The United Nations Climate Change Conference, a new round of international climate talk, will be held in Copenhagen in early December. New treaties resulted from the conference will replace the Kyoto Protocol.
What is the Kyoto Protocol?
The 1997 Kyoto Climate Change Conference aimed to establish an international agreement to tackle global warming issues and reduce greenhouse gas emission. The resulted Protocol called for an average reduction of greenhouse gas emission of 5.2% from the 1990 level by 2012. To aid committed countries to reach the target level, it allowed for the use of flexible market-based mechanisms such as emission trading. The Protocol was adopted in December 1997 and went into effect in February 2005. As of October 2009, 184 countries have ratified the Protocol. The United States, a signatory of the Protocol, did not ratify it. As such, the Protocol is non-binding for the United States.
What is the goal of the Copenhagen conference?
The primary goals of the conference is to set foundation for the following questions, as laid out by the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Yvo de Boer.
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?
What can we do?
Certainly, be mindful of our daily actions which impact our environment is a good start. At the same time, we can show our leaders that we care. We care about our environment, our planet and our collective future. To show our support, visit Hopenhagen. To learn more about the upcoming conference, visit the Official Site.