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Now it can be told. COP15 or the 15th conference of the parties on climate change to be held in Copenhagen two weeks from now is not going to meet its promise of issuing a legally binding agreement that will commit each country of the world to bring down their emission of greenhouse gases. This admission was made by no less than the United States and other APEC member countries which recently concluded their annual meeting in Singapore.
According to a Time Magazine report, the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit (APEC) isn't generally the place for earth-shaking diplomacy. Its biggest achievement is usually in getting world leaders to dress up in the native garb of the hosting country and getting an agreement not to do something. In Singapore, this decision includes not to do something yet about the promise made for the Copenhagen Climate Change conference.
The 15th COP was planned with the expectation for the representatives of different countries to agree and sign a replacement document in Copenhagen to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Instead of concrete measures to bring down green gas emissions safe level, what world representatives will do in Copenhagen now is to come out only with general but supposedly "politically binding" agreement and wait until next year to come out with hard numbers and legal obligations to reduce climate change.
The reason for the non-fulfillment of the Copenhagen promise, according to Time, is simple – the deadlock between developed nations and developing ones. As seen now, developing nations refuse most responsibility for climate change, saying that because greenhouse gas emission is primarily caused b by rich industrialized countries, it is they which must set large emissions reduction targets. Developed nations, however, also argue that because fast -growing developing nations like China and India will emit most of future carbon emissions, they must also take responsibility in taking drastic measures to reduce their emissions. Complicating the problem is the apparent inability of the US to come out with concrete numbers or steps to reduce its greenhouse gas emission before COP15 starts.
The report made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which gathers, reviews and evaluates all past and present studies on climate change and its impact on the environment says that during the last century, global surface temperature increased by 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F). The IPCC’s conclusion is that most of the observed increase in temperature in the last century was caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases resulting from human activity such as the burning of fossil fuel and deforestation. The projection is that global surface temperature may probably rise further by 1.1 to 6.4 °C (2.0 to 11.5 °F) in the 21st century if nothing is done to address the causes of the increase in temperature in the atmosphere and the ocean.
For the Copenhagen conference, the target hopefully is to keep the increase in the global temperature to not more than 2 degrees centigrade or even lower from the pre-industrial level. This requires carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to be kept within 450 ppm or lower to be safe at 350 ppm and not allow the rise in temperature to go beyond 1.5 degrees centigrade.
At this point, the questions that need be answered in Copenhagen are: where and how best a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions can be made, how long it will be achieved, and at what cost, including who will pay and do most of the cutting. These questions are not easy to answer. This is the reason the global debate continues to be very passionate especially about the use of coal in generating electricity.
Most data would show that nations with faster economic growth and/or higher Gross Domestic Product per capita also come with higher consumption of electricity. The trouble is that most demand for electricity in many parts of the world, both developed and underdeveloped or developing, comes from the burning of coal, a process which also generates the bulk of carbon dioxide that is spewed into the atmosphere. The more carbon dioxide resides in the atmosphere, the higher supposedly is the chances of global warming. So, many people, especially those very much concerned with the environment, call for a halt in the building of more coal-powered plants, if not eliminate existing ones in favor of renewable energy. Such is easier said than done because the rate at which new sources of power are being developed using renewable sources, like wind and solar energy, still lag behind the growth in demand for more power, especially in poor and developing countries, that need to grow.
What causes global warming or the temperature? We must first understand that the sun gives us energy or heat, without which we could not live. When the heat of the sun or solar energy passes through the atmosphere, it is absorbed by the earth’s surface, thus warming it. Some of the earth’s heat is reflected back but some of it is absorbed by the so-called greenhouse gases that cover the earth. The more greenhouse gases there are, the more heat it will trap, causing the earth atmosphere to also warm up. More warming is not necessarily good for us. Global warming causes icebergs to melt and the sea level to rise, not to mention the coming of more ferocious typhoons, diseases, and other catastrophes.
Greenhouse gases found in the earth’s atmosphere include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone but the most critical that needs close watching is carbon dioxide because of its increasing level. Thus, the call to action is for man to control his greenhouse emission. How this is done will be answered, hopefully, in the forthcoming 15th Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework for Climate Change to be held in December in Copenhagen, Denmark.
We must remember that the Kyoto Protocol adopted in Japan in December 1997 sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The target, which amounts to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012, entered into force on February 2005. The US did not sign the protocol and criticized it for failing to get commitments from developing countries, like China and India.
