In a few weeks, negotiators from 192 countries will pack their bags and head to Copenhagen. There, for 11 days and nights, they will attempt to seal one of the most important deals in human history: a global accord to prevent large-scale climate change.

Cooperation is essential. The United Nations and its secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, have lobbied relentlessly for a new agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Yet the movement is endangered by political gamesmanship and a lack of commitment by both developing and developed nations.

A failure in Copenhagen would be a disaster; there is not enough time for the countries of the world to regroup and forestall the environmental problems that would accompany rising temperatures. If Copenhagen fails, many countries, Egypt included, may not look the same in the near future.

A lot has changed since 1997, when 184 countries signed the Kyoto Protocol pledging to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the driving force behind global warming. Kyoto called for a 5 percent reduction in emissions against 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. Now, scientists say countries need to slash their emissions by up to 40 percent to avoid a climactic catastrophe.

The last decade has seen emissions skyrocket in rapidly developing countries like China, India, Brazil and Turkey, turning them from observers into major players in the climate debate. China has even replaced the United States as the world’s biggest emitter.

The negotiations began months ago in Bangkok and Barcelona, where diplomats and scientists sat down to hash out emissions targets, a process that proved contentious.

The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)has estimated that to keep the global temperature increase below the safe level of 2 C, developed countries need to cut their emissions by 25–40 percent more than the 1990 levels by 2020. Developing countries are calling for them to commit to the 40 percent target.

Meanwhile, developed countries are asking their developing neighbors to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels and embrace eco-friendly technology like wind and solar power. But this shift in energy use will require financial resources that poor countries do not possess. So who will foot the bill? Should the developed world finance the shift and should the UN administer the money like it does funds for humanitarian and development issues? This is one of the major issues to be resolved in Copenhagen.

Remember, the West remains largely responsible for the current crisis. On average, people in the US, Canada and Australia emit four times more carbon dioxide than someone from China and 20 times more than a person in India.

CO2 emissions are closely linked to wealth; for every 3000 dollars of income, people produce about a ton of carbon dioxide. It is expected that in 50 years, 3.4 billion people in developing countries will approach the consumption patterns and energy use of their richer neighbors.

It is widely acknowledged that unchecked, the results of climate change will be catastrophic. Rising greenhouse gas emissions will drive up the Earth’s surface temperature, sparking droughts, floods and severe storms while melting the polar ice caps.

A study published in 2004 found that the Nile Delta was particularly vulnerable to rising seas stoked by polar ice melt. Professor Mohamed El-Raey, who studies environmental physics at Alexandria University, found that if the sea level rises 50 centimeters — as it is expected to in the next 50 years — 30 percent of Alexandria would be flooded. About 1.5 million people would need to be relocated and 195,000 jobs would be lost, costing the country around USD $30 billion.

But that is not even the worst-case scenario. If the sea level jumped 88 centimeters, nearly three quarters of the country’s second largest city could be lost. It would not be alone: coastal cities such as Port Said, Rosetta and Damietta face the same devastation.

If temperatures keep on rising, Egypt could also face water shortages. Climate change is expected to cause droughts in Ethiopia and Kenya, the sources of the Nile, choking the great river and raising the very real prospect of conflict over water resources.

Complicating matters, on October 12, African Union Chairman Jean Ping said that Africa will demand billions of dollars in compensation from rich, polluting countries. He cited World Bank estimates that the continent will suffer about 80 percent of the damage wrought by climate change despite being responsible for a small fraction ofgreenhouse gasesin the atmosphere.

The debate has seen precious little movement. Indonesia announced that it will cut its emissions by 26 percent by 2020, while Norway unveiled an ambitious plan to reduce emissions by 40 percent. So far there has been nothing from the USA, UK, Canada, or Australia, the world’s big polluters over the past five decades. During talks in Bangkok, Indonesian delegates criticized developed countries, saying it was unfair for the rich world to expect developing countries to cut their emissions while developed nations stood idly by.

Environmental advocates will have a hard time forging a deal that meets the national interests of 192 countries, especially those of the United States, which didn’t sign Kyoto due to fears that it would undermine the country’s industrial sector. While President Barack Obama is a Copenhagen supporter, he faces stiff opposition from the Senate, which must ratify foreign treaties. The White House’s top energy advisor, Carol Browner, said last month that Congress will likely not pass a domestic bill to reduce greenhouse gases this year. The statement spread fears that the US will play its conventional role of environmental spoiler at Copenhagen.

In the lead up to Copenhagen, Egypt has taken a backseat in the debate, despite the potential effects of climate change on the country. The only effective participation came from an individual effort by businessman and farmer Ibrahim Abouleish during the Leadership Summit on Climate Change held in UN headquarters in New York in mid September. The Foreign Affairs Ministry has remained nearly silent, seemingly closing its eyes to impending disaster. It’s an odd situation given that other imperiled countries like Kenya, the Maldives and Indonesia are doing their best to ensure their national security.

Egypt’s leaders should take a page from the playbook of Mohamed Nasheed, president of the Maldives, a nation of low-lying islands in the India Ocean that will disappear in 100 years if sea levels are allowed to keep rising. At the opening of the UN General Assembly, Nasheed gave an impassioned call to action.

“Once or twice a year we are invited to attend an important climate change event. We stand here to tell you how bad things are. We warn you that unless you act quickly and decisively, our homeland and others like it will disappear beneath the rising sea before the end of the century,” he said.

“In response, the assembled leaders of the world stand up, and say: ‘We must act now before it is too late!’ But then, once again, the rhetoric (settles), the delegates drift away, the sympathy fades, the indignation cools, and the world carries on as before.” et