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诺贝尔演讲 2007年12月10日
尊贵的国王陛下，尊贵各位殿下，尊敬的各位瑞典诺贝尔学会的各位会员们，诸位阁下，女士们先生们
我来这里有一个目的，我已经为这个目的奋斗了许多年，我不断向上帝祈祷，祈求上帝能指引我找到一条实现它的道路。
有的时候，在毫无预告的条件下，未来会叩响我们的房门，带来了珍贵而让人痛苦的未来景象。119年前，一个富有的发明家在报纸上看到了自己的讣告。报纸错误的在发明家真正去世前的许多年刊登了发明家的讣告。错误的以为发明家已经离开人世，一份报纸对于发明家的生平惊醒了极为严厉的评价，极为不公的将这个发明家定义为：死亡商人，因为他发明了炸药。发明家被这指责所震动，他做出了一个极为重要的决定：为和平事业而不懈努力。十七年后，阿尔弗雷德·诺贝尔以自己的名义设立许多奖项，其中就包括我现在获得的这个奖项。
在七年前的12月11号，我也看到了自己的政治讣告，这份讣告是从一份对于我来说残酷和不公正的判决中读到的。这份判决是那么的为时过早。虽然这份不受欢迎的判决给我带来的痛苦，但也带来了弥足珍贵的收获：一个寻找全新的方式来实现我的目的的机会。出乎我的意料之外，这份对新方式的追求探索把我带到了这里。尽管我觉得现在可能词不达意，但是我祈祷我心中所想的，今天在场的所有人都能理解明白，大家都能不约而同的说这样一句话：“我们必须行动起来！”
我很荣幸能和这些著名的科学家共同分享这个奖项，这是我一生中最大的荣耀。这些著名的科学家在我们的面前，为我们提供了一个选择两个不同未来的机会。这个选择的机会使我想起了一位古代先知的话语：“生存或者毁灭，祝福或者诅咒，所以，要选择生存，这样你和你们的子孙后代才能存活下去”
我们人类正在面临一场全球性的危机：一场威胁到全体人类文明的危机正在积聚力量。即使在我们相聚在这里讨论对策的时候，这个危险正在积聚破坏的力量，让人感到不详的预兆。但是也有一个好消息，我们能够应对这场危机，避免其中最坏的结果，尽管不是全部的结果。只要我们能够大胆果断的采取迅速的行动。
但是除了一小部分值得我们称道的例外情况之外，尽管这部分例外越来越多。绝大多数的世界领导人还是在哪里无动于衷，他们的行为用温斯顿·丘吉尔的话来形容再合适不过，丘吉尔的这句话本来是用来形容当时欧洲那些无视希特勒纳粹威胁的领导人的。“他们陷入了奇怪的自相矛盾之中，议而不决，决而不行，当断不断，不下定决心，漂浮不定，实力强大却那么软弱可欺”
所以今天我们将7千万吨温室气体排放到大气层之中，这一层包裹地球的薄薄的大气层被我们当成了公共下水道。明天我们会排放比现在更多的温室气体到大气层中，温室集体在大气中越聚越大，截留了越来越多的太阳光中的能量。因此现在地球正在发烧，发烧的温度还在越来越高。科学家们已经告诉我们这不是一个已经过去的苦难，可以自行痊愈，我们考虑再三，向许多人寻求意见却不做决定。不断重复的结论，给我们不断的警告，一些根本性的东西错了：我们就是这个错误，我们必须自己改正这个错误。
去年九月21号，当北半球离太阳越来越远的时候，科学家以前所未有的沮丧对我们报告说，北极冰盖正在“悬崖跌落的速度迅速减少”，曾经有一个研究表明北极的冰盖将在22年之内完全的消失，另外一个新的研究，本周晚些时候将由美国海军的研究人员向社会公布，警告我们说北极冰盖可能在七年之中完全消失，从现在开始的七年之后。
在过去的几个月中，越来越多的证据已经向我们证明，地球已经越来越反常。由于持续的干旱和不断融化的冰川，南北美洲的城市和亚洲与澳洲的都市已经接近处于断水的状态。绝望的农民失去了他们的生计，居住在北极冰原上的人们和居住在低洼的太平洋岛屿上的居民正在计划撤离，离开他们长久生活的家园。史无前例的火灾迫使一个国家接近五十万的人口被迫撤离家园，造成另一个国家陷入紧急状态，差点使整个国家陷入动荡。气候难民被迫移民到其他地区，那里已经有属于不同文化，宗教和传统的人口居住，这样增加了发生冲突的可能性。太平洋上的台风和大西洋上的飓风威力越来越大，威胁到城市的安全。居住在南美洲，墨西哥和非洲十八个国家的，数以百万记得人口因为暴风雨不得不流离失所。极端的温度不断刷新纪录，越来越多的人口因此而丧命。我们现在正在肆无忌惮的焚烧和开垦我们的森林，使越来越多的物种灭绝，人类所赖以生存的生物链被我们肆意破坏。我们从来没有希望造成这种破坏性的结果，就像当初阿里弗莱德·诺贝尔发明炸药的时候不希望炸药被用于战争一样。他原本希望自己的发明可以促进人类文明进步。我们也怀着同样高尚的目的，开始消耗大量的煤炭，石油和天然气。即使在诺贝尔的时代，就有一些科学家对于这样做的可能的后果提出警告。一个最早获得诺贝尔化学奖的科学家担忧道：“我们正在将我们煤矿蒸发到大气中。”在进行了一万次人工的计算之后，科学家Svante Arrhenius计算得出结论，如果我们将大气中的CO2的浓度增加一倍的话，地球的平均温度会增加许多度。七十年以后，我的老师 Roger Revelle和他的同事Dave Keeling开始每天精确的统计每天的CO2的浓度。但是和其他的污染物质不一样的是，CO2无色无味，也无法目测。这些都是我们很容易的无视和回避它的危害性和对我们气候的破坏性。更重要的是，我们现在面临的危机是前所未有，我们常常把前所未有和没有可能混为一谈。我们同样发现，为了应对这场危机所需要采取的大规模行动超出我们的想象。当重要的事实真相让人十分难以接受和面对的时候，整个社会至少可以在一段时间内回避这个问题。但是正如George Orwell提醒我们的：“早晚有一天，那些和现实相违背的错误思想，会在战场上（不攻自破）”
