COP15, Your Leaders & You (OR, Use Stronger Sunscreen and Place All Perishable Items on a High Shelf)

Esteemed leaders of the developed world,

Speaking as a member of the society that 1) Put you in power; 2) Pays your salary and 3) Will have to live with your decisions well after your time can I just comment about your triumph in Copenhagen.

What I wish to say is this: Don’t come back yet. Please. What we wish you to do is stay in a room there, and we’ll gradually turn up the thermostat. Slowly at first, then higher and higher, until you start to get uncomfortable. Then when it’s up as high as it can go, we’ll light a giant brazier, and fan it to all corners of said room. How will we fuel it you ask? Simple, we’ll burn your tables. And it’ll get pretty stuffy still, so we might light another. But not to worry, because the fire sprinklers will come on at that point. So you’ll be burning up with no relief, no resources and water slowly filling up your immediate vicinity.

That’s not very nice is it? Now you know how Tuvalu feels, China.

Who the hell do you people think you are? Your children’s generation and other “dirty leftists” have a vested interest in keeping this planet healthy for as long as possible and you encourage its ruin so blatantly. And to prove it, as the summit in Copenhagen crawls to an end like an elderly dog quietly going somewhere secluded to die, you took the one big moment to change this planet for the better and gave us… what? A promise to cool the planet by 2 degrees and nothing else.

Now, as many learned and notable public figures will say (i.e. Jeremy Clarkson, Tony Abbot, Andrew Bolt, Sarah Palin, Fox News’ Glenn Beck, any member of the former Bush administration and several other important people with money that smells of petrol in their pockets) this whole conference is a farce, that climate change does not exist and that we’re doing nothing wrong depending on fossil fuel and ravaging the planet like we have for most of our industrialised history. These people will be dead by the time the effect has kicked in, so of course they’d say that. But they have the media by the sensitive parts and so their message is seen as the sensible one.

I really do feel sorry for the protesters at COP15. You know the angry and concerned people the police kept hitting? The loud ones outside who wanted you to work? The ones who sounded like the little countries you ignored? You failed them. You have ignored them and in turn you have forgone any chance of respect from the masses. Mr. Obama, sir, I know you’re a moderate but surely you could have taken a stand…

And if I may direct this at you, Kevin, I am so disappointed at you. You proved everyone right. This was supposed to be your moment to make the months of bad press melt away, but that could not be. You followed the U.S like your predecessor, and lied to the press (again) saying this conference was a success. Because of this, I can foresee you being elected from office. I can foresee Herr Abbot taking over, and then we will burn as Hell becomes a certainty.

Praise must go to those protesters who put up with police brutality in the finest tradition of unarmed people meeting law enforcers, to Tuvalu, who stood firm as China ignored their demands to help cut carbon emissions, to Sudan’s Lumumba Stanislas Dia-ping who was one of the loudest voices condemning the agreement’s effect on the African nations saying of the pact “[it] is based on values, the very same values in our opinion that funnelled six million people in Europe into furnaces” and especially to Venezuela’s Claudia Salnerno Caldera who cut her palm in an effort to gain the conference chair Denmark’s attention and spitting bile as she labelled the agreement a “coup d’état against the United Nations”. Your efforts were more valiant than my mere words can convey and I feel ashamed to be a part of this gigantic problem. I am truly sorry.

But back to the glorious rich. For the millions of dollars and the attention this conference got, one small fact can come out of what was billed as “the most important summit since WWII”. And it is as follows:

You Have Failed Us, And We Will Not Forgive You.

You just may have successfully condemned the generations after you to burn. And for what. For what? The chance to avoid blame as the money keeps flowing and the campaigns keep you smiling and waving. I cannot comprehend how absurd your outlook is, to hear grown adults delude themselves like this is worrying and unpleasant.

Kevin, when you get home, we are having words.

How does that Elbow song go?
“The leaders of the free world are just little boys throwing stones…”

Yours indefinitely,

S. P Cantwell

Originally posted Dec 20th 2009