We Must Act Now on Climate Change

Every year there is a conference to discuss progress in climate change. The aim of this convention is to stop global temperature rising above dangerous levels as a result of man-made emissions. This year marks the 17^th conference which is taking place at Durcan in South Africa. A total of 194 countries have gathered to discuss ways to tackle climate change. About 15,000 participants representing governments, charities and media are there. For years, the US has been seen as an obstacle in building a consensus on cutting emissions of gases implicated in climate change. Not surprising, negative news have started coming out of the conference. The US refuses to negotiate cuts on carbon emissions. The US and China cannot agree and that can lead to the collapse of the talks, and so derail the summit. The US is supposed to lead in global cooperation on climate change. But that has never been, because of economic interests. One fact that emerges at this year’s conference is that banks continue to support the coal industry with big loans. This is bad news for climate change because the coal industry is one of the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. For years vested interests have denied climate change and form the nucleus of climate skeptics. But as evidence continue to pile up on human contribution to climate change, I thought they would modify their selfish interests to protect the future of the planet. But no, that is not forthcoming. The EU is to be praised for taking on a leadership role in the fight to safeguard the planet’s future. At this conference, the EU wants a legally binding agreement on a timetable for all major polluters to cut emissions by the year 2015. This is not enough but if acceded to will be a major step forward. And it is necessary because many believed that voluntary cuts agreed by countries at previous summits were poorly implemented and are not even sufficient to keep global temperature from reaching the threshold of 2⁰C increase at which model suggests the impacts of climate change would spiral out of control. Records show that 13 of the world’s hottest years have been in the last 15 years. We have to act now to secure the Earth for future generation.