Howie Chong

Starting next week, over 20,000 people will be meeting in Copenhagen to discuss how the world should tackle climate change.

Officially called the 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the two week-long meeting will (hopefully) culminate with a global road map on how humanity will tackle global warming.

Here are five reasons why you should follow the talks in Copenhagen.

1. The World’s Leaders will be there.

Last week, Barack Obama officially announced that he will make a showing at the start of the conference, making him one of the 98 world leaders that will be at the conference and Copenhagen one of the largest gathering of world leaders ever.

2. An agreement may actually be made.

Unexpected by those (such as myself) who were pessimistic about any achievements made at the conference, these past few weeks has seen a remarkable number of countries announcing greenhouse gas emissions targets for 2020, including such holdouts as the United States, China, India and Brazil. This suggests that significant negotiations have been occurring amongst diplomatic circles behind closed doors. Those experienced in the Rio and Kyoto summits of 1992 and 1997 tell me that similar pessimism existed in the months prior to the two events, where significant agreements on climate change were created and signed.

3. There will be street protests.

Activists have called for those in the streets of Copenhagen to forcibly enter the meeting for one day of the 2-week conference. Many, including anti-globalization journaler Naomi Klein, expect this to be the sequel to the 1999 Seattle protests. I’ve previously blogged about the frustration being felt by youth groups. Additionally there are indigenous groups concerned carbon ownership and energy rights, poverty activists worried about the affect of climate on the disenfranchised peoples and members of small island countries literally losing their land to rising waters.

4. You can get involved.

There are many ways you can make your voice heard in Copenhagen.

A vigil, hosted by 350.org (who brought “the most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history” according to CNN), will be held over the weekend of December 11-13.

The Global Day of Action will be held on December 12th. You can find a local organizer here.

5. Everything is at stake.

If there is an agreement signed in Copenhagen, it will likely be an international agreement with lasting, real-world affects to everyone on the planet. Outside of its significance in reducing climate change, consider these:

1. The Copenhagen treaty will likely be the first international agreement that recognizes that countries like China, India and Brazil are no longer purely ‘developing’ countries and have an added responsibility when compared to other industrializing nations such as Sierra Leone or Haiti.
2. A Copenhagen agreement will likely form the basis for a trillion-dollar carbon market, the first major readjustment of the foundation of the international economic system since countries stopped hedging their currencies on the price of gold in the 1970s.
3. Copenhagen will likely create a multi-billion dollar fund to transfer clean energy technologies and assist poor countries in adapting to climate change.

Tags: carbon, carbon market, climate, climate change, copenhagen

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 09:00 and is filed under opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.