The Amazon Rainforest – The Evils of Deforestation on Youtube
Just because the hurdles are inevitable does not mean we cannot jump over them, so we must prepare ourselves to deal with them during the COP15 meeting in December 2009, in order to win the race against time and global warming. In “Bringing the Copenhagen Global Climate Change Negotiations to Conclusion” Whalley and Walsh describe these obstacles as something that will hinder the progress of negotiation, and will not lead to a satisfactory outcome. The first is the lack of a clear deadline. I agree with Whalley and Walsh on this issue because the vagueness of when goals need to be met is something that will in fact hinder progression and will take the focus off of other more important issues, such as Whalley and Walsh’s next point: unfulfilled commitments. What is the world to do with the unfulfilled commitments left over from the Kyoto Protocol? There are worries that these unfulfilled commitments will make countries more hesitant to ratifying a new agreement, because of the extra burden placed on actions they failed to take. I think we cannot just simply wipe these countries slates clean, but they must make up for what was lost, whether it is by more strict GHG restrictions, or more technology transfers. Based on the Whalley and Walsh article, another issue on the table is “the constraints from non-climate change issues”. This includes the challenges in interpreting the “common yet differentiated responsibilities” that will definitely be a big topic of discussion at this years COP15 meeting. Countries like China who has large portions of GHG emissions coming from manufacturing companies should not be fully accountable for the GHG emissions and should share the amount of GHG emitted with the countries these goods are traded with. I feel that yes, these issues are inevitable, but we must face them and collaborate as the human species, not as developing countries versus developed countries, because the longer we take to create a plan of action against global warming, the less effective we will be at combating and mitigating it.
Tags: China, climate change, COP15 Resources, Kyoto Protocol, Kyoto to Copenhagen, student-citizens
