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Cop en Hag en Climate Change Summit

Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark and hosted the 2009 United Nations climate change conference (COP15) to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol and further international action on climate change. Over 15,000 officials and diplomats attended the two-week conference at the Bella Center to address issues such as commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in industrialized and developing countries and financing for developing country climate programs. There was uncertainty around whether an agreement could be reached due to disagreements over which countries need to take action and to what extent to adequately address the growing threat of climate change.

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41 views

Cop en Hag en Climate Change Summit

Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark and hosted the 2009 United Nations climate change conference (COP15) to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol and further international action on climate change. Over 15,000 officials and diplomats attended the two-week conference at the Bella Center to address issues such as commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in industrialized and developing countries and financing for developing country climate programs. There was uncertainty around whether an agreement could be reached due to disagreements over which countries need to take action and to what extent to adequately address the growing threat of climate change.

Uploaded by

prashant1249
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© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Prepared by,

Prashant Sundrani
Rakesh Srivastava
Sidharth Srivastava
 Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an
urban area with a population of 1,167,569 (2009).
 Copenhagen has repeatedly been recognized as one of the cities with
the best quality of life and in 2008 it was singled out as the Most
Liveable City in the World by international lifestyle magazine Monocle
on their Top 25 Most Liveable Cities 2008 list.
 It is also considered one of the world's most environmentally friendly
cities with the water in the inner harbour being so clean that it can be
used for swimming and 36 % of all citizens commuting to work by
bicycle, every day bicycling a total 1.1 million km.
 Since the turn of the millennium Copenhagen has seen a strong urban
and cultural development and has been described as a boom town.
This is partly due to massive investments in cultural facilities as well
as infrastructure and a new wave of successful designers, chefs and
architects.
 From December 7 2009 environment ministers and
officials met in Copenhagen for the United Nations
climate conference to thrash out a successor to the Kyoto
protocol.
 The conference, held at the modern Bella Centre, was for
two weeks.
 The talks were on the latest in an annual series of UN
meetings that trace their origins to the 1992 Earth Summit
in Rio, which aimed at coordinating international action
against climate change.
 Adopted for use in 2005, The Kyoto Protocol is an
international environmental treaty under the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) that established legally binding guidelines for
the reduction of four greenhouse gasses (CO2, methane,
nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride) and the gas groups of
hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons.

Industrialized countries that ratified, or “agreed to”, the


protocol committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
by 5.2% over 1990’s emission rate.  As of January 2009,
there were 183 participating countries working to reduce
their emissions.
COP15 is the official name of the Copenhagen
climate change summit — the 15th Conference of
the Parties (COP) under the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC).

The COP is the highest body of the UNFCCC and


consists of environment ministers who meet once
a year to discuss developments in the convention.
One hundred and ninety-two countries have signed
the climate change convention.
More than 15,000 officials, advisers, diplomats,
campaigners and journalists are expected to attend
COP15, joined by heads of state and government.
 Developing countries, including China and India, believe it is the
responsibility of wealthy industrialised nations such as the UK and US to set a
clear example on cutting carbon emissions.
 Significantly, the US rejected the 1997 Kyoto protocol, with George Bush
arguing that the 5% reductions required by Kyoto would "wreck [the
American] economy" while making no demands on emerging economies.
 COP15's chances of success have been improved by President Barack Obama's
stated intention to achieve an 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by
2050.

 In April, the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, acknowledged the role the US
had played in past climate emissions at a gathering of officials from the
world's 17 largest economies.
 She said the US was "determined to make up for lost time both at home and
abroad". "The US is no longer absent without leave," she said.
 However, Denmark's minister for climate and energy, Connie Hedegaard, has
warned that American leadership on climate change will be undermined if the
Obama administration does not pass laws swiftly to reduce carbon pollution.
 Officials will try to agree a new climate treaty as a successor to the
Kyoto protocol, the first phase of which expires in 2012.

 According to Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UNFCCC, the


four essentials needing an international agreement in Copenhagen
are:

1 How much are industrialised countries willing to reduce their


emissions of greenhouse gases?
2 How much are major developing countries such as China and India
willing to do to limit the growth of their emissions?
3 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?
4 How is that money going to be managed?
 The main issue is that of "burden-sharing". Climate scientists say that the
world must stop the growth in greenhouse gas emissions and start making
them fall from around 2015 to 2020. By 2050 they estimate the world must cut
its emissions by 80% compared with 1990 levels to limit global warming to a
2C average rise.

 But which countries must make the cuts and by how large should they be? For
example, the rapidly growing Chinese economy has recently overtaken
America as the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide. Yet America has
historically emitted far more emissions than China, and on a per capita basis
Chinese emissions are around a quarter of those of the US.
 The Chinese government argues that it has a moral right to develop and grow
its economy — carbon emissions will inevitably grow with it.

 There is also the issue of industrialised nations effectively outsourcing carbon


emissions to developing nations such as China.

 This is a consequence of huge quantities of carbon-intensive manufacturing


taking place in China on behalf of buyers in the west. It wants consumer
countries to take responsibility for the carbon emissions generated in the
manufacture of goods, not the producer countries that export them.

 Problems such as these have cast doubts on whether COP15 can succeed.
There are also concerns about whether any action we take now to prevent
climate change may be too little too late. A Guardian poll revealed almost
nine out of 10 climate scientists do not believe political efforts to restrict
global warming to an additional 2C — the level the EU defines as "dangerous"
— will succeed.
 In the countdown to Copenhagen, we can take action by
demanding that world leaders attend the conference and
address their country’s obligations to fighting climate
change. Send a letter to world leaders like President
Obama, President Hu Jintao of China, French President
Nicolas Sarcozy, among others.

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