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I missed most of the COP15. but catching up on most of the news it would seem that it was a complete disaster, or was it? no real agreement could be made, but to my surprise, South Africa was one of the driving forces (with Us, India and China) behind agreeing on at least some kind of accord (which was signed, check here). I am surprised, because South Africa has shown absolute ZERO interest in doing anything to curb carbon offsets here locally, as a matter of fact, they are doing the opposite. So I can’t help but feel that there’s hidden motives here.

Our Environmentalist minister Buyelwa Sonjica blasted at other leaders, being unable to come to an agreement. Stating her disgust in the failure of the summit. Read more this here.

Nevertheless, COP16 in Mexico next year will be huge. Everyone knows that, and from what I have read it sounds like this will be the time and place where ultimatums will be given. The climate summit has brought quite a few things to light… and due to various environmentalist actions and protests, the World leaders are now aware of it.

V.

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COP15 is already into it’s 3rd day. So far from what I can gather all we’ve had is people making statements about the reality of Climate change. A few countries started throwing around some figures on costs, funding and degrees.

I think we are going to have to wait until the last few days to see if anything tangible is going to come out of this.

COP17 have been found though, right here in South Africa.

Also, just before the opening, apparently we (South Africa) announced that we are ready to cut the growth of  our carbon emissions by 34 percent by 2020 and 42 percent by 2025 if it gets aid from developed countries to achieve its goals.  This is a BIG IF, and a whole lot of BULLSHIT if you ask me.. Seeing as We generate just about ALL of our energy from COAL, I think we are the last country that can ask for assistance from ‘Developed’ countries.

Here’s a few more articles on South Africa elegantly squirming our way out of any kind of deal at COP15:
http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=2184
http://en.cop15.dk/news/view%20news?newsid=2121

I love the comments made there by some guy living in South Africa.

Cheers
V.

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These billboards were spotted in the US ahead of the COP15 (which started Yesterday). I hope these people realize the importance of COP15. I will try and give an update here on how COP15 is going… but bear in mind that i have…

4

…more days until I am on leave!!

Check out the rest here.

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If you’ve been following what the world has been saying about the Copenhagen Climate conference that starts on the 12th, the you will know that the chances of anything positive coming out of it is very slim. It seems to be a deadlock between the key players. nobody wants to play along, even if America takes the first step.

Lots of very clever scientists out there believe that even if some kind of agreement is reached it is the wrong way of tackling the climate change problem. What will be proposed at COP15 is carbon cuts or carbon offsets. Basically a country will have to cut carbon by a certain percentage, or pay a penalty. You can avoid this penalty though by contributing towards carbon offsets. Carbon offsets is a list of initiatives countries can contribute towards that support climate…like green peace, etc. This sounds good in theory, but the thing is that developing countries will not take part in all of this, because they are ‘Developing’ and aren’t causing nearly as much damage to the environment as let’s say America. so.. deadlock.

Anyhows… In Obama we trust. I hope this man can do something.

V.

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I haven’t posted anything on the Copenhagen Climate conference that lies ahead for a while now… that’s because the news is not good. For those of you who don’t know yet…

“Meeting for their regional Apec summit in Copenhagen, the leaders accepted the delay after being briefed at a hastily-arranged breakfast by Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the Danish Prime Minister, who will chair the Copenhagen talks that begin on 7 December. He made it plain that insufficient progress had been made on this point between the main players to make a final pact possible next month.

That just sucks donkey balls. Obviously this has bitterly angered organizations like Green Peace, 350, and Avaz.  BUT…. there’s hope. Everyone knows that the US is the key factor here, once they get on board it will just be a matter of time before the rest follow. The US has the biggest influence on everyone. So the good news is this:

Obama will bring to Copenhagen a relatively firm pledge to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions — in the range of 17% below 2005 levels by 2020. That’s good news for advocates of action on climate change, who have recently been dealt a series of blows. Less than two weeks ago, world leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Singapore agreed not to come to a legally binding deal, and seemed all but ready to pull the plug on the Copenhagen talks

Seriously, if Obama can pull something out of the hat here and convince world leaders to cut carbon emissions, then I will forever be posting good-positive stuff about him. Read more here.

Cheers
V.

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I’ve posted previously about the Copenhagen Climate Conference in December. this is seriously an important time for the world.. to put it into perspective, read here:

First of all, COP15 doesn’t refer to COPenhagen. It stands for Conference of the Parties, which is the highest body of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. And we’re up to the 15th meeting. FYI, COP14 was in Poznan, Poland in 2008.

Second, the conference is taking place from 7-18th of December in Copenhagen and is being hosted by the Danish government. Officials from 192 countries, plus a sizable number of non-governmental organizations and a large media contingent (including yours truly) will be in attendance.

Third, the goal of all this is to establish a global climate change agreement that will take over from the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012. Throughout the year there have been ongoing negotiations to hammer out the details, but with less than eight weeks to go, there are some serious differences to be worked out.

Without going into specific policy discussions, here’s the most basic sketch of those differences:

Science says that greenhouse gas emissions have to peak by 2020 to avoid catastrophic climate change — think half of all animals and plants going extinct, half of all people experiencing water shortages, coral reefs gone, at least one meter sea level rise by 2100 and more thereafter — and be reduced in the 80-90% range by 2050. To do that emission reductions in the range of 25-40% by 2020 from 1990 levels have to occur in the rich nations of the world.

- The basics about the Climate Bill, what it is.
- Whats at stake at COP15
- COP15, 3 Possible Scenarios

So lets hope the world can put aside it’s greed and make a decision that will surely determine the next 20 years of human existence.

Cheers
V.

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