This is one disaster we can prevent. Shouldn't your readers be part of the solution?

http://www.project-syndicate.org/series/74/description