从这个奖项开始颁发的时代开始，整个人类与地球的关系被急速的改变，直到现在我们还是对我们不断重复行为的后果蒙在鼓里。事实上，在毫不知情的条件下，我们正在和地球进行着一场战争，人类和地球的关系被锁定在一个僵局中，就像很多战略家所熟悉的名词那样：“相互确保毁灭”。
二十多年前，科学家计算得出，核战争会将大量的灰尘和烟雾投射到大气之中，这样会将做为生命之源的阳光隔绝，造成“核冬天”。他们的结论是那么的雄辩和无可反驳，推动了全球抑制核军备竞赛的决心，就在奥斯陆这里。现在科学家警告我们，如果人类不迅速减少大气中的温室气体污染的排放，温室气体会积聚越来越多的热量，这些热量本来应该被反射出大气层之外，我们极有可能会造成一个永久的“碳夏天”。美国诗人Robert Frost曾经有过这样的诗句：“有人说世界将毁灭于火，有人说是冰”无论哪一个他都认为“已经足够”。但是哪一个都不应该成为我们的宿命，我们要和地球重归于好，握手言和。
我们必须迅速的动员起来，以之前国家动员起来应对的战争的那种紧迫感和决心动员起来。这些应对战争的全民总动员取得了成功，这是因为他们的领导人在最危急的时刻，面对一场旷日持久而又关乎生死的挑战，释放出来的蓬勃的斗志和勇气，满怀希望和胸有成竹的豪言壮语。
这些都不是保证，保证这个危险不是真实的或者并不严重，这样的保证会让我们麻痹和产生错误的幻想。也不是这个危险会影响别人而不会影响我们的保证，也不是即使遇到了超乎寻常的危险，普通人的生活也还是可以继续下去的保证，更不是上帝可以做到我们自己所力不能及的事情的保证，这一切都是错误的。
不，它们是要求我们去保护我们的共同命运的召唤，是对所有人类的勇气、慷慨和力量的召唤，召唤所有做好准备，一旦有需要，就会为应对共同危险而努力的人类，不分阶级和其他情况。在战争时代，我们的敌人错误的以为自由的人民不能团结起来应对挑战，他们犯了这个致命的错误，最终失败。
现在全球变暖的气候危机已经是铁板钉钉的，日益严重的，迫在眉睫的同时又是影响广泛的。再一次，现在是最危急的时刻。无视这个挑战的后果将是极为严重而且是愈演愈烈的，在某种程度上，后果将是不可持续和不可逆转的。现在我们还有能力来选择我们的命运，现在剩下的问题只有一个：“我们有没有应对危机而采取及时采取行动，不懈努力的决心呢，还是我们是不是将继续被一个致命的错觉而迷惑？” 圣雄甘地令世界上最大民主国家的人民觉醒，领导了一场所有人都参与的运动，运动的名字叫 “Satyagraha”，也就是“事实力量”，在世界任何地方，事实一旦被知晓，就能使人得自由。事实还可以使我们超越彼此的界限走到一起，创造我们的共同努力和一同承担责任的基础。有一句来自非洲的谚语说：“同行行远，独行行速”，我们既要行远也要行速。我们必须抛弃掉个人的匹夫之勇，单打独斗皆可以解决问题的痴心妄想，这样做确实有作用，但是这样做好远远不够，我们要进行集体行动。同时在全球共同努力的时候，我们要确保不会产生新的意识形态冲突和新的必须全体一致的僵局。
这意味着要采用可以激发全体人类社会创造力和主动性的原则，价值观念，法律和协定，全体社会成员要自觉自发的来采取一致的行动来应对这场危机。这新的想法要求我们尽可能的将所有人类的智慧发挥到极致。那些可以发现的新的廉价的利用太阳能的方法和制造低碳排放发动机的发明家可能来自于世界的任何地方，可能来自拉各斯，可能来自孟买，也可能来自蒙德维利亚。我们必须确保世界上所有的企业家和发明家都有改变世界的可能性。
当我们为了一个显而易见高尚和真实的道德原因而团结起来的时候，由此而产生的巨大精神力量会改变我们。在上世纪四十年代的人们团结一致打败了纳粹法西斯势力。为了应对他们所面临的巨大挑战，他们处在道德权威，拥有远见卓识，实施了马歇尔计划，建立了联合国，推动了更高程度的国际合作和互动。这些促成了欧洲的联合，促进了德国，日本和意大利和世界其他很多地区的民主与繁荣。其中一位富有远见卓识的领袖人物曾经说过：“现在是用天上的星光来为我们指引方向而不是像以前一样依靠过往的船舶。” 在第二次世界大战接近尾声的时候，你们将诺贝尔和平奖授予了一位来自美国田纳西州迦太基市，这个有2000人口小城市的政治家，他的名字是Cordell Hull，美国富兰克林·罗斯福总统曾将Cordell Hull称之为“联合国之父”。他是我父亲的榜样，我父亲在美国参众两院任职期间都践行着他的主张，努力推动世界和平与全球合作。我的父母经常提到Cordell Hull，口吻是那么的崇敬和敬佩。八个星期之前，当你们宣布了这个奖项的获得者是我。当我从当地的报纸上获得了这个消息的时候，我心中最大的想法如果我父母还健在的话，他要是能知道我获得了Cordell Hull一样的诺贝尔和平奖的时候，一定会万分欣慰的。
正如Cordell Hull的那一代人面对法西斯纳粹的威胁，而不畏凶险的努力奋斗，同样我们也应该以同样的勇气和决心来应对这场气候危机。在中国和日本使用的汉字中“危机”这个词有两个汉字来组成，一个是危险的意思，另一个则是机遇的意思。面对和解决这场气候危机的威胁，我们可以获得更大的道德权威和远见卓识来解决其他的人类长期面临却一直被拖延的危机与问题。我们必须认识到气候危机与人类贫困的蔓延，饥荒和艾滋病的肆虐等等其他灾难的连接。这些灾难和问题都是互相联系的，我们的解决方法也必须互相结合。我们必须将团结一致拯救全球环境作为人类社会的最高组织原则。十五年前，我在里约热内卢的“地球峰会”上讲了这番话，十年前，我在京都说了同样的话，这个星期我将在巴厘岛呼吁与会代表们通过一个极为大胆的法令。我将呼吁他们签订协约来进行全球温室气体排放的限制，并通过排放权交易市场的形式，将资源优化配置给最有价值和机会的个体，实现迅速减排。
