"I think we have a very brief window of opportunity to deal with climate change... no longer than decade, at the most." James Hansen, US NASA scientist, Nov. 2006
The world is awakening the to the necessity of dealing with the climate change and whoever tries to portray the climate change as untrue or as a myth is quickly ditched by the medias and all the environmental organizations. The time is no longer about a debate whether it is a myth or not - it's just real - time is about how we face it, how we handle it. The world has slowly but surely come to the point where it gives a damn to "yesterday", to the "ravaging seas", to the "crying whales", to the "forest trails", to the "sunrise", to the "rain", to "all the things that we said we were to gain",... Yes, the apocalyptic vision in MJ's Earth song has echoed and resonated way beyond our doubts and cynicism. Time has come to take action.
Talking about taking action, the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen is undoubtedly the biggest event after Kyoto which holds all the hopes of all the people who love and cherish our planet. In December 2009, the world will be coming together to try to advance the Kyoto agenda to the next level. The world's hopes and expectations can be expressed throughout four essential and major settlements which need to be reached. Hereafter are they, clearly expressed by Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC):
- How much are the industrialized countries willing to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases?
- How much are major developing countries such as China and India willing to do to limit the growth of their emissions?
- How is the help needed by developing countries to engage in reducing their emissions and adapting to the impacts of climate change going to be financed?
- How is that money going to be managed
The over-riding concern about Global warming is made far relevant and urgent because of the necessity of finding new ways of production as the world’s fuel energy sources are drying up and its oil consumption is rising. “The world consumes two barrels of oil for every barrel discovered”. This model is just neither sustainable nor viable. We need to change. What a good news that that of the US House of Representatives passing the Climate Bill even though it makes many upset and angry. Addressing the current global warming issue is the utmost importance but it’s also legitimate to developing countries such as the Burkina Faso to voice their concerns about their own development potential.
The level of development of countries is somehow related to their gas emission – CF. the famous U shape curse showing the relation between GPD and greenhouse gasses emission - , I can’t but hope that there is such a similar relation with green energies. However, how long does that take? How costly is it? How can a country like Burkina Faso develop on the basis of green energies when almost all these energies are technology-based? Isn’t it the beginning of another era of dependence where we will be barrowing money not only to buy these energies or buy the equipments of producing them; but also the time where we will need to pay the experts who will come to help? By that time, we will be crawling not only under infrastructures building and other development related projects carrying debts but also under energy debts. How do we get ourselves out that mess?
How do we bequeath a cleaner planet and a country with fewer debts to our children? It definitely should start at Copenhagen where developed countries should not try to frustrate developing countries sense of fairness. What happened in Marrakech during the creation of the WTO should not be repeated. The western countries should acknowledge that even though the world is grateful for all the discoveries that have been made in this part of the world and which have led to the current standards of living, it’s however in big part their responsibility if we are where we are today. To what extend can we ask a country like Burkina Faso to reduce its greenhouse gasses emission? And to which extend should we ask the same to the US, UK, Germany and Japan on one hand, and to Russia, China, India, Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa on the other hand? Back at the time the Kyoto Protocol was signing, nobody was making any mention of the laters. Today, they have become key elements in reaching any agreement at Copenhagen. Something is telling me that if Burkina Faso and the likes do not take off by the next big event on Climate Change, we will be denied the right to use any form of fuel energy in our production systems, because by that time, developed countries such the US will already shift into clean energy and will use all the means to force us to follow the lead, to keep us always “developing countries”.
The issue of global energy crisis is not only an economic issue. It’s an issue of fairness, moral, common interest, justice… Can we expect nations to deliver on such values when their foreign policies are only based on “self-interests”?
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