UN Climate Change Summit- Brokenhagen Last Year, "Can'tcun" This Year?

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UN Climate Change Summit- Brokenhagen Last Year

, "Can'tcun" This Year?

Climate change is an all-encompassing issue which has a profound impact on the development of the human race. The changing climate situation has contributed to the decrease in glaciers and ice caps in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres which leads to sea level rise. This is causing island nations such as Tuvalu and Solomon to sink into the sea naturally and the communities will lose their homelands and cultures soon. Climate change is also the major cause of the Pakistan floods which have affected over 20 million people this year. Pakistani people have been living in a nightmare since the floods began.

Many organisations have been working together to tackle climate change. As the Fifteenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP15) drew near last year, many climate change campaigns and global mobilisations were held to demand for a real and fair deal from COP15. More than 4000 events in over 180 countries were held on 350.org's International Day of Climate Action to promote the 350ppm goal. Greenpeace, TckTckTck, Hopenhagen, YOUNGO, and other environmental organisations across the world did their utmost to mobilize people to fight climate change. Everyone was hoping that a strong and ambitious political agreement will be reached. "Hope" gave them motivation to keep moving on.

However, the "hope" turned into "disappointment", "anger" and "despair" on 19th December 2009, the last day of the conference. It was generally agreed that COP15 was a failure. After two weeks of frantic negotiations, it ended with the announcement of Copenhagen Accord, a non-legally binding political agreement by President Obama. His statement provokedanger as it failed to include any concrete or binding measures for emissions reduction targets. Moreover, a secret meeting was held between 25 leaders from key nations such as China and India to negotiate the aspects of the climate change draft just hours before President Obama delivered the speech. The meeting was soon dubbed the "Summit within the Summit" and the "mini-summit of the 25".
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It was really disappointing when this was revealed, not only because of the COP15 failure, but also because of the democracy failure. This was a non-transparent negotiation which was not supposed to happen as it contradicted the principles of the United Nations. World leaders failed to deliver what they promised at COP15. That was how "Hopenhagen" turned "Brokenhagen" at Copenhagen.

The Copenhagen Accord will not solve climate change crisis. There is only a vague commitment to keep temperature rise within 2 degrees and a goal of raising US$30 billion total by 2012 and US$100 billion per year by 2020. When the sessions ended, the Parties did not formally adopt the accord but merely voted to "take note" of it. So what is the exact status of the Copenhagen Accord? It is unclear. Overall, the outcome of COP15 was a climate shame.
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This year, over 7300 events were held in 188 countries on 10th October 2010 to work on the climate crisis. The global mobalisation was even bigger than last year's. The Global Visual Petition Project for Climate Justice was launched by http://www.itsonehumanity.org// with the goal of giving young people a voice at COP16 which will be held in Cancun, Mexico this December. It seems that this year people have been taking more aggressive actions to ensure their voices are heard. Hopefully this would give the world leaders a little more pressure and push them towards committing themselves to implementing successful and sustainable solutions that contribute to addressing climate change issues. According to the UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon, the Copenhagen Accord will be made into a legally binding treaty at COP16 this year.

In spite of this, there is only a low expectation that COP16 will reach a consensus on a legally binding deal this year. Owing to the fact that a number of the newly elected national politicians in November 2010 in the US are climate change deniers, it is unlikely that they will pass any global emissions agreements.

Is COP16 destined to be another failure? No one knows. The outcome of COP16 is hardly predictable. But following the snow storms across the UK last year and the Pakistan floods this year, we should know that we cannot afford another failure. Somehow actions must be taken to solve the crisis.

Let's hope that COP16 will be a success. I would not want to see Cancun turn "Can'tcun". Remember, nature does not compromise.

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