With only 3 days to go before the 15th United Nations Climate Change Copenhagen Conference, debates and controversy surrounding the summit are starting to hot-up: Quite literally in-fact. Har har, hot-up – get it?
The start of the conference is rapidly moving closer and things over in Denmark are beginning to get into fully swing, but just how successful with the eagerly anticipated conference be? As regular readers may remember back in July we covered the G8 meeting in Rome. At the meeting in Italy the fresh-faced US president Barack Obama and various other heads of state went all out to show their full support for the up-and-coming conference as well as agreeing to cut emissions by 80% by 2050. But from all the latest news reports and evidence it seems that the majority of these promises will fall by the wayside when world’s leaders meet in Copenhagen.
In recent weeks the conference has been hit by a number of rumours and scandals, at first everything appeared to be on-track, but a series of revelations including the Australians parliaments refusal to accept a cap ‘n’ trade scheme and President Obama’s reluctance to attend the summit, which has now been reversed, although it is believed that he will only attend for a day or two. All of this has helped destabilise the authority and global cooperation of the conference, but perhaps the biggest threat to a global commitment on climate change has been the recent climate-gate scandal in which hundreds of email were illegally obtained from a server belonging to the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. A number of the emails allude to several inconsistencies within present theories and suggest a potential statistical cover-up regarding present climate/warming trends. However, the validity of these emails has been called into question and several are believed to be fraudulent.
With all this going on it appears that the conference is in for a rocky time, but supporters of COP15 are still optimistic and hope that a variety of effective measures can be discussed and implemented, gaining a renewed spirit of global cooperation to tackle one of the world’s most pressing issues.
I am terrified of global warming! Either way, too cold or hot many homes will be in danger and lifes will be lost. I had read that 78 percent of homes will be displaced in southern-mid America over 100years. I think if we are aware of some of the causes we should take action immediatley. Yes, i know, we have rights to protect for some of those selfish people. We need to do something now.