COP18 at Doha: Weak Deals or High Expectations?

The annual conference on Climate Change held in Doha, Qatar has ended after two weeks of intensive talks involving delegations from 194 countries.  Year after year the conferences has further expectations, Climate Change is no longer a secondary issue, now is at the top.

The feeling that leaves the conference is that there is still much to do, so we have much to talk until the next meeting that is going to be held in late 2013 in Warsaw, Poland, for all this, the purpose of this post will be to highlight two topics from the conference the Kyoto Protocol and the Funding efforts.

Initially one of the hot topics of the conference agenda, was the Kyoto Protocol, which has a termination date to December 31, to promote their life of the protocol, also to support their values alive, it has agreed on an extension until 2020, also they agreed to revise in 2014 to discuss the new ideas that could be included in the future.

This decision has a hue very controversial, in one hand we have the protocol as a mechanism to support the Green Household Gases reduction, as one of the key issues for Climate Change management, in the other hand we have a lower support, nations as Canada and Japan have chosen not take part, and cases such as India and China looking in a different perspective, and defending their agendas, based on high industrial development, with large amounts of emissions of Green Household Gases. Meanwhile, we still are waiting for the United States; yes, we still are waiting for them! Hopefully they will jump into scene soon, and breaks their indifference stance about to the protocol.

The picture that we have now, is far away as it was expected, and the expectation that was generated around greater efforts to join new agreements that strengthen the protocol was tremendous, which is why we say that the protocol extension is not enough, and we must wait another year to see if we can reverse the “negative trend” that is taking the Kyoto Protocol, the main reason to say this, is that the largest emitters of greenhouse gases must be protagonists in the changes, and at this time they are not doing the “sacrifice” needed to make the improvements that we the world are expecting.

The other aspect I want to highlight, and it was spoken at length during the conference, related to Funding Efforts related to Climate Change, countries like UK, France, Germany, Denmark and Switzerland have pledged to give € 7 billion for the next two years, a goal that has been set is to get at least € 100 billion in 2020 to leverage the efforts being made to combat Climate Change.

When we look at the efforts being made for the financing of Climate Change, I reflect and wonder, these efforts will be enough? Give money to the study of Climate Change will solve the problem we have?

That is why from my perception I daresay financing efforts fall short in terms of money, when you consider the size of what we are dealing, what we are leaving to future generations, and if we that perhaps the money if you can leverage development of short-term solutions and long-term, but we do if the major emitters of greenhouse gases turns away?

The Conflict of interest we fear now is that some countries see as their own interests and they do not want to sacrifice themselves; they are more oriented to the school of economic growth without considering the effects that this has on our home.

That is why I now say to them  ”You must lead by example“, this condition has a mandatory character and is not negotiable, if we want to be sustainable we must completely change the current model, we must take the last step to a global regulation, where generate greater control over the environmental impact.

Finally say, these conferences are held since 1995, so we have a long road, but the feeling in the end we have is that the clock is ticking and the ongoing efforts must be intensified, because at the end, we will always have a good reason to change.

The future…

Comments Off on COP18 at Doha: Weak Deals or High Expectations? / 11 Dec 2012 por Carlos Omar Garcia Pascual
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