Climate Change Conference Begins in Poland
Delegates attend the opening of the Conference of the Parties (COP) at this year's UN Climate Change Conference in Poznań, Poland. Photo: UNFCCC.
The 12 day United Nations Climate Change Conference began in Poznań, Poland yesterday.
Delegates from 190 countries have gathered to try to agree on a treaty to be signed next December in Copenhagen.
“The protection of the climate requires global solidarity,” said Donald Tusk, Poland’s Prime Minister, as he addressed the delegates.
“All of us must show maximum understanding with each other, and must show patience with each other,” he continued ”but this patience must be have its own horizon - a common goal.”
Shared Vision
Although the full text of a treaty won’t be agreed on at the conference, it is important that the member nations agree on a shared vision.
“What is the shared vision? It’s two 2 things,” says Brice Lalonde head of the French delegation.
“One is having a goal of reduction of emissions and agreeing on that goal, and the other is how do we have a cooperation of all the nations of the world?”
…Or Not
But the United States has a different view.
Regarding the possibility of agreeing on a fixed 2020 target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the US was noncommittal.
“I don’t think many parties are ready to sign onto any range at this time,” says Harlan Watson, head of the United States delegation.
“My own opinion is that that’s going to occur in the end game” in Copenhagen.
“We’ve seen in past discussions of this that a number of parties aren’t prepared to agree to a long-term goal until other parties are coming forward with a 2020 or a near-term goal, and a number of parties, including the United states, are not willing to come forward with that yet.”
Message From Environmentalists
Environmental groups are urging the UN member nations to reduce their dependency on coal. Coal is the single greatest threat to our climate - coal burning contributes more to climate change than any other fossil fuel.
With coal-fired power stations producing 11 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, environmental groups are pushing for the widespread adoption of renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind.
Furthermore, green groups are pleading with governments to stop the approval of new coal plants. A coal plant built today will emit CO2 pollution for at least the next 40 years.
As the Climate Change Conference gets underway, Greenpeace has set up a Climate Rescue Station on the edge of a coal mine in Poland to highlight the true cost of coal.
Greenpeace wants to see the following outcome from this year’s climate change conference:
- A “climate vision” that will address what the science requires: global emissions peaking by 2015
- A draft negotiating text on the table and a detailed workplan to get this completed by Copenhagen in December 2009
- Developed countries to agree greenhouse gas emission reduction targets at the upper end of 25-40%, as identified by the IPCC
How You Can Help
This year the world is watching the UN negotiations and demanding that governments make good on their promise to come up with an action plan in Copenhagen next year.
You can help by uploading your photo to show that you are watching the UN carefully this year. Uploaded photos will be projected at this year’s UN meeting.
About the United Nations Framework on Climate Change
The United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is a treaty by most of the world’s nations to consider what can be done to reduce global warming and to cope with whatever temperature increases are inevitable.
Initiated in 1992, the treaty set no mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions for individual nations and contained no enforcement provisions; it is therefore considered legally non-binding. Instead, the UNFCCC treaty includes provisions for updates - called “protocols” - that would set mandatory emission limits.
The principal update (or protocol) is the Kyoto Protocol, which has become much better known than the UNFCCC itself. The Kyoto Protocol has more powerful (and more legally binding) measures than the UNFCCC.
Tags: Climate Change, Global Warming, Greenpeace
May 26th, 2010 at 12:23 am
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