by David G Matyas
Two metro stops from the official COP15 conference, away from the debates over degrees and parts per million, is a side event with a humbler objective. Far from discussions of what an “acceptable” level of warming means on paper, participants in this basement studio at the Copenhagen Koncerthuse are trying to manage what 0.7 degrees already feels like – what 2 degrees will look like on the ground. In these halls, there’s no such thing as “business as usual.” In these halls business is already unusual and even with a “best case scenario,” things are about to get a lot worse. Welcome to the Development and Climate Days.
Founded at COP8 in Delhi, this side event has gained relevance and importance over the years, expanding from one to four days. Bringing together individuals and organizations already attending the official conference, it broaches issues like justice, humanitarian relief and poverty. For the participants at this event, and the people they represent, waiting is not an option: Climate change is here and adaptation is now. In Nepal and Uganda, India and Tuvalu, no scientist is needed to tell the people that their environment is changing. As Atiq Rahman, founder of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies, said on the third day of the event, “In Bangladesh, climate change has a taste. It tastes of salt.”
The immediacy of climate change in these regions makes the questions discussed at this side event sharply practical. How do we finance necessary changes? How can Community Based Adaptation be best fostered and supported? How can we involve children in the adaptation process? They are questions that those in the business of development have struggled with for decades, questions that are built on shaky foundations and with weak machinery. But even if we manage to find good answers to these questions, there is still a gap. There is still a space between where adaptation takes us and how far warming requires us to go.
Ideally, with effective adaptation and ambitious reduction targets, the size of this gap can be diminished. The number of people that slip through the cracks can be… minimized. In a poorer situation, however, with weak reduction targets and mis-adaptation, a fissure could emerge of frightening proportions. It is frightening because it will not only be lives that are lost, not only land that disappears. On the last day of the Development and Climate Days, President Nasheed of the Maldives received a question on what he thought of migration. A young man from Bangladesh, amongst the long, complex and at times verbose questions asked quite simply, “What do you think of migration?” President Nasheed gave the following response:
“In terms of migration… I can move. But you can’t take all the butterflies. You can’t take the language, you can’t take the culture, you can’t take the songs, you can’t take the colour and you can’t take everything that is you.”
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