Success possible at Copenhagen

Developing countries such as China have signalled that they are willing to increase and formalize already significant pledges to reduce emissions if rich countries provide the necessary support.

This, in turn, could help rich country leaders overcome domestic barriers to more ambitious targets. It will also secure the support of a much broader group of poor countries that need help to adapt to the worsening effects of climate change.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper could set the wheels in motion - and help compensate for clearly inadequate Canadian emissions reduction targets - by announcing a substantial climate finance package when he arrives in Copenhagen.

Canada's fair share amounts to between $1 billion and $5 billion each year. In the past, Canada has dipped into the aid budget to fund adaptation in developing countries, but an Oxfam/Pembina Institute report has shown Canada's fair share could be funded by auctioning cap-and-trade allowances.

'The price of success in Copenhagen is $200bn, said Antonio Hill, senior climate change advisor for Oxfam International. 'We need to see this figure sparkling overhead in Christmas lights by the end of the Summit. It's peanuts compared to the $8.4 trillion we found to save drowning banks.

Shorbanu Khatun, a mother of four from Bangladesh, who lost her home when cyclone Aila hit in May 2009, is in Copenhagen to raise awareness of the impact of climate change on her community.

'For about last five years, everything seems to have changed, she said. 'It is too hot and there is a severe scarcity of rain. There are less fish in the river and skin diseases, headache and diarrhea have become regular phenomena. I have heard in a village gathering these are manmade disasters.

'I want to live. I want justice to my life and livelihoods, to my children lives and livelihoods.