这份协议应当在2010开始的时候通过批准并在世界各地生效。2010年比之前预计的要早两年。我们要反应的速度必须提高，只有这样才能赶上危机发展的速度。各国的领导人应该在明年初进行会谈，继续讨论在巴厘岛上成果，并为应对气候危机承担个人责任。考虑到现在事态的严重性，要求各国首脑每三个月会面一次知道达成最终的协约，这样的要求一点都不为过。
同时我们还需要中止所有正在建设的燃烧煤炭产生Co2但是却没有能力截留和储存Co2能力的设施。
最重要的是我们需要给Co2定价，通过征收Co2排放税，根据各国法律来逐步的推进，并返还给各国民众，将税负从以就业为标准转向以污染为标准进行征收。这是到目前为止最有效的和最简单方式来帮助应对全球气候危机。现在的世界需要联合起来，尤其是那些在天平上的占有最大分量的国家。地球就在这个天平之中。我想欧洲和日本政府致敬，感谢他们在近几年中为解决气候危机采取的行动，同样还包括澳大利亚的新政府，他们将解决气候危机作为他们的头等要务。
但是这场全球合作的结果制约于两个国家：美国和中国，这两个国家的影响至关重要，但是又都做的远远不够。印度的重要性也是越来越凸显出来。我们必须清醒的认识到，现在这两个全球最大的Co2排放国必须采取最勇敢的措施或者必将为他们的错误行为来站在历史的审判台上承担责任。指其中最重要的就是我的祖国：美国。
这两个国家应该不再使用对方的行为，作为自己不作为的借口，来制造僵局，而应当为了全球环境下的共同生存而共同商议对策。现在是作出决定的最后几年，但是只要我们能做我们要做的事情，这也可以是光明和充满希 望未来的开始。没有会相信不去作出努力，不去付出代价，不去做出改变就能找到解决的方法。我们必须承认的的是，要把浪费的时间挽回，再一次获得道德权威，我们必须认识到： 前面的道路充满了艰难险阻，我们仍然所知甚少，所做的远远不够，在我们的前方仍然是广袤的未知世界。
这是在用另一种方式来表达我们应该去探索未知世界。西班牙是人Antonio Machado曾经说过：“行路之人须敬听，世间无路本为真，己自多行勤开辟，荆棘险阻变坦途。”
我们正站在这个命运的一个关键的交叉点上，在快要结束的时候，我要再重复自己的话，我们可以预见到两个不同的未来，两者的可能性都骑虎相当。我再次祈祷我们能够清楚的了解到在两者之间选择的必要性，和现在就采取正确行动的急迫性。著名的挪威剧作家Henrik Ibsen曾经写道：“在未来的某一天，年青一代人回来敲响我们的房门。”未来正在敲响我们的房门，不要搞错，下一代人会来问我们的这样两个问题。一个会是：“你在想什么？你为什么不行动起来？” 或者他们会问：“你们是怎么能够有这么大的勇气去应对并且成功解决这场危机？很多都认为解决危机没有可能。”
我们有所需要的一切来开始行动，除了政治决心之外，但是政治决心是一种可以再生的资源，让我们振作起来，一同大声说：“我们怀着共同的目标，众志成城，为了共同的目标我们将振作起来团结奋斗。”
Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnees, Honorable members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen.I have a purpose here today.It is a purpose I have tried to serve for many years.I have prayed that God would show me a way to accomplish it.Sometimes, without warning, the future knocks on our door with a precious and painful vision of what might be.One hundred and nineteen years ago, a wealthy inventor read his own obituary, mistakenly published years before his death.Wrongly believing the inventor had just died, a newspaper printed a harsh judgment of his life's work, unfairly labeling him “The Merchant of Death” because of his invention – dynamite.Shaken by this condemnation, t he inventor made a fateful choice to serve the cause of peace.Seven years later, Alfred Nobel created this prize and the others that bear his name.Seven years ago tomorrow, I read my own political obituary in a judgment