Photo: Courtesy of the Australian Science Media Centre
Well, it’s finally arrived. Dubbed by some scientists as the most important conference the world has ever seen, 15,000 delegates from 192 countries are descending upon the Danish city of Copenhagen for the long-awaited climate change summit which will span the next two weeks.
In the fervor of the event, many countries have already made pledges of GHG emission reductions. In fact, UN’s chief climate negotiator Yvo de Boer states: “Never in 17 years of climate negotiations have so many different countries made so many pledges. It’s unprecedented”.
The last big hope to curb global warming appears to be on track as a massive vision emerges for significant carbon cuts by 2050. New pledges have been made in the last few weeks by countries like China, India and the US which have reignited talks, along with enthusiasm being gained by the confirmation that over 100 global leaders, including President Obama, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, would attend.
Besides delegates and world leaders, polls show that the general public feels growing concern over global warming, with 64 percent seeing it as a very serious problem, according to a survey by Globescan.
Adding to the hype, 56 newspapers from 45 different countries plan to run the same ‘urgent action is needed now’ editorial in 20 different languages Monday morning.
Three main branches of discussion include:
- Tangible targets set, especially by developed countries, to curb carbon emissions
- Agreement between the rich world and the poor world, and the pledging of support to developing countries
- Introduction of a carbon trading scheme to facilitate the ending of the wanton destruction of forests by 2030
While skeptics doubt any agreement or progress will come from this meeting of negotiators which one UN official calls the biggest show on Earth, others say failure is not an option as we face one of the ‘defining challenges of our century’.
