With just one month to go until the United Nations Climate Conference, Copenhagen, much of the world is still not ready to deal with the issues of global warming and climate change. As the situation gets decidedly worse, many would agree that the Copenhagen conference is the emergency conference that we need to try to save our planet. As COP15 draws near, the fact is that many nations have not done nearly enough. For the most part, much of the world is still dependant on fossil fuels and research into environmentally friendly alternatives has been minimal. It would seem that targets to cut emissions have simply been ignored.
Climate change is perhaps the most serious issue that we’ll ever have to deal with. Today we’re living in a world that’s changing quickly and world governments simply can’t react quickly enough to pre-empt the potential disastrous effects of global warming, pollution and that we are rapidly using up the world’s natural resources.
In the past twenty years, we’ve rapidly awoken to the facts that in the past hundred years, humanity has done more damage to the world than ever before. Ice sheets are disappearing, waters are rising and it’s all happening tremendously quickly. As a result, man of the world’s leaders have been forced to stand up and take notice because quite simply this is a man-made disaster and if we don’t do something now, within the next hundred years there will be global catastrophe.
The United Nations has been the global voice in climate change, and the annually held UN Climate Change conference has happened for 15 years. Their global campaign on climate change is focused towards educating people, governments and bringing people together to try and find the answers for the future.
However, even though global leaders were foretold and forewarned about the risks of global warming, yet it’s only in the past few years that we have finally started to make a concerted effort to try to stop the effects of global warming. It would seem that it’s taken ice melts, flooding and climate changes to stir world leaders into action, but the question many people are asking is will it be enough?
Today, many western nations have stood up about the effects of global warming and climate change however, there is yet to be a global commitment towards dealing with the issue. In past years, the United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNCCC) has served as a tool to educate world leaders, but it’s only recently that this forum of environmental experts have finally started to be noticed. Perhaps the most famous ‘child’ of the UNCCC is the Kyoto protocol which was revolutionary in the way it set out ways to deal with emissions, and towards setting targets that the world needed to achieve.
However while this agreement managed to get 37 countries plus the EU to agree to reduce their emissions, the two biggest culprits, namely the United States and China both refused to sign this agreement. Even though they were responsible for most of the worlds global warming, they were most resistant towards change. It’s only recently that they have started to make progress when it comes to dealing with the issue of global warming.
Perhaps it’s their recent moves towards environmental friendliness that should be startling. It’s proof that the situation the planet is a great deal worse than we all think. China is now rapidly changing its stance and aims to reduce emissions by as much as 25%. As the world’s largest nation continues to grow, they may finally be starting to realize about the importance they play in securing the future of the planet.
However, while now most of the world may be contributing to researching the solutions and while there is more focus on renewable energy sources, there is still a great deal to be done when it comes to limiting the damage that has already been done.
It’s been projected that even if the world reduces emissions to those agreeable levels, that temperatures will still rise 6 degrees by the end of 2099. It would seem that the planet is in for a great deal many changes, which may in fact be disastrous. Are government sanctions and global emissions cuts just another example of too little too late?
Ultimately, perhaps the news is all bad. We’ve been aware of climate change for long enough to make a difference, and let’s face it – alternative sources of energy do exist. One thing many are hoping as COP15 draws near is that the world will finally reach a strong agreement about what needs to be done to not just protect our future, but to save our planet.