Delegates arrive at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 15) in Copenhagen, Denmark, one year ago, in December 2009 (photo credit: Neil Palmer/CIAT).

Kenyan environmentalist, tree planter and Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai writes in the Guardian today that the latest meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 16), being held in Cancún, Mexico, which starts today, must be about more than climate change.

‘Twelve months ago I stood up in front of heads of state at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen and told them that they could not negotiate with the climate; they would have to negotiate with each other.

‘. . . We saw in 2008 just what can happen when we fail to connect those dots–climate change, oil prices, protectionism and global economics collided to push food prices up and hang a cloud of starvation over the heads of millions of people.

‘So these negotiations are about more than climate change–we need to find reason to trust each other so that we can find a new way of working together to tackle the connected global challenges we face.’

Read the whole opinion piece in the Guardian‘s ‘Comment Is Free: Green’ section: Cancun must be about more than climate change, 29 November 2010.