Denmark Accommodates the United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2009

With the climate change meeting scheduled to run in just a few weeks, I thought I would write about my feelings on the debates about to take place. I make my living as a realtor from Toronto, but that doesn't mean that world issues do not distress me. A subject that holds my interest is the climate and its development.

The start of December sees the United Nations Climate Change Conference being run in the town of Copenhagen, Denmark. Climate Change mitigation is an pressing issue to be raised by people attending the conference. While this issue is on the table, it certainly isn't the only item up for consideration. With many differing opinions it will without doubt be a lively debate.

Forceful advances in climate change mitigation were wanted when Barack Obama became president. The inquiry is what this time should look like. The Kyoto protocol, understood to be a springboard for conventions of this kind, is less and less thought of, even by environmentalists themselves.

It has been over 10 years since the emission rates were decided in this contract and they now need to be reviewed. Established on GHG emission rates of 2005, individuals around the US president are looking for a further 20% decline by 2020. But, this is literally what Kyoto was about (getting 5% below 1990 levels). Lots of activists are up in arms about the lackadaisical attitude towards the shrinkage schedule and the loosening of conditions imposed by Kyoto.

This is not the only area of discord and there are other problems to look at. Countries in the South such as Brazil, South Africa and India who are understood to be large polluters are unlikely to be worried by any environmental action taken, whilst countries in the North could see a massive impact on their economy. These southern countries are more changed by climate issues as a result they believe the northern countries owe them. Northern countries concede that developing countries may need to manufacture higher emissions to literally fuel their growth (although some activists see such aggressive ‘slash-and-burn’ development as a dead end route anyway), but with the economic troubles and China’s emergence as a world power, countries like India and Brazil are less prepared to make any sacrifices.

The campaign for anti-climate change has another large problem in relation to the emissions trade. While followers (mainly government officials) claim that proposing market rules can offset the negative economic blow of emission restrictions, opponents see it as another chance for black market trade, cheating and scams. They request deep changes to economic and social structures (larger power and control in hands of local communities), in order to stop climatic disaster.

The UN Climate change conference may agree some important decisions, but in my opinion they are probably not going to be anything impressive. The decisions may not be new, but what is new, is now lobbyists are starting to get together across the whole world. This can only be good as more voices are raised maybe those at the conference in Copenhagen will listen.