for a better greener earth
In the middle of December 2007 a U.N. sponsored conference was held in Bali, Indonesia to discuss climate change. The conference was concluded with nothing more than declarations of intent.The conference hosted 11,000 activists from all over the world, some of whom are the strongest advocates of reducing emissions of greenhouse effect gases. Those activists returned to their home countries empty handed.
During the last couple of years the U.N. has taken the issue of climate change seriously. It has established a special body to handle that problem – United Nation Framework on Climate Change. This body is responsible for concentrating various studies on this subject and for organizing world conferences.
The most known conference was held in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan. The protocol the conference issued, known as the Kyoto Protocol, obligates 36 industrial countries, including the countries member in the European Union, to reduce greenhouse gases emission by 5 per cent in comparison to 1990 rates. The deadline for fulfilling the Kyoto Protocol guidelines is the year 2012. The Kyoto Protocol also contains paragraphs that are meant to assist countries in dealing with the broader problem of climate change, in particular handling natural disaster and desertification.
Furthermore, The Kyoto Protocol established a market mechanism which allows industrial countries to purchase a "credit" of pollutant emissions from developing countries. The goal is to help and encourage poorer countries to switch to less polluting industries with lesser damage to the atmosphere.
To strengthen the Kyoto Protocol and to give it a practical dimension, a conference was held in Marrakesh, Morocco in 2001 which dealt with consolidating specific rules for implementing the Kyoto Protocol. 176 countries adopted these rules.
Are all these measures justified? The answer is clearly yes. In 2007 an international team of environmental scientists operating under the guidance of the U.N. publish a list of findings according to which world average temperature may increase by 6 degrees centigrade till the end of the current century. This obvious climate change will entail significant economic damages to economies world wide, not to mention Earth's eco-system. Hence the 2007 Bali conference worked on devising a road map and general agenda for future conferences that are scheduled to 2009. This agenda includes:
To sum up, the main hurdle that world countries will have to overcome if they intend to effectively solve the problem of climate change is (as it is in most cases) economic. Countries like China and India, which are experiencing major growth rates, fear any attempt to hinder their development and industrialization. Countries like Russia heavily depend of oil exports. And the United States is concerned that the measures adopted in the Kyoto Protocol might decrease its competitiveness in world market by giving advantages to other economies, especially the Chinese economy.
26.05.2008. 13:48
For a better greener earth !