God said unto Abraham, ‘As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.’

Like Abraham, each one of us will be the father or mother to nations of people in the future. The United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen that began yesterday will determine what kind of future we endow to our descendents.

This conference needs to do more than continue the status quo of rich countries blaming other countries for the problems of climate change. Nations must work together to reach a common goal of a better environment for the future. They need to stop arguing and start acting.

At Copenhagen, we will see 85 leaders from the four corners of the Earth come to speak about a planet in peril. Most will speak in grandiose tones about the struggle that humanity faces; some will show up and say nothing at all. Either way, this summit could be the most important gathering of world leaders since the end of World War II.

The problem with reaching a binding international agreement on climate change is not one of sticker shock from the price. A report on the conference from ‘The Economist’ calculates that while the benefits of avoiding a climate catastrophe are incredibly large, ‘the costs of doing so should not be enormous-as little as 1% of global output, if policy is well designed.’

The World Bank agrees that the cost of an agreement will not need to be so egregious. It estimates that ‘developing countries will need U.S. $400 billion a year for stemming climate change and about $75 million to a hundred billion dollars a year for adaptation measures,-such as relocating ‘climate change refugees.”

The problem comes from finding a solution that shares these costs fairly. What has stalled previous global environmental agreements, like the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, is the fact that some countries can pay for preventing climate change more than others.

If you’ve ever taken an introductory course in international relations, you’d be familiar with the problem which ‘The Economist’ describes as ‘a prisoner’s dilemma, a free-rider problem and the tragedy of the commons all rolled into one.’ The question remains: Why should rich countries pay to reduce emissions when developing countries continue to emit more and more greenhouse gases?

Yes, China, Brazil, Indonesia and India need to continue to be responsible stakeholders in this conference, but so does the United States. If the United States truly is the ‘leader of the free world’ then it should lead on stopping climate change instead of pointing fingers at countries that still have millions of people mired in the deepest kind of poverty.

The fact remains that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change estimates that average global temperature will increase by 2.0 to 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the 21st century.

A recent article in National Geographic was particularly illuminating of the problems we face. ‘For more than 99 percent of the time since the genus Homo arose two million years ago, everyone lived as hunter-gatherers. Then, once plants and animals were domesticated, the discovery sparked a complete reorganization of the globe….Villages were formed, then cities, then nations.’

For more than 99 percent of humanity’s history, we have been able to use Earth, our only home, for its resources without creating much disturbance to the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The day has come in which humanity needs to recognize that our children and their children deserve the same resources, the same clean air, water, land and stable climate that we have had.

The year 2009 could be remembered for many things that I have chronicled in this column over the past semester ? the ‘great’ recession, the continued war in Afghanistan, the arguments over the passage of a health care bill, the darkening of U.S. relations with Iran and China, and the political foibles of politicians past and present.

Or 2009 could be remembered as the year in which the nations of the world stood up and did something to protect future generations. It could be remembered as the year in which presidents, parliaments and people alike did something to stop the degradation of our planet. ‘There is more day to dawn,’ in the words of Thoreau.

President Obama, in a speech to the United Nations this past September, said in a sweeping oration, ‘difficulty is no excuse for complacency. Unease is no excuse for inaction. Each of us must do what we can when we can to grow our economies without endangering our planet – and we must all do it together. We must seize the opportunity to make Copenhagen a significant step forward in the global fight against climate change.’ I applaud the speech, but there’s a need for more substance. Failure is not an option in Copenhagen.

There is hope for the future of humanity. There always will be.

If an agreement can be made and continued into the future, the nations of the world will be able to protect our only home, this small blue dot in the middle of a wide expanse of emptiness.

If not, the world will be less hospitable for posterity. If not, God help us because we will follow the words Revelation: ‘And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.’

Andrew Swab is a sophomore magazine and international relations major. His columns appear weekly. He can be reached at ajswab@syr.edu.

Published on December 7, 2009 at 12:00 pm