Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Another Global Climate Change Meeting: Sigh

PRESIDENT'S CORNER
By Norris McDonald

Clearly the global warming issue is beyond humanity's ability to manage.  And so almost 200 countries have send representatives to a conference each year to discuss the issue.  It appears they agree that there is not really much they can genuinely do to curb this planetary threat.

Representatives from more than 190 countries gathered in Warsaw on Monday to continue debating how to deal with climate change beyond 2020, even as nations are falling further behind on their collective goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet.

Major breakthroughs are not expected at the 19th session of the Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. Instead, these talks have been described as sessions that will lay a foundation for a global agreement to be reached in time for 2015 talks in Paris.

Yeah.  Right.  Where is the inspiration? We've been laying that foundation for decades now.

Developing nations want to know how the developed world plans to make good on a pledge to “mobilize” $100 billion by 2020 to help them cope with the effects of climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The world wants to know how the nations of the world will draw a road map toward a 2015 treaty that will further rein in greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2020.

What happened to trying to limit the increase in maximum global average temperature to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, as the parties agreed in Copenhagen in 2009?  The U.N. Environment Program, in its annual report issued last week, said that even under best-case scenarios, that is not going to happen.

The 2014 conference, scheduled for Lima, Peru, would take the process further before a global accord is finalized in Paris.  (Wash Post, 11/11/2013)

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