OneWorld.net (U.S.)

for shifting the goalposts in the global climate negotiations to give people in vulnerable African and small island nations a better chance of surviving the impacts of worldwide climate change

WASHINGTON, Feb 10 (OneWorld.net) - While the final outcome of the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit may not have been what the people of the world's most vulnerable nations had hoped for, Tuvalu's Ian Fry and the Maldives' Mohamed Nasheed used the global platform to shake the geopolitical power structures in ways that may ultimately save millions of lives -- and entire cultures.

Speaking elegantly and in stark terms, the tag-team climate evangelists put the world on notice: the survival of their and many other nations is now at risk, and only a fair, ambitious, and legally binding agreement to reduce the world's greenhouse gas emissions can save them.

During the first week of the conference, Tuvalu and the Maldives led a coalition of small island nations that stood against the traditionally powerful countries, offering an alternate draft declaration that would have publicly recognized the catastrophic consequences of global temperature rise of even 2 degrees Celsius -- the target most wealthier nations are currently proposing -- and commit the world's nations to holding temperature rise "well below 1.5 degrees Celsius."

An agreement that mandated anything less, they said, would be "a suicide pact" for their nations, and they would not sign it.

Tuvalu's chief negotiator Ian Fry (left) and the Maldives' president Mohamed Nasheed. © UNFCCCIn the second week, the Tuvaluan chief climate negotiator, Fry, and the Maldivian president, Nasheed, made impassioned appeals from the debate floor that were reported to have brought some fellow negotiators to tears.

"Over the last few days I've received calls from all over the world, offering faith and hope that we can come to a meaningful conclusion on this issue," said Fry in one of the most dramatic geopolitical speeches in recent memory. "I woke this morning, and I was crying, and that's not easy for a grown man to admit. The fate of my country rests in your hands." [» Watch the entire speech below.]

Speaking to OneWorld, Nasheed agreed that the fate of his and other island cultures and people depends on actions taken by political leaders halfway across the world, in Washington and Brussels and Canberra and Delhi and Beijing.

That's not to say his country is standing idly by. The Maldives announced in 2009 that it plans to become the world's first carbon-neutral country. And during the Copenhagen conference, the Alliance of Small Island States, of which the Maldives is a leader, detailed a massive plan to power their countries' development with renewable energy.

By comparison, many European nations have said they will commit to reducing their emissions by 30 percent or more (from 1990 levels) by 2020. The United States, however, is only aiming for a reduction of about 4 percent from 1990 levels, and Beijing is reluctant to commit to any medium- or long-term reductions, even though it is currently leading the world in renewable energy generation.

"This is about my two children," Nasheed told OneWorld during the Copenhagen conference. "I have two daughters. I want to see them with grandchildren. If you or if anyone thinks that what we are talking about is money, you cannot be more wrong. We can fend for ourselves, but we cannot when everyone else is bombing us." [» Watch the entire speech below.]

Ultimately, Fry's Tuvalu remained opposed to the statement of intent brokered by U.S. President Barack Obama and other powerful world leaders on the summit's final day. The agreement committed the leaders to little other than to keep talking, and reiterated their aim of holding global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius, not the 1.5 degrees or less needed to save small island nations from inundation and to spare many African countries from what some have called "incineration." (Africa tends to be impacted more intensely by temperature rises than other land masses, so a global increase of 2 degrees could mean catastrophic rises of 3-4 degrees in some parts of Africa.)

In an extremely tense political moment near 2 a.m. on the final night of the summit, Nasheed publicly gave his extremely conditioned consent to the agreement Obama had worked out, playing good cop to Tuvalu's bad, providing a modicum of political cover for the richer nations that had pushed the deal through, and paving the way for negotiations to continue into 2010.

There's no doubt, however, that as negotiations now move forward, the voices of Ian Fry and Mohamed Nasheed will be ringing in politicians' ears. Scores of climate activists have already taken up their cause in London, Washington, Canberra, and elsewhere.

The goal of holding global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius wasn't even on the radar screen before Copenhagen. Now world leaders are starting to recognize that it must be considered, if millions of people are to be spared death and permanent displacement in the years to come.

That, thanks in large part, to the strong voices of Fry and Nasheed. They showed that while their nations may be small and their people regularly ignored in geopolitical discussions, they certainly are not powerless.

Check out Fry's impassioned speech on the Copenhagen Conference floor and Nasheed's exclusive interview with OneClimate.net (more links and People of 2009 finalists below)

* This story profiles one of OneWorld.net's People of 2009. Meet all the honorees and tell us about the people who inspire you.

* Learn more and see all of OneWorld.net's latest coverage at the climate change edition of Perspectives magazine.

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