Dickinson to Durban » Key COP17 Issues
Baby Steps?
by Claire Tighe ’13 According to the UNFCCC website, the Cancún Agreement, resolved in Mexico at COP16 in 2010, accomplished quite a bit for the continued international efforts at mitigating and adapting to climate change. However, negotiations are by no means complete, and delegates at COP17 will have to continue these “baby” steps in the climate agreements. But are “baby steps” enough to solve climate change? As the online science resource Climate Action Tracker notes, “Emissions are at a historic high while actions are not.” The Cancún Agreements did manage to form “the largest collective effort the world has ever seen to reduce emisssions,” as well as “the most comprehensive package ever agree by Governments to help developing nations deal with climate change,” and a “timely schedule […] for keeping the global … Read entire article »
Filed under: Climate Change, Key COP17 Issues, Summer Reading Responses
Low Expectations Results in Satisfaction
By Christine Burns ’14 Each year when the Conference of the Parties takes place, the world holds its breath, waiting for the delegates to come to an agreement in which all the important nations of the world have cooperated to come up with a plan, a part two to the Kyoto Protocol in which everyone takes part. Unfortunately, these expectations are too high. There are too many important parties, with too many different goals. I cannot say that I find a lot of hope from either the Cancun Agreement or the Copenhagen Accord, but maybe I am simply being too pessimistic. After reading both documents and reviews of both documents I fail to see enough concrete plans in either one. To start at the beginning, the Copenhagen Accord was inconsequential. After all … Read entire article »
Filed under: Climate Change, Key COP17 Issues, Mosaic Action
Just a bunch of fluff.
The Copenhagen Accord reads like a Disney version of a classic fairytale. You know, the fairytales where they leave all the “bad stuff” out, the scary stuff that actually make the stories real classic fairytales, just so that everyone can enjoy them. The Copenhagen Accord is the treaty that Obama, as well as the “leaders of China, India, Brazil South Africa and about 20 other countries” were able to cooperate and agree upon that last Saturday night of the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen at 3am with all the pressure of the conference on them to come up with something (1). First they acknoweldge that climate change is occurring. Then they explain how all countries are going to have to adapt and respond in different manners because each country … Read entire article »
Filed under: Climate Change, Key COP17 Issues
The Fight: Development and The Battle That Ensues
When dealing with an issue such as climate change, how do people from different parts of the world, with different views and different needs, come together and find a common ground? What do they need to do to make a global challenge work for everyone? These are the things that the students participating in the Climate Change Africa Mosaic and students from a First-year seminar had to address on Thursday, Sept. 15th. We were placed into a world climate negotiation simulation, where we, the students, represented a country, then the countries were divided into block groups. Within 3 hours we had to come to an agreement with the other nations which both set forth climate reductions and still benefited our own represented country. This was a goal tat proved to be rather difficult, but … Read entire article »
Filed under: Climate Change, Key COP17 Issues, Mosaic Action, Summer Reading Responses
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