COP15 Host Connie Hedegaard: Time to Get Off the Fence

"The crisis has presented us with a marvelous opportunity to rethink the way our society is structured, and the way business works. Most people accept that "business as usual" is not an option. Something has gone wrong. So we need to do things differently in future."

The Danish Climate Minister, Connie Hedegaard, heads the team of negotiators preparing for the climate summit in Copenhagen in December. Time Magazine has just placed her in its top hundred of the most influential people in the world – a list that is otherwise dominated by Americans.

And she will certainly need influence in order to meet her target: to get 192 signatures on an ambitious agreement that obliges participating countries to start cutting their CO₂ emissions fast.

Preparations for the summit have been underway for some time. But meanwhile, global economic growth has gone negative in the great majority of countries. This may weaken the political will to sign an agreement that has wide-ranging consequences for the economy.

"Everyone is preoccupied with what a climate solution might do to competitiveness. But I believe that innovation and new solutions can give birth to a new economy and create new jobs.

Whoever starts will win strategic positions that will endure throughout the 21st century," says Connie Hedegaard.

It sounds as though you want to stage the whole discussion of the climate agreement in a new way.

"I do. This is not about privation, but about solutions. In Denmark, energy technology exports rose by 13 percent in 2008 – more than twice as much as total exports. That tells us that these solutions can bring profit, growth and jobs. If political leaders understand the context, they will not wait until the economic crisis has passed before addressing the climate challenge. Solving the climate problem is not a bar on growth. It's the only path to growth that we can afford."

Connie Hedegaard acknowledges that this understanding has yet to get through to global leaders. She compares the present phase of negotiations with the pick-up-sticks game "Mikado."

"All the easy sticks have been picked up. Now we've reached the point where the players have to take risks. We need something to happen for the game to continue."

This "something" is murmuring around government offices across the globe. But Connie Hedegaard has made it clear that most of the attention is focused on one particular place: Washington.