that seemed to me harsh and mistaken – if not premature.But that unwelcome verdict also brought a precious if painful gift: an opportunity to search for fresh new ways to serve my purpose.Unexpectedly, that quest has brought me here.Even though I fear my words cannot match this moment, I pray what I am feeling in my heart will be communicated clearly enough that those who hear me will say, “We must act.”
The distinguished scientists with whom it is the greatest honor of my life to share this award have laid before us a choice between two different futures – a choice that to my ears echoes the words of an ancient prophet: “Life or death, bleings or curses.Therefore, choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.” We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency – a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here.But there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst – though not all – of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly.However, despite a growing number of honorable exceptions, too many of the world's leaders are still best described in the words Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored Adolf Hitler's threat: “They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent.” So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer.And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the sun.As a result, the earth has a fever.And the fever is rising.The experts have told us it is not a paing affliction that will heal by itself.We asked for a second opinion.And a third.And a fourth.And the consistent conclusion, restated with increasing alarm, is that something basic is wrong.We are what is wrong, and we must make it right.Last September 21, as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distre that the North Polar ice cap is “falling off a cliff.” One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in le than 22 years.Another new study, to be presented by U.S.Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years.Seven years from now.In the last few months, it has been harder and harder to misinterpret the signs that our world is spinning out of kilter.Major cities in North and South America, Asia and Australia are nearly out of water due to maive droughts and melting glaciers.Desperate farmers are losing their livelihoods.Peoples in the frozen Arctic and on low-lying Pacific islands are planning evacuations of places they have long called home.Unprecedented wildfires have forced a half million people from their homes in one country and caused a national emergency that almost brought down the government in another.Climate refugees have migrated into areas already inhabited by people with different cultures, religions, and traditions, increasing the potential for conflict.Stronger storms in the Pacific and Atlantic have threatened whole cities.Millions have been displaced by maive flooding in South Asia, Mexico, and 18 countries in Africa.As temperature extremes have increased, tens of thousands have lost their lives.We are recklely burning and clearing our forests and driving more and more species into extinction.The very web of life on which we depend is being ripped and frayed.We never intended to cause all this destruction, just as Alfred Nobel never intended that dynamite be used for waging war.He had hoped his invention would promote human progre.We shared that same worthy goal when we began burning maive quantities of coal, then oil and methane.Even in Nobel's time, there were a few warnings of the likely consequences.One of the very first winners of the Prize in chemistry worried that, “We are evaporating our coal mines into the air.” After performing 10,000 equations by hand, Svante Arrhenius calculated that the earth's average temperature would increase by many degrees if we doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.Seventy years later, my teacher, Roger Revelle, and his colleague, Dave Keeling, began to precisely document the increasing CO2 levels day by day.But unlike most other forms of pollution, CO2 is invisible, tastele, and odorle – which has helped keep the truth about what it is doing to our climate out of sight and out of mind.Moreover, the catastrophe now threatening us is unprecedented – and we often confuse the unprecedented with the improbable.We also find it hard to imagine making the maive changes that are now neceary to solve the crisis.And when large truths are genuinely inconvenient, whole societies can, at least for a time, ignore them.Yet as George Orwell reminds us: “Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.”
