Climate Summits/Just Talk?

The Copenhagen Summit

The objective of the Copenhagen summit called COP 15, was to replace Kyoto Protocol and set new, binding goals for 201 and beyond. To confront climate change, representatives from 192 nations, including the heads of State, gathered in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 2009 to attend the event COP   15 was faced with the following three primary challenges:  

1. Reaching legally binding agreements. 

Would developed countries accept the necessary emission caps or limits, and would the major developing countries limit the growth of their emissions?

2. Financing a perpetual solution.

The developing countries would need billions of dollars for many years in order to cope with the accelerating consequences of global warming and to generate environmentally clean technology.

3. Agreeing on a model for monitoring emissions.  

Such a model would help individual  countries stay within their emission limits. It would also help to ensure that developing countries use donated funds properly.  

Were these challenges met? Negotiations ran into such serious problems that even a much less ambitious consensus seemed out of reach... within the final hours of the conference, leaders from 28 countries hammered out a final document  called the Copenhagen Accord.  This accord was formally accepted  with these bland words:  "The conference . . .takes note of the Copenhagen Accord," says Reuters news service.  In other words it was up the individual countries to act on it. 

Next time: Climate Summits/Just Talk? - What Next? 

From the Awake! magazine