{"id":2162,"date":"2012-01-23T15:10:42","date_gmt":"2012-01-23T15:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/?p=2162"},"modified":"2012-01-23T15:10:42","modified_gmt":"2012-01-23T15:10:42","slug":"no-time-like-the-present","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/2012\/01\/no-time-like-the-present\/","title":{"rendered":"No Time Like the Present"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Christine Burns ’14<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\nThis semester we embarked on a quest for knowledge and understanding about how climate change has affected us in the past, and what it means for us today and in the future. \u00a0Then we went to COP 17 in Durban, South Africa and we got to experience first hand how a group of people united by one cause (mitigating\u00a0climate change) can be so divided. \u00a0All 192 countries came into the COP with many goals in fact, for a two week\u00a0conference it seemed they had more objectives than they could possibly tackle, but a few were pretty clear. \u00a0An agreement on a post-Kyoto Protocol needed to be reached. \u00a0Some said this agreement needed to be legally binding, while others said it shouldn’t; some said it needed to include all major emitters, others spoke of historical responsibility. \u00a0In many ways were these 192 countries divided on what was crucial to this new document. \u00a0So what came out of COP 17? Was it a success or did they fail to reach a concrete agreement?<\/p>\n
\nIn the final hours of the COP the countries agreed to a document currently known as the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action. \u00a0This new document will follow the general ideas of the\u00a0EU roadmap<\/a>. \u00a0By 2015 there will be a concrete agreement, and action will take place starting in 2020. \u00a0Just as the opinions of what is crucial to this new document varied, so did the responses to the outcome of COP 17.\u00a0 The president of the COP, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane<\/a> says, “What we have achieved in Durban will play a central role in saving tomorrow, today.” While Nnimmo Bassey,<\/a> Chair of Friends of the Earth International, says, “Delaying real\u00a0action\u00a0until 2020 is a crime of global proportions. \u00a0An increase in global temperatures of 4 degrees Celsius, permitted under this plan, is a death sentence for Africa, Small Island States, and the poor and vulnerable worldwide. This summit has amplified climate apartheid, whereby the richest 1% of the world have decided that it is acceptable to sacrifice the 99%.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nI’m a bit torn myself. \u00a0This agreement has some substance, and if it is followed we could have real progress, but I also feel like this is another one of those agreements putting off to the future what should already be decided. \u00a0We keep putting action off, and 2020 is so far away, why wait? In our last week in Durban we saw the people who would be my vulnerable to climate change. \u00a0They are already suffering and they are already struggling to get by. \u00a0The kids of Makaphutu and the women of the distribution lines, \u00a0need action fast. \u00a0Africa needs action fast, but who’s going to pay for Africa? Certainly a continent where a large portion of the population is very poor, cannot afford to pay to fix this issue. \u00a0They have other problems to focus on like feeding the hungry and taking care of the sick. \u00a0Yet these issues are so\u00a0interconnected. \u00a0The number and severity of the people living in poverty, hungry and dying from preventable or treatable diseases is going to increase as climate change gets worse. \u00a0If their is one thing I have learned from this trip is that everything is connected. \u00a0The actions people living in one country can have huge impacts on the lives of people in another.<\/p>\n
\nOne other lesson learned is not to be satisfied with what has been done if there is still work that needs doing. \u00a0We can’t get too caught up in\u00a0deciding\u00a0whether or not we like this new\u00a0agreement. \u00a0Instead we need to focus on doing. \u00a0We’ve made an agreement, now let’s stick to it! \u00a0 \u00a0The people of Africa, the Maldives, and other vulnerable countries need action sooner rather than later. \u00a0Regardless any international agreement, there are many countries who have the ability to implement green\u00a0initiatives\u00a0and therefore should. \u00a0\u00a0There is no time like the present! \u00a0We need action now!<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Christine Burns ’14<\/p>\n

This semester we embarked on a quest for knowledge and understanding about how climate change has affected us in the past, and what it means for us today and in the future. \u00a0Then we went to COP 17 in Durban, South Africa and we got to experience first hand how a group of people united by one cause (mitigating\u00a0climate change) can be so divided. \u00a0All 192 countries came into the COP with many goals in fact, for a two week\u00a0conference it seemed they had more objectives than they could possibly tackle, but a few were pretty clear. \u00a0An agreement on a post-Kyoto Protocol needed to be reached. \u00a0Some said this agreement needed to be legally binding, while others said it shouldn’t; some said it needed to include all major emitters, others spoke of historical responsibility. \u00a0In many ways were these 192 countries divided on what was crucial …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":840,"featured_media":2188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19448],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-change-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/840"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}