After a disastrous 2009, the new year offers new hope in many respects.

And while the UN climate talks in Copenhagen ended with an “historic cop out”, as Oxfam describes it, there is much reason to believe that 2010 will be different.

The politicians meeting in Denmark’s capital may have huffed, puffed, squabbled and gesticulated, but tens of thousands of ordinary people like me gathered there with a common purpose: solving this climate crisis.

We had no other interest besides solving a global problem threatening us all – even us in Oxford.

The Copenhagen Accord stated the desire to keep warming below two degrees. But it put in place no commitment and no method by which to do so. As one observer commented: “If the climate were a bank, it would have been saved. Not abandoned to the brutality of the market.”

If temperatures increase two degrees it will cause sea levels to rise by more than two metres – swamping the Norfolk Broads, flooding the Thames estuary and inundating our south eastern coastline. London, Portsmouth and much of Kent will need vast new flood defences. But at least we have the resources to protect ourselves.

In developing countries, 300,000 people are dying every year from increased drought, severe flooding, water and food shortages and tropical storms. We know that time is running out.

While the UN summit ended in failure, our own People’s Summit was a success. In solidarity, in unity at fighting a common cause, we built huge momentum for the future.

We protested, networked, discussed real solutions and produced better outcomes on our own than any politician could manage.

We realised that 2009 was not the end but just the beginning. It saw the world’s biggest-ever demonstration against climate change, and it saw 1.5 million people gather at Oxfam’s climate hearings held all over the world, to testify against the global warming impacts they are suffering from right now.

The summit in Copenhagen, far from weakening our resolve, made us stronger.

So, we go forward into 2010 knowing that while there is much work still to do, in order to get the fair and safe global deal we all need. And while a fresh approach and new direction is called for, we are better placed and better equipped to succeed than ever before.

James Cracknell, Oxfam campaigner for Oxfordshire