The UN held a mini summit on Global warming early last week in an effort to galvanize interest in the new Kyoto agreement. The next major meeting to discuss the shape of the new Kyoto; the old one expires in 2012; will take place in Bali, Indonesia next December.
Meanwhile Washington invited the leaders and representatives of the major 16 Carbo emmitters to a meeting at the State Department last Thursday. The current US administration has changed its tone. It no longer denies Global Warming and is trying to portray itself as a leader on the issue. None of the countries; the 16 represent 80% of the global economy and 80% of carbon emissions; welcomed the US conversion because it did not go far enough and seemed to be less genuine that what it was portrayed to be. The US is still adamantly opposed to any mandates and wants to champion technology transfer provided others set up a fund to pay for it. Mr. Bush made it clear that he thinks that Global Warming must be taken seriously but apparently only if the voluntary targets do not interfer with economic growth.
One more time we want to have our cake and eat it too. But this time we were not able to influence anyone. All the countries voiced their dismay at the proposals and have promised to look past the current administration. But what if the new administration does not turn out to be that different? Do we have the right to put the welfare of the future generations in jeopardy?
2 comments:
This is Larry Montague...everytime i try to post i have to sign up again i don't know why but it says my password is always incorrect.
I don't think it will be that different at all unless some major action is taken by us citizens. I think unless we start to join together and boycott major car companies or something like that to make a statement that we REALLY believe global warming is a serious issue there won't be too much done with a new administration. There's no way under Bush any step would be taken to lessen global warming because for it to be a significant step, it would have to interfere with economic growth. I think we realize it's a problem but who's going to stop driving their escalade so that people decades from now will have a more stable, regular climate? Some people in our country have a different car for every day of the week. Not enough people look at the future with a wide viewpoint, ranging from their family to a family in a third-world country. We worry about ourselves, now. I don't think we have any right what so ever to make the world worse-off for future peoples but like you say, unless there's a drastic revolutionary-change in our ways, it's going to be the same.
Hopefully the new administration will be different, but if not I agree with Larry in that the citizens must step up. And not just small groups of the U.S. Everyone must come together and voice their opinion about steps to cease global warming. But who’s going to want to do it if they have extreme wealth right now? Are people going to really give up their $100,000 cars for the sake of global warming? No. And unfortunately a lot of the time it is these rich people that have the money, means, and political ties to influence change. Looking at the situation on a larger scale, the U.S. is a lot like these people. We advocate change, but only if it benefits us financially as well. If saving the environment means less economic growth than no way is it going to get done. That is why I believe that although we are a global community, or at least trying to be, other countries really need to step up and put the U.S. in line. Maybe when other countries make us look so bad, our administration will finally realize what fools they really are. Once our reputation is at stake, we will then finally act and go even further to outdo the other countries, like we always seem to try and do.
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