With the approaching deadline for compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, which ends in 2012, tensions between the “great” nations begin to grow even more. According to this document, the reduction in gas emissions would be 8% for the countries of the European Union, 7% for the United States and 6% for Japan. Little, to say nothing, results were obtained.
However, the maximization of environmental problems is notorious, and in this context, international agreements are extremely important in the search for effective solutions.
For this, the Summit on Climate Change will be held between the 7th and 18th of December in Copenhagen, capital of Denmark. Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen invited, through a formal letter, 191 member countries of the United Nations (UN) including Denmark, to participate in the summit.
Until December 2, the presence of 98 Heads of State and Government was confirmed, including: Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; the President of the United States, Barack Obama; Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao; and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has already made his position explicit, saying that China will not reduce its production to reduce the emission of gases that cause the greenhouse effect. Barack Obama, in turn, has encountered great resistance in the US Congress to pass legislation to reduce gas emissions. Remembering that China and the United States are the biggest emitters of polluting gases on the planet.
What is expected from the summit on climate change are proposals with concrete and immediate results, as planet Earth can no longer wait for the economic development of countries.
Denmark, the country that will host the UN Climate Change Conference in December, suggested that during the meeting be established a new date for greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced and, therefore, reduce the environmental impact that the planet suffers at the moment.
According to the Danish Minister of Mines and Energy, Connie Hedegaard, during the Copenhagen conference, a deadline must be defined so that, finally, a complete text of the agreement is signed by the countries signatories. With the progressive increase of the global warming, the situation on the planet is only getting worse.
thaw
Each year, the polar ice caps melt even more. Anyone who watched The Day After Tomorrow or 2012 and thought it was too much of an illusion, can start to rethink their ecological footprint, because the way the world is going, humanity will have no other end. It's quite true that Roland Emmerich (also director of the movie Independence Day) likes a good old apocalypse.
But isn't the planet already doomed to an end of style?
Climate change is beginning to be palpable and recent scientific discoveries only confirm the apocalyptic era that global warming has generated. Just to give you an idea, at the end of last year's summer alone, more than 1 million kilometers squares of water have thawed at the North Pole – this area corresponds to about 1 fifth of the Forest Amazon. It is a fact that all these changes had already been foreseen, but it was not believed that they could happen so quickly.
Last year, newspapers around the world announced the results of studies carried out by 2,500 climate specialists on global warming. The result was a consensus among all, the temperature of the globe should increase between 1.1 ºC and 2.9 ºC by the year 2010.
The worst thing is that there are no more ways to get around global warming. To give you an idea, even if by a miracle, carbon dioxide and other gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect were no longer released into the atmosphere, the global temperature would still continue to move up. And the disasters caused by warming are real!
Remember Hurricane Katrina, which hit the southeast coast of the United States in 2005? Remember another hurricane, called Rita that, days later, razed the Gulf of Mexico, causing billions in damage? Remember the drought in the Amazon River basin that plagued Brazil that same year, leaving only a desert full of dead fish and abandoned boats on display?
All these phenomena had the same reason: the warming of the Atlantic waters. The rise in the temperature of the Atlantic waters directly influences the regime of the winds that blow from the Caribbean to South America and which normally bring moisture to the Amazon.
In addition to all the effects on the world's climate, there are also consequences for various animal species that are joining, if not already, the endangered animal list. The polar bear is one of the biggest losers in this regard, as the mammal depends on the frozen sea to hunt seals in winter. And as each year the sea takes longer to freeze, the bears spend more time without feeding.
Do not stop now... There's more after the advertising ;)
By Juliana S. Marton - Journalist
Wagner de Cerqueira and Francisco - Geographer
Brazil School Team
