Mikhail Gorbachev and Bill Clinton Call for a Global Climate Deal
In 1989, incredible changes that were deemed impossible just a few years earlier were implemented. But this was no accident. The changes resonated the hopes of the time and leaders responded. We brought down the wall in the belief that future generations would be able to solve challenges together. Today, looking at the cavernous gulf between rich and poor, the irresponsibility that caused the global financial crisis, and the weak and divided responses to climate change, I feel bitter. The opportunity to build a safer, fairer and more united world has been largely squandered.
To echo the demand made of me by my late friend and sparring partner President Reagan: Mr Obama, Mr Hu, Mr Singh, Mr Brown and, back in Berlin, Ms Merkel and her European counterparts: “Tear down this wall!”
For this is Your Wall, your defining moment. You cannot dodge the call of history. I appeal to heads of state and government to personally come to the climate change conference in Copenhagen this December and dismantle the wall. The people of the world expect you to deliver; do not fail them.
And here is Bill Clinton:
It is important to get a new climate treaty at Copenhagen in December to succeed the Kyoto Accords. It is important that Congress respond to the president’s call to pass responsible climate change legislation. It is important that China, India and other emerging economies be part of that solution.
It should be easier to accomplish all this now because we know that changing the way we produce and consume energy, provided we do it in the right way, is not an economic millstone around our necks. Instead, it is the single fastest way to jump-start the economy and restore the middle class by creating new jobs and lowering energy costs. Using our own sun, wind and natural gas; developing new technologies for appliances, green buildings and retrofits; restoring our forests; capturing carbon and storing or recycling it — all these things will also enhance our national security. And spreading these practices throughout the world will speed development and reduce poverty, ensuring us a future with more partners and fewer enemies.
