Failure in Copenhagen would be 'catastrophic risk': Gorbachev

The Copenhagen climate summit is a "test of modern leadership" and a failed outcome would almost certainly condemn the planet to disaster, Mikhail Gorbachev said in an interview on Thursday.

The Copenhagen climate summit is a "test of modern leadership" and a failed outcome would almost certainly condemn the planet to disaster, Mikhail Gorbachev said on Thursday in an interview.

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The Nobel laureate and last leader of the Soviet Union also said that Russia had put forward serious targets for curbing carbon emissions and should not be cast as a spoiler going into the December 7-18 talks. World leaders faced an unprecedented challenge in forging a lasting solution to global warming and crafting a fair way of coping with its impacts, Gorbachev said by email in response to written questions.

Compromises on policy "virtually guarantee a temperature increase of around four degrees Celsius, well into the catastrophic risk range," he warned. "The 'business-as-usual' mindset and incremental approach that dominates the world thinking today is the source of our multiple crises -- economic, financial and environmental. "We are currently in a genuine global emergency that requires a new way of thinking."

Gorbachev argued that a breakthrough was still possible, even if the summit did not yield the legally-binding treaty originally envisioned. The UN talks have foundered on discord between rich and developing nations over sharing the burden of slashing greenhouse-gas emissions and helping poor countries adapt to climate change.