COPENHAGEN CONFERENCE FAILURE
Last December, the United Nation Climate Change Conference was held in
Copenhagen. This summit was the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15), which
rallied eminent scientists and governmental representatives of 192 countries in
order to set new international commitments to fight global warming.
Since the Kyoto Protocol will end in 2012, this conference was crucial to keep the
process in line and agree on a framework for climate change mitigation beyond
2012. Issues such as new targets for cutting emissions, assistance to poor countries,
reduction of carbon trading or pollution offsets were to be discussed, and a
legally binding treaty signed. However, after two weeks of tempestuous
negotiations, on December 18th the nations only agreed on an international accord
to cut releases of climate-altering pollutants by most of the world’s leading
greenhouse gas emitters and establish a trust fund where industrial nations would
finance efforts by the poorest countries to cope with global warming.
This consensus is not a legally binding pact as it was anticipated, no enforcement
mechanism to compel international community to reduce drastically their gas
emissions were made and it leaves a long list of issue undecided. High expectations were held on this summit; but as the countries did not address the climate
crisis with a comprehensive and effective deal essential to the global transition into
a green economic growth, the Copenhagen conference was a complete failure.
The Copenhagen conference was held between the 7th and 18th December 2009,the host of the summit was the government of Danemark represented by Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister of Climate and Energy and Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen. After much controversy and disagreement, the summit concluded on December 18th with a moderate level of accord. The Copenhagen accord, a 12-paragraph document was drafted by the United...
