The CEO Game continues its coverage of the fascinating COP15 Climate Change Conference: Experts claim that the breakthrough that was achieved by American President, Barak Obama, is somewhat limited. African countries object bluntly and beyond all doubt: Sudan even disgracefully compared the agreement to the Holocaust.
COP15: African Disaster?
Many developing countries feel that the agreements made, were achieved without them and have announced that they object the draft and plan to block the road to a final consent. Sudan’s representative stirred up a storm when saying a despicable yet concerning remark: “solution is based on the same very values, in our opinion, that channeled six million people in Europe into furnaces”. Obama replied: “If we would have waited for a full obligatory consent we wouldn’t have made any progress at all”.
Even though, the document that Obama agreed upon with the primary leading countries is considered a turning point, it encountered strong and blunt criticism in the conference. It now looks like a true agreement is a bit farfetched. Half of the criticism is coming as mentioned above, from the poor and developing countries, who claim that the document isn’t ambitious enough and doesn’t include any specified rates to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Moreover, they claim the treaty isn’t legally binding and doesn’t provide any promise to assist them with dealing with the climate change, when all along they are the ones who will suffer first from it. They are saying that if the rich and developed countries don’t agree to significantly decrease the emissions, the agreement won’t help stop and prevent global warming at all. According to them, the draft’s suggested action- to lay under a 2 degrees rise in temperatures, is just not enough. They fear that goal is too low, and would condemn to death.
This sort of criticism was already made by Tuvalu, an archipelago country that might sink in the ocean when sea levels rise, but the Sudanese representative was the harshest. He, Lumumba Stanislaus Di-aping, claimed that COP15 agreement will bring a “holocaust” to Africa. He claimed that the results of this type of treaty will be fatal: more floods, more droughts, more avalanches and finally the rise of sea levels. He criticized Obama for choosing to form a discriminatory agreement and doing it “intimately”, instead of a wide forum that included more countries.
The different delegations are now holding marathon discussions concerning the draft. The question that now remains is whether to adopt the draft agreement or to reject it- which means to lock the conference with no agreement at all.
The CEO Game.
December 19th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Copenhagen has failed. The UN has failed to address the most important crisis in human history. This is now the time for sanctions, boycotts and embargoes. A new alliance is needed. An alliance of hope and peace and justice must be built to oppose the axis of pollution, extinction and self destruction.
http://www.selfdestructivebastards.com/2009/12/beyond-copenhagen.html
December 20th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
The CEO Game is with you: we would also like to see a more active approach to the issue of global warming. Nevertheless, we think the fact that the conference was held in the first place and that many countries took part in it, is got to be worth something by itself and is an achievement on its own.
Come back soon as we will continue to watch and cover the outcome of the COP15 conference and other key issues revolving the environment.
December 20th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Omers, I’m not so sure of that. For the past two years, if not longer, everyone has been focused on Copenhagen. Everyone’s hard work and efforts have been devoted to this. This is effort that could have been directed elsewhere, and almost certainly would have been if the outcome had been known in advance.
Also, any time people suggested Copenhagen might not solve the problem and they had other ideas, they were often told to wait and let the process work. So efforts in other areas have actually been *discouraged* by the whole UN process.
So, yes, having a meeting with all the countries is somewhat good I guess, but does this make up for all the negatives, and lost opportunities? I’m not so sure.
December 22nd, 2009 at 2:20 pm
You are indeed correct, holding the conference doesn’t pay up for lost time or actions that weren’t taken. But, anytime the environment gets this sort of attention (which we both agree it defenitly deserves) we should all be grateful, not pleased, but grateful, even if this specific conference didn’t achieve anything significant.
I think you would find our latest article on Brazil’s Oil of interest too
December 22nd, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Omers, yes, despite everything that happened, we must salute and pay tribute to the efforts made. A lot of people worked very hard, and I have no doubt they will continue to do so. I look forward to reading future entries in your blog. Cheers.
December 23rd, 2009 at 2:03 am
Why should you pay tribute to anyone?
They just waste our money and time and we got nothing for it.
With all the problems in the world , wasting so much money on environmental issues is simply a waste.