Will the air change?

Limiting, and in future reducing, the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing global warming; correcting production systems and living standards based on the uncontrolled exploitation of the planet’s resources; and countering the effects of the climate change that is already taking place: with these environmental objectives, the political leaders of the European Union will ascend the stairway of the plane that will take them to Copenhagen. From 7 to 18 December, leading exponents of the EU Council, Commission and Parliament will sit at the negotiating table of the International Conference promoted by the UNO with the aim of defining a strategy for post-Kyoto. The European Union seems to have understood for some considerable time what’s at stake: marking a turning point in the relation between mankind and the environment, or heading towards a progressive catastrophe, not only natural, of which we are already experiencing some consequences today: unbreathable air and damage to health in the developed countries, desertification and drought in those stricken by famine and disease, glaciers and polar ice caps melting, rising seal levels, floods in low-lying coastal areas, proliferation of extreme meteorological events, and so on. Perverse effects to which we also need to link other phenomena, whether demographic (exoduses and migrations), economic (agricultural imbalances, industrial costs), and political (regional tensions, wars). For this reason the EU27 – which certainly does not have a clean conscience when it comes to the protection of the environment – has committed itself to acting in a coherent and compact way in the Danish capital, to ensure that binding decisions be taken to contain global warming within a threshold of 2 degrees centigrade. In pursuit of this goal, the EU has succeeded in adopting, after years of work, a “strategy” which spells out three priority commitments: reducing by 2020 greenhouse gases by 20% over 1990 (or by 30%, subject to international accord); limiting energy consumption by 20%; and satisfying 20% of energy needs through renewable sources. Yet not everything is clear in the “common home”: for example, the calculation of the economic costs deriving from a virtuous attitude to the environment has generated doubts, resistance, controversy and even arm-twisting. Despite that, an agreement has been reached. Moreover, Europe has accepted to pay the price for the support of the developing economies, so as to help them combat climate change (scientists agree that the major problems linked to global warming will fall on the nations of the third and fourth world). The Twenty-Seven therefore show they have accepted the climatic challenge: they have set themselves “sustainable” commitments; they have thought about the associated costs; they have especially recognized that any hoped-for success requires a strong political impetus and the ability to persuade public opinion, such as to direct the simplest forms of daily behaviour towards the safeguard of the Creation. It is without doubt a wide-ranging and complex question: it calls into question industrial sectors, markets (domestic and international), the use of resources (primarily those of energy), geopolitical disputes, and everyday lifestyles… The EU has the chance to bring to Copenhagen all these dimensions of the problem: the success of the UN Conference will depend also on the capacity of Europeans to persuade the other global players, in particular the USA, China and India: to convince them, in short, that health, prosperity, peace, fair development, the struggle against poverty and drought, depend on our way of conducting ourselves “before” and “within” the environment that has been entrusted to us: the environment we are called to transmit to the next generations.