World Faces Uphill Battle to Reach New Climate Change Treaty
World leaders failed to work out a new framework to combat global warming during the two-week-long U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. It is regrettable that ``Hopenhagen'' turned into a failure to find a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. It is also frustrating to see the delegates of 193 nations delay their action until next year's conference to be held in Mexico City.
The summit ended with only a nonbinding ``Copenhagen Accord'' Saturday, which was brokered by U.S. President Barack Obama in his meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and the leaders of India, Brazil and South Africa. The accord was not universally agreed upon by all the negotiators attending the summit. Rather, it is seen as a face-saver allowing major emitters of greenhouse gases to shirk their responsibility for the failure.
In short, the accord falls far short of expectations. Under the document, nations agreed to cooperate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to keep temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. Rich nations committed to finance $10 billion a year between 2010 and 2012 to fund poor nations' participation in the fight against climate change. They also set a goal of mobilizing $100 billion a year by 2020 for adaptation and mitigation efforts of developing countries.
The climate change summit showed how difficult it is to narrow differences between developed and developing countries over emission reduction targets, historical responsibility for global warming, and fairly distributing the burden of addressing climate change. At the start of the Copenhagen conference, some negotiators and experts cautioned that no deal would be better than the wrong deal. In this sense, the summit paid heed to the caution and only succeeded in avoiding a wrong deal. But what a disappointment it was for more than 100 heads of state to gather and no binding deal to have been made!
World leaders should keep in mind the remarks by Asher Miller, executive director of U.S.-based nonprofit think tank Post Carbon Institute, that the Copenhagen Accord is ``merely the repacking of old and toothless promises.'' Environmental groups also strongly criticized the negotiators for their failure to set emission reduction targets and reach any legally-binding agreements on climate change. Despite such criticisms, major world leaders were trying to rationalize their inaction. President Obama said that the three-page document is ``an impressive accord,'' although he pointed out that there is much more to do.
Obama and other leaders of the world should admit that they have so far been long on words but short on action as far as climate change is concerned. They have apparently taken a ``you move first, then I will follow'' approach. There is no question that such an approach can never help make any breakthrough in international efforts against global warming and preventing an environmental catastrophe. All countries, both rich and poor, must realize that to delay is no option in the fight against climate change. It's time to act now to save our planet before it's too late.
1 | Public transit fares to increase in Seoul and Busan this week |
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