By Dr. Charles Kironji Gatebe, NASA Scientist for GLOBE Student Research Campaign on Climate
In the coming weeks and months, you will hear a lot from the media about the Copenhagen Summit that will be held in Denmark from 6-18 December 2009. The goal of the summit is to 
negotiate an international treaty to prevent global warming and climate change. The summit is expected to attract over 8,000 participants including Governmental representatives from different countries, non-governmental organizations, and journalists from all over the world. The climax will be a High-Level, 3-4 day period, when many Heads of States and Governments or their representatives will attend the summit and announce their commitments on behalf of their states or governments. As a student, how does this summit affect you?
This summit reminds me of the days when I used to represent my country at the United Nations meetings back in the early 90s, when Agenda 21 was a very popular word. Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action for the 21st Century, hence the name, to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System Governments, and major groups in every area in which humans impact the environment. It was adopted at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 1992 by more than 178 Governments. Agenda 21 created among other things a new global partnership between various groups such as governments, business people, trade unions, scientists, teachers, indigenous people, women, youth and children in combating degradation of the land, air and water, and conserving forests and the diversity of species of life. It was a truly new global partnership for sustainable development!
The UNCED conference also adopted the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) treaty that started to consider what could be done to reduce global warming and to cope with the temperature increases that are inevitable. The Convention now enjoys near-universal acceptance by 193 countries or Parties. The ultimate objective of the Convention is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system. The Convention was amended in 1997 to include mandatory targets requirements for controlling greenhouse gas emissions. The Protocol has so far gained support of 184 Parties, so is not as popular as the original UNFCCC, which only encourages countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with no specific targets as set out in the Kyoto Protocol. Note that the name Kyoto derives from the city where the protocol was adopted. The Kyoto Protocol is generally seen as an important first step towards a truly global emission reduction regime that will stabilize greenhouse gas emissions, and provides the essential architecture for any future international agreement on climate change. The Kyoto Protocol will cease to apply after 2012, and so the Copenhagen Summit and others that will follow are working hard to add new life to it, or come up with a successor.
Finding an answer to the melting of snow and ice in such places as Greenland is one of the main hopes for the summit. Picture taken in Ellesmere Island, Canada (78.52°N, 76.43°W; 93 km west of Greenland) 8 April 2008 during a research flight on NASA P-3B aircraft by Charles Gatebe.
Note that since 1995, there is an annual Kyoto-like summit, officially known as the Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC. This year’s summit in Copenhagen is the 15th Conference of Parties and is therefore being dubbed simply as COP-15. The Kyoto Summit was COP-3. The main purpose of these conferences is to assess the progress made in dealing with climate change and discuss how the convention’s goals to stabilize the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a level that prevents dangerous man-made climate changes can be implemented in practice.
The Conventions are administered by the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, which is based in Bonn, Germany. The secretariat’s tasks include monitoring the development of the individual countries’ greenhouse gas emissions, as well as keeping watch on which countries agree to implement the Kyoto Protocol, which established legally binding obligations for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
An important part of the scientific background for the political decisions made in the conferences is the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC was established to provide decision-makers and others interested in climate change with an objective source of information about climate change. IPCC has so far published four Assessment Reports (in 1990, 1995, 2001 and 2007). The IPCC was set up by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 1988. In the early 1990s, I participated in the IPCC meetings, especially those that took place at UNEP Headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. It was very interesting to see the discussions on carbon emissions and how the emissions are inextricably linked with wider questions of the pressure on all natural resources, land and water and the process that informs the Assessment Reports.
As a student, it is so important to use this opportunity to increase your awareness of climate changes and how man-made activities such as burning of fossil fuels and coal for our energy needs, cutting of trees, etc. contribute to increased greenhouse gases (the six main gasses mentioned in the Convention are Carbon dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4), Nitrous oxide (N2O), Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), Perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6)) that cause temperatures to rise. The Earth’s average temperature has risen by 0.74 degrees centigrade (1.33 degrees Fahrenheit) in the period from 1906 to 2005 according to the most recent assessment report from the IPCC and will continue to rise.
Agenda 21 captures the current feeling about climate change very well: “That humanity stands at a defining moment in history. We are confronted with a perpetuation of disparities between and within nations, a worsening of poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy, and the continuing deterioration of the ecosystems on which we depend for our well-being. However, integration of environment and development concerns and greater attention to them will lead to the fulfillment of basic needs, improved living standards for all, better protected and managed ecosystems and a safer, more prosperous future. No nation can achieve this on its own; but together we can – in a global partnership for sustainable development.”
The choices we make today will determine the severity of impacts in the future; a future that will confront you as an adult. So stay tuned for more news from the Copenhagen Summit 2009.
