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The UN Copenhagen Climate Change Summit 2009: Preview

by Yuliya Talmazan | November 25, 2009 at 02:03 pm

594 views | 34 Recommendations | 3 comments

The UN Copenhagen Climate Change Summit 2009 will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark, December 7-18, gathering world leaders and NGOs to discuss the issue of climate change and find long-term solutions to fight its consequences. The Copenhagen Summit, otherwise known as COP15, is getting a lot of excitement and is widely viewed as a major milestone in the talks about climate change. The President of the Copenhagen Summit Connie Hedegaard said "failure is not an option." Many of the participants of the Summit believe "something" needs to get signed and agreed upon in Copenhagen. Many are expecting the Summit will produce an agreement more abiding and powerful than the Kyoto protocol signed in 1997 and rectified by 187 states.

Today, U.S. President Barack Obama announced he will be in attendance at the 2009 Summit, where he will disclose new U.S. emission targets. Obama will make a one-day stop in Copenhagen. There are speculations Obama will announce an emission cut as high as as 17% by 2020. Many regard Obama's presence as an essential requirement for Summit's success.

Who Will Attend?

Sixty five world leaders are expected to attend, among them leaders of Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Spain, UK, and now the United States as well. It is still not clear whether the leaders of India and China will attend.

The Agenda In A Nutshell

--the emission targets of industrialized countries
--the emission reductions of major developing countries, such as China and India
--financing of reduced emissions
--who and how will manage the money set aside to fight emissions

Interestingly, the Summit is sponsored by such as automobile makers as BMW, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz and Honda. Another interesting fact is that just days ago, emails sent by climate change scientists from the University of East Anglia Hadley Climate Research Unit have been hacked. The emails revealed climate change scientists might have manipulated the data to present climate change as a problem more serious than the data suggested. On the COP15 website, the issue of emails is dismissed as "scientists behaving badly." The site maintains that the email controversy will not affect the international climate negotiations.

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Mritunjay

at 22:17 on November 25th, 2009

Hopefullly with US going to Copenhagen with a rate cut target, others will get ready to talk as one of the major issues of contention during previous meetings was US not committing to a cut-down target.

Though the US targets may new now fail the expectations, they will at least reduce the skepticism around US not being committed to the issue.

Thanks for the story.

Uwe Paschen

at 22:20 on November 25th, 2009

I do not think that it is surprising that BMW, Honda, Daimler-Benz and Volvo since those are the leaders in new technologies for automotive transportation with Hydrogen engines, Bio-Diesel and Electricity, further they do already sale Hydrogen powered cars, Bio-Diesel or Electric and hybrids as well.

The Hacking of those e-mails may very well be a fraud in it self and once investigated and put before a court may lead to some rather unpleasant trues for the Oil industry or the anti climate change lobby that may very well be behind it. The discovery of a fraud being a fraud in it self to highjack this conference and mislead it.

Goodness they faked Hitler's diary and it took some time to prove that it was a fraud, the press did however sale it as the truth before it could be proven to be a fraud. Same may very well happen here with those e-mails. But by then the damage would be done and the conference would be over.