Copenhagen Climate Change Conference

Highly dangerous phenomena of fast changing climate changes in the world have started appearing. The glaciers are melting and the places that did not experience floods in the pas] are facing them now. The places which used to have plenty of rainy seasons are now facing droughts. Temperature is rising at places while at others the mercury is dropping. If the present trend in the increase of temperature continues, the temperature will increase by 0.5 to 2 degree by 2050, i.e., in the next 40 years only.

Accelerating Pace of Melting of Glaciers
This process will accelerate the pace of the melting of glaciers and the sea level will rise by up to two feet. Because of this, not one or two cities, but 136 coastal cities will be submerged and this will cause a loss of at least $28 trillion.
Hundreds of big icebergs, which broken away from the glaciers on the South Pole can be seen floating over the seas. When this article was being written, the photographs of a big iceberg, passing by the Australian Island, Macquarie was prominently being published by international media. This iceberg is heading towards New Zealand.

Effective Implementation of Kyoto Protocol
It is imperative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to check the trend of rising global warming. For this purpose, Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1997 and pledges were made to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide.
However, most of the countries refrained from effective implementation of the protocol. In this backdrop, the UN leadership conference being held in Copenhagen has assumed great importance. The real topic of the conference is climate change. If some international agreement is reached at the said conference, various developed and developing countries will have to bring down the level of emissions of poisonous gases in accordance with their pledged target.
The Copenhagen conference, which began on 7 December in Denmark, will continue up to 18 December. At present, the Chinese economy is growing at the fastest rate. Its industry excessively uses coal as energy. Thus, China has become a country that pollutes the environment.

Reducing Intensity of Carbon Levels
China announced before the Copenhagen conference that it would reduce the intensity of carbon levels in the air as they were in year 2005 which is a 40 to 45 percent reduction by year 2020. This is a great challenge and it appears as if this target is unachievable. The US is the sole country in the world that makes the greatest addition in environmental pollution.
President Barack Obama is expected that he will announce to reduce the 2005 level of the emissions of poisonous gases by 17 percent by the year 2020. The emissions of gases in the US have increased by 15 percent from the 1990 level. In this backdrop, 17 percent reduction has no meaning. The European Union is likely to announce a 20 percent cut. If an international agreement is reached, this level [cut] can be increased up to 30 percent. However, the developed countries say that the US and European Union should cut emissions by 25 to 40 percent, at least.
A leadership conference of the Commonwealth countries was held ahead of the Copenhagen conference. Leaders of various countries including the UN secretary general were invited to participate in it. On the first day of the conference, attention was focused on the Copenhagen conference on climate change. It may be kept in mind that half of the members of the Commonwealth reside on islands and they have deep concerns over the rising sea level. The Commonwealth countries are urging the US and China to play their role in making the Copenhagen conference a success.

Reducing Poisonous Gases
The group of developing countries, G-77 has agreed that the developed and rich countries should bear the burden of reducing poisonous gases themselves. Regarding the Copenhagen conference, the G-77 says that such an agreement is required under which a midterm concrete plan is devised for cutting emissions. At the same time, the rich countries should provide financial assistance, transfer of technology, and technological cooperation to the developing countries because these countries also want to make the Copenhagen conference a success along with the developed countries.
The UN has estimated that the world immediately requires $200 billion to counter the issue of global warming so that green technology could be used more and more and emissions of poisonous gases is reduced. Transport is one of the main sources of emission of carbon [in atmosphere]. Sixty percent of oil, used in the world, is used by the transport sector. The way in which international trade is growing, can be guessed from the fact that international trade has increased by 70 percent from 1992 to 2004. The use of fossil fuels has been increased for transportation due to the boost in international trade.

Using Green Technology
The use of this fuel has increased the emission of carbon and it is imperative to use green technology to stop this. Therefore, the Copenhagen conference will not succeed so far as its outcomes are concerned, like the earth summit, if the developed countries fail to allocate capital as estimated by the UN.
To what extent the Copenhagen conference succeeds, will be clear from the international agreement that is likely to be reached as a result of this conference. If the rich and fast developing countries including other countries fail to achieve any purposeful outcome, and they fail in checking climate changes, then the world, that made them rich and prosperous, will not survive.