Christchurch Mayoralty: 'Struggling to unite on global warming?'

A public issue for the Christchurch Mayoral Debate?

I have said many times elsewhere, this is where the civic leadership on climate change should be taking us. If London can do it, so can we. The Southern Hemisphere needs an antipodean representation for a whole lot of reasons. Reasons we are good at. Contraction and Convergence, fundamental to the maintenance of international peace and security is the leverage for capitalising on Christchurch's 'Peace City, Garden City' well earned image.

An opportunity for real community engagement that can benefit everyone, here, there and everywhere. The cost? "some civic leadership" based in science and equity, else everything we do do round climate issues, is just vote catching rhetoric to appease genuine fears while changing nothing. /Blair

Dr Mayer Hillman Senior fellow emeritus, Policy Studies Institute, wrote

Just over three years ago, you [the Guardian] published a letter signed by 16 organisations extremely concerned about the prospects of climate change. [see Struggling to unite on global warming ... Climate change Guardian Unlimited Environment:]

They called on the [UK] government to take the lead in international negotiations for the urgent adoption of the comprehensive science-based framework, contraction and convergence, devised by the Global Commons Institute.

This requires the contraction of global carbon emissions to a safe level and convergence towards sharing them equally among the world's population.

The framework has been endorsed by the all party parliamentary climate change group, the synod of the Church of England, the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, HSBC and the Environmental Audit Committee, to name but a few bodies within the UK recognising its significance.

Contraction and convergence is being increasingly acknowledged as the only practical strategy to limit the extent of catastrophic damage to the planet. It needs to be publicly endorsed by contributing partners of Saturday's Live Earth concert as well as by organisations such as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and WWF who were not prepared to do so in 2004. We owe it to our children and generations beyond them to stop further procrastination.

Dr Mayer Hillman / Senior fellow emeritus, Policy Studies Institute