In the years since this prize was first awarded, the entire relationship between humankind and the earth has been radically transformed.And still, we have remained largely oblivious to the impact of our cumulative actions.Indeed, without realizing it, we have begun to wage war on the earth itself.Now, we and the earth's climate are locked in a relationship familiar to war planners: “Mutually aured destruction.”
More than two decades ago, scientists calculated that nuclear war could throw so much debris and smoke into the air that it would block life-giving sunlight from our atmosphere, causing a “nuclear winter.” Their eloquent warnings here in Oslo helped galvanize the world's resolve to halt the nuclear arms race.Now science is warning us that if we do not quickly reduce the global warming pollution that is trapping so much of the heat our planet normally radiates back out of the atmosphere, we are in danger of creating a permanent “carbon summer.” As the American poet Robert Frost wrote, “Some say the world will end in fire;some say in ice.” Either, he notes, “would suffice.” But neither need be our fate.It is time to make peace with the planet.We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war.These prior struggles for survival were won when leaders found words at the 11th hour that released a mighty surge of courage, hope and readine to sacrifice for a protracted and mortal challenge.These were not comforting and misleading aurances that the threat was not real or imminent;that it would affect others but not ourselves;that ordinary life might be lived even in the presence of extraordinary threat;that Providence could be trusted to do for us what we would not do for ourselves.No, these were calls to come to the defense of the common future.They were calls upon the courage, generosity and strength of entire peoples, citizens of every cla and condition who were ready to stand against the threat once asked to do so.Our enemies in those times calculated that free people would not rise to the challenge;they were, of course, catastrophically wrong.Now comes the threat of climate crisis – a threat that is real, rising, imminent, and universal.Once again, it is the 11th hour.The penalties for ignoring this challenge are immense and growing, and at some near point would be unsustainable and unrecoverable.For now we still have the power to choose our fate, and the remaining question is only this: Have we the will to act vigorously and in time, or will we remain imprisoned by a dangerous illusion? Mahatma Gandhi awakened the largest democracy on earth and forged a shared resolve with what he called “Satyagraha” – or “truth force.”
In every land, the truth – once known – has the power to set us free.Truth also has the power to unite us and bridge the distance between “me” and “we,” creating the basis for common effort and shared responsibility.There is an African proverb that says, “If you want to go quickly, go alone.If you want to go far, go together.” We need to go far, quickly.We must abandon the conceit that individual, isolated, private actions are the answer.They can and do help.But they will not take us far enough without collective action.At the same time, we must ensure that in mobilizing globally, we do not invite the establishment of ideological conformity and a new lock-step “ism.” That means adopting principles, values, laws, and treaties that release creativity and initiative at every level of society in multifold responses originating concurrently and spontaneously.This new consciousne requires expanding the poibilities inherent in all humanity.The innovators who will devise a new way to harne the sun's energy for pennies or invent an engine that's carbon negative may live in Lagos or Mumbai or Montevideo.We must ensure that entrepreneurs and inventors everywhere on the globe have the chance to change the world.When we unite for a moral purpose that is manifestly good and true, the spiritual energy unleashed can transform us.The generation that defeated fascism throughout the world in the 1940s found, in rising to meet their awesome challenge, that they had gained the moral authority and long-term vision to launch the Marshall Plan, the United Nations, and a new level of global cooperation and foresight that unified Europe and facilitated the emergence of democracy and prosperity in Germany, Japan, Italy and much of the world.One of their visionary leaders said, “It is time we steered by the stars and not by the lights of every paing ship.”
