Dickinson to Durban » Archive
High Expectations for Durban
The continuous challenge of global climate change involves a collective and comprehensive effort on an international level to reach significant decisions that could potentially address the dangerous effects of global warming. The UNFCCC annually performs an attempt to reach agreements over climate regulation. The Conference of the Parties (COP) comes together every year to promote negotiation, cooperation, and ultimately, progress against the effects of climate change. Most recently, COP-16 in Cancun, Mexico reached a number of agreements and attempts for regulation. Overall, the conference in Cancun was relatively successful in maintaining a mutual, collective effort toward reducing emissions, promoting sustainable development, and concurring with a common goal of keeping the average global temperature rise below 2° Celsius (http://cancun.unfccc.int/cancun-agreements/significance-of-the-key-agreements-reached-at-cancun/#c45). The many objectives for COP-16 included a wide range of goals: Establish clear objectives … Read entire article »
Filed under: 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
What got done?
Both the Copenhagen Accord and the Cancun Agreements, products of COP15 and COP16 respectively, are important documents in climate change negotiations. They are lacking though. Neither at any point have anything about what countries need to do to keep the global average temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius. Each document, in its own right, provides some good steps in helping the climate change negotiations move forward, providing different mechanisms to allot financial support and information transfer between the Parties to the Conference. I understand the need for these mechanisms and they are good things to have come out of the past two Conferences. These financial and other mechanisms can only help the future Conference of the Parties move forward and make some kind of significant move in addressing climate change. Again, they … Read entire article »
Filed under: Climate Change, Mosaic Action
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