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IN FOCUS akzente 3/15 27 Different Calls For Action Guest article by Mary Robinson PROFILE MARY ROBINSON is the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Climate Change. She is a former President of Ireland and a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. T he obligation to act on climate change is clearer than ever: too many people are suffering in far too many places around the world, and decades of development pro- gress are at risk. The scientific imperative to act has long been settled, and we have known for many years the economic reality that the costs of inaction greatly outweigh the costs of action. Yet, despite these clear reasons to act, sufficiently urgent climate action has been held up for years. One of the main reasons for insufficient action is the difficulties in working out how to share the efforts needed to stabilise our planet’s climate – or in the dry words of climate negotiations: how to act in recog- nition of ‘common but differentiated re- sponsibilities’. Yet, achieving a fair and effective climate agreement in Paris will not be pos- sible without finding a way for all countries to carry their fair share of climate action – both to stabilise the planet’s climate, and to increase the resilience of societies every- where to deal with the impacts for which it is now too late to act. Those involved in negotiations for the Paris agreement must focus in detail on a complex negotiating text. This important work will create the foundation for climate action for decades to come. But there is a risk that burden sharing be- comes merely a negotiating red line. In- stead, the notion of ‘common but differenti- ated responsibilities’ should be seen as a catalyst for transformative leadership for all countries which recognises that there are different calls to action for different groups of countries. Today’s rich countries need to urgently decarbonise national economies. But for emerging economies and developing coun- tries, what they are being asked to do is some- thing that has never been done before – to develop prosperous, resilient societies, without relying on the fossil fuels or land use methods that have been the basis of prosper- ity for well over a century. This is one of the biggest challenges ever posed to a group of countries – and it is made more pronounced by the fact that these coun- tries contain most of the world’s population, and are where most of the world’s develop- ment needs to occur in the decades ahead. Whether they are able to deploy the transformative leadership required will in part depend on how the international com- munity translates the concept of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ into the fi- nal Paris agreement. In particular, it means that the role of climate finance – which is an enormous part of that discussion – and the related area of technology transfer need to be properly un- derstood. These are frequently mischaracter- ised as an expectation of charity from those too poor to act. But if we share a collective need to avert catastrophic climate change, then climate finance is a practical manifesta- tion, not of aid or charity, but of self-interest. In this paradigm, climate action hap- pens in both the developed and the devel- oping world, with the necessary financial and technological support coming from de- veloped countries to developing countries, in recognition of the additional leadership required. Future generations will judge us on how we dealt with climate change – a problem that we know how to solve and can afford to solve. If we fail because we could not get past a debate on our different responsibilities, what will they think of us? PHOTO:GETTYIMAGES/MOMENTOPEN/JEAN-PHILIPPETOURNUT(Page26),ILLUSTRATION:ELLIOTBEAUMONT(Page27) akzente 3/1527