In the last year of that war, you gave the Peace Prize to a man from my hometown of 2000 people, Carthage, Tenneee.Cordell Hull was described by Franklin Roosevelt as the “Father of the United Nations.” He was an inspiration and hero to my own father, who followed Hull in the Congre and the U.S.Senate and in his commitment to world peace and global cooperation.My parents spoke often of Hull, always in tones of reverence and admiration.Eight weeks ago, when you announced this prize, the deepest emotion I felt was when I saw the headline in my hometown paper that simply noted I had won the same prize that Cordell Hull had won.I n that moment, I knew what my father and mother would have felt were they alive.Just as Hull's generation found moral authority in rising to solve the world crisis caused by fascism, so too can we find our greatest opportunity in rising to solve the climate crisis.In the Kanji characters used in both Chinese and Japanese, “crisis” is written with two symbols, the first meaning “danger,” the second “opportunity.” By facing and removing the danger of the climate crisis, we have the opportunity to gain the moral authority and vision to vastly increase our own capacity to solve other crises that have been too long ignored.We must understand the connections between the climate crisis and the afflictions of poverty, hunger, HIV-Aids and other pandemics.As these problems are linked, so too must be their solutions.We must begin by making the common rescue of the global environment the central organizing principle of the world community.Fifteen years ago, I made that case at the “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro.Ten years ago, I presented it in Kyoto.This week, I will urge the delegates in Bali to adopt a bold mandate for a treaty that establishes a universal global cap on emiions and uses the market in emiions trading to efficiently allocate resources to the most effective opportunities for speedy reductions.This treaty should be ratified and brought into effect everywhere in the world by the beginning of 2010 – two years sooner than presently contemplated.The pace of our response must be accelerated to match the accelerating pace of the crisis itself.Heads of state should meet early next year to review what was accomplished in Bali and take personal responsibility for addreing this crisis.It is not unreasonable to ask, given the gravity of our circumstances, that these heads of state meet every three months until the treaty is completed.We also need a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store carbon dioxide.And most important of all, we need to put a price on carbon – with a CO2 tax that is then rebated back to the people, progreively, according to the laws of each nation, in ways that shift the burden of taxation from employment to pollution.This is by far the most effective and simplest way to accelerate solutions to this crisis.The world needs an alliance – especially of those nations that weigh heaviest in the scales where earth is in the balance.I salute Europe and Japan for the steps they've taken in recent years to meet the challenge, and the new government in Australia, which has made solving the climate crisis its first priority.But the outcome will be decisively influenced by two nations that are now failing to do enough: the United States and China.While India is also growing fast in importance, it should be absolutely clear that it is the two largest CO2 emitters – most of all, my own country – that will need to make the boldest moves, or stand accountable before history for their failure to act.Both countries should stop using the other's behavior as an excuse for stalemate and instead develop an agenda for mutual survival in a shared global environment.These are the last few years of decision, but they can be the first years of a bright and hopeful future if we do what we must.No one should believe a solution will be found without effort, without cost, without change.Let us acknowledge that if we wish to redeem squandered time and speak again with moral authority, then these are the hard truths: The way ahead is difficult.The outer boundary of what we currently believe is feasible is still far short of what we actually must do.Moreover, between here and there, acro the unknown, falls the shadow.That is just another way of saying that we have to expand the boundaries of what is poible.In the words of the Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, “Pathwalker, there is no path.You must make the path as you walk.” We are standing at the most fateful fork in that path.So I want to end as I began, with a vision of two futures – each a palpable poibility – and with a prayer that we will see with vivid clarity the neceity of choosing between those two futures, and the urgency of making the right choice now.The great Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, wrote, “One of these days, the younger generation will come knocking at my door.”
The future is knocking at our door right now.Make no mistake, the next generation will ask us one of two questions.Either they will ask: “What were you thinking;why didn't you act? ”
Or they will ask instead: “How did you find the moral courage to rise and succefully resolve a crisis that so many said was impoible to solve?”
We have everything we need to get started, save perhaps political will, but political will is a renewable resource.So let us renew it, and say together: “We have a purpose.We are many.For this purpose we will rise, and we will act.”
