Blog.

No show? No way.

Written by Kieran Battles. 25 October 2009

“Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response.”
President Elect Obama on confronting the challenge of climate change, November 18th 2008.

Just imagine for a second.

Cast your mind back to April of this year when G20 leaders met in London to solve the global financial crisis. The idea of President Obama saying, ‘nah, don’t fancy it’ would have been unfathomable. Unthinkable.

So why, 86 months from a climate tipping point of no return and less than 60 days from the most important meeting in the history of humankind, does Obama feel that he does not need to make a commitment to attend Copenhagen and deal with the global climate crisis?

Laying awake in bed the other night it came to me in those terms, and when it did it seemed so far beyond stubbornness, political manoeuvring, or frankly, belief. It feels like dereliction of duty on a potentially catastrophic scale.

It’s pretty straightforward, really. By making a commitment to go, Obama joins Gordon Brown in throwing down a gauntlet to other leaders. There’s too much at stake to play games. And as someone who resides on this planet and rejoiced at Obama’s existence and election, it’s beyond disappointing. The science is clear. In prevaricating, the President seems to be playing a strange political game with our future. And our lives.

This is his chance, more than any other I believe, not just to inspire us, but every other leader at Copenhagen, to ensure the fair, ambition and binding agreement the planet needs if we are to continue living on it.

For once, it would be nice if our leaders, rather than giving in to our pressure, actually led and gave us greater faith in their leadership.

Until then, I have faith in us. So, on October we launch the #Hope2Cope twitterstorm to get the leader of the free world to the most important meeting in the world.

We will continue, in the absence of leadership, to take the lead. We’ll rise up together and demand what should already exist. A commitment to do the right thing - the only thing - given the time we have to solve the problems we face.

From the start, Obama had written on his campaign homepage that he asked not just to believe in his abilities but in ours. So, on the 28th October let’s believe in our ability to write our own history.