Part 1 of an analysis about COP15

For the past couple of weeks, I have been closely following the Copenhagen meeting, and have posted several links on the blog. As of today, the meeting officially finished, and the results are…mixed, to say the least. The Guardian recently posted an article that highlighted the failures of the meeting (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/18/copenhagen-deal), and I agree with the general assessment presented in the article. The fact that no actual, tangible goals were set/fixed upon at the meeting is disappointing-yet, it shows business as usual in the world. Obama’s policy at the meeting seemed to be “don’t walk away empty-handed, get some goals accomplished, even if they’re reduced and rather modest.” The Guardian also had this interesting, and arguably accurate quote regarding the meeting as a whole: “Lumumba Di-Aping, chief negotiator for the G77 group of 130 developing countries, was scathing: ‘This deal will definitely result in massive devastation in Africa and small island states. It has the lowest level of ambition you can imagine. It's nothing short of climate change scepticism in action.’” Lumumba does have a point when he says that the negotiations produced a very small level of results. In fact, like stated earlier, no actual LIMITS were set…just a purposely ambiguous goal to make sure that temperature levels do not rise beyond 2 degrees Celsius this century. It’s important to note that no agreement on HOW this goal would be accomplished was reached. Obama even admitted that this meeting is only the beginning of much, much more work. Yet, at the same time, it is disappointing to see so little progress at the meeting. To read more about the differing opinions about the Copenhagen meeting, here’s another link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/climate

This is just part 1 of my analysis on the Copenhagen meetings, and several more parts will be posted in the coming week.

-Sincerely,
Adarsha