Climate Talks

CLIMATE TALKS

by Anton Antonio

July 19, 2015

Climate change is real and hopefully the world realizes this.  The “world”, however, should not only be composed of “First World” (or developed) countries but also “Second World” (or developing countries) and “Third World” (or underdeveloped) countries as well.  It seems, however, that only the Third World countries are overly concerned about climate change and global warming.  This is for good reason though because Third World countries, mostly from Africa and Asia, are the ones experiencing the ill-effects of climate change at present.  Climate change, for First World countries, is such a hard fact to admit because it is the more advanced economies that contributed and still are contributing to climate change causes.

Scientists and global warming experts are insisting that there should be a unified action to really come up with significant mitigation or adaptive measures against climate change.  They warned that 2014 was a record year for rise in sea level, land temperatures and greenhouse gas emissions that drives dangerous global warming to more worrisome levels.  It is now imperative that global warming reduction initiatives must be taken or average world temperature will progressively increase in the years to come.  Sadly, however, the warning and red flag calls from scientists and experts have not translated to a sense of urgency among concerned officials of UNFCCC-member nations.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has embraced a goal of limiting average global warming to 2 degrees Celsius over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.  The UNFCCC is composed of 195 countries but only the underdeveloped and developing countries have shown genuine concerned over this target and are insisting that this is not enough… apparently, only the rich and developed economies seem to be biting into this target.  Small island nations and poor countries say 2 degrees Celsius is not ambitious enough and favor a 1.5 degrees Celsius target.

The UNFCCC is scheduled to meet on November 30 to December 11, 2015 in Paris France.  In this meeting, it is expected that an agreement will be signed fixing the global warming reduction target.  Meanwhile, foreign and environmental ministers and other high-level officials from member countries are mired in technical details and political squabbling and seemingly cannot put their acts together.  The gap between First, Second and Third Worlds is becoming clearer and has become a critical point of concern in harmonizing the purpose, objective and direction of the planned Paris agreement.  With all the talking going on, nothing substantial is being accomplished.  Someone should (perhaps) tell them that “talk”, “talk” and more “talk” does not necessarily translate to “Climate Talk.”

Just my little thoughts…

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