Nobelist Obama: “The world must come together to confront climate change. There is little scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more drought, famine and mass displacement that will fuel more conflict for decades.”

A “just peace” requires climate action

… a just peace includes not only civil and political rights “” it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want.

It is undoubtedly true that development rarely takes root without security; it is also true that security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water, or the medicine they need to survive. It does not exist where children cannot aspire to a decent education or a job that supports a family. The absence of hope can rot a society from within.

And that is why helping farmers feed their own people “” or nations educate their children and care for the sick “” is not mere charity. It is also why the world must come together to confront climate change. There is little scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more drought, famine and mass displacement that will fuel more conflict for decades. For this reason, it is not merely scientists and activists who call for swift and forceful action “” it is military leaders in my country and others who understand that our common security hangs in the balance.

That’s the part of Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo today.  No doubt he’s keeping his major remarks on global warming for Copenhagen next week (see “Obama’s double Copenhagen stunner: He agrees to global climate assistance fund for developing countries and will go to Denmark on the 18th“).

Grist notes, “Obama was much more direct about climate change earlier in the day, during a brief press availability after his meeting with Norway’s prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg”:

Something that obviously is pressing right now is the issue of climate change, and the Prime Minister and I discussed the ongoing meeting in Copenhagen, in which we’re both strongly committed to a positive outcome.  The United States has done a lot of work this year to transform the way we think about energy and our use back home, and to help to move international climate negotiations forward in an effective way.  And I look forward to coming back this way next week during the leaders’ summit that ends the conference.

Prime Minister Stoltenberg and I also discussed how we can work together and with other countries to protect forests””something that he has personally championed and I’m very impressed with the model that has been built between Norway and Brazil that allows for effective monitoring and ensures that we are making progress in avoiding deforestation of the Amazon.  And we all understand that it’s probably the most cost-effective way for us to address the issue of climate change””having an effective set of mechanisms in place to avoid further deforestation and hopefully to plant new trees.

Related Speeches:

• Obama tells UN: “The security and stability of each nation and all peoples – our prosperity, our health, our safety – are in jeopardy,” will work “at the G20 to phase out fossil fuel subsidies,” pledges U.S. action on “slashing our emissions to reach the targets we set for 2020 and our long-term goal for 2050.”
• Obama takes on the anti-scientific delayers, while Australia’s Rudd slams the “deniers” and the “gaggle” of “conspiracy theorists” opposing climate action
• Obama at MIT: “From China to India, from Japan to Germany, nations everywhere are racing to develop new ways to producing and use energy. The nation that wins this competition will be the nation that leads the global economy. I am convinced of that. And I want America to be that nation”¦. There are going to be those who make cynical claims that contradict the overwhelming scientific evidence when it comes to climate change, claims whose only purpose is to defeat or delay the change that we know is necessary.”