COP 15
UN CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE 2009
December 7 – 18, 2009
The more time you spend looking into the anticipation of this event, the more you start to get the feeling that this summit could quite possibly mark the point in history where the world came together, put their differences aside, and started to really work on global warming. The goal of the summit is to have the participating countries (almost 200 are expected) come together and form a series of global commitments to address climate change. These commitments are to go into effect in 2012, when the Kyoto accord expires.
When you bring up the subject of Kyoto with some experts, you can definitely get some energized responses. Kyoto had similar goals of having the world’s nations make binding commitments to the environment such as cutting down their national CO2 emissions. Many of the participating countries (including Canada) after singing the accord and leaving the summit did little to put their commitments into practice, the US refused to sign the agreement entirely – these actions (or lack of rather) has left many feeling pessimistic about the outcome of Copenhagen. I for one do not feel this way and at the risk of sounding ‘preachy’ I have to say that I for one am very optimistic about this upcoming event.
There is no doubt that the signs are evermore present that our planet’s climate situation is at it’s tipping point. The science is in for anyone interested in exploring the severity of this issue. These motivating signs of our periled state, combined with new administrations involved in the summit (most notably O’bama) hopefully will result in all participating nations, firstly making national commitments to offset their national impact on the environment and secondly (and even more importantly) make good on these promises.
Personally I dont see it stopping there though. My hope is that the results of this summit are motivating for communities and individuals like myself across the globe, and that we all take additional steps to work on this problem. There are moments in our history where we as common people have put our personal goals and ambitions aside and came together to battle a common cause. Unfortunately these unification’s were usually established following a significant tragedy like the bombing of Pearl Harbor, 911, Hurricane Katrina, etc. When I look back at events like the Tsunamia in 2004 and how the world was so motivated by the tragedy and really came together to help the effected countries, I cant help but see how as a unified people we cant take huge steps together to battle global warming.
— Should we choose to recognize the signs you cant find a more motivating cause to back than the Environment —
