by RAY FLEMING
ELEVEN weeks to save the world might be over-dramatising the situation -- but not by much. In seventy-seven days from now the UN Climate Change Conference will meet in Copenhagen to finalise plans for a framework for climate change measures to replace the existing but inadequate Kyoto agreements which come to an end in 2012. The time between late 2009 and
2012 is already very tight because the carbon emission cuts necessary to make a significant reduction in the effects of climate change are very complex to operate.
Yesterday Gordon Brown said he believed it would be necessary for national leaders to attend the Copenhagen meeting because the issues at stake will be so momentous that negotiations and agreement on them cannot be left to environment or energy ministers who will lack the necessary authority. He writes in the current edition of Newsweek that he intends to be at Copenhagen himself and yesterday he said that he would lobby other world leaders attending this week's UN and G20 meetings to be ready to do the same.
No doubt there will be niggling criticism of Brown for not staying at home to deal with Britain's many more immediate problems but I think he shows good judgement in recognising the overriding importance of a long-term workable world agreement at Copenhagen. Unless climate change is controlled very soon it will affect all life on earth in devastating ways. It is a priority.
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