Under the Radar: The Copenhagen Summit

Between health care reform news and the daily reports about the economy, it is no surprise that a climate change summit scheduled for December 7 in Denmark has passed under the radar in America.

The Copenhagen Summit is the United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference and will run for two weeks. It is the 15th Conference of the Parties, officially COP15, where more than 60 leaders will negotiate and create a succeeding pact to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The Protocol committed 37 industrialized countries and the European community to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent compared to the 1990 levels of each country. The U.S. signed the Kyoto Protocol but never ratified it.

COP15 will also address the role of developing countries and what industrialized nations must do to put them on a “clean energy path,” said Yvo De Boer, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) executive secretary.

The inclusion of many developing countries in the summit shows the growing importance of a global effort to address the rapidly increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It also calls for industrialized countries, like the United States, to ramp up commitment to reduce carbon emissions.

President Obama has announced the country’s climate target to reduce emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels based on the House of Representative bill passed earlier this year.

With recent reports of alarmingly high levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the worsening impacts of warming since the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol, Obama’s attendance can change opinions about the country’s commitment to environmental issues.

But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as the UNFCCC, acknowledges that a legally-binding treaty with every detail finalized may not take place next month.

And public opinion in the U.S. seems to be shifting as well.

There has been a decline in the number of Americans who believe in global warming, according to a report released last month by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. The number of Americans who believe that there is sound evidence that the earth is warming declined from 71 percent in April 2008 to only 57 percent in October. Fewer people also see global warming as a serious problem, declining from 44 percent to 35 percent.

Even Congress has stalled on climate change legislation. The House passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 but the Senate is yet to introduce a bill.

With an economy still struggling to recover from a recession and high unemployment rates that continue to plague states, Americans are quick to skip environmental issues when prioritizing. Not to mention a six-year war in Iraq and a possible increase in troop deployment in Afghanistan, environmental policies are slowly being eclipsed by health care reform and other pressing social issues.

There is also the matter of finances. A global treaty would need money to implement, restructure, adjust or accommodate any changes to our current environmental policies. Part of the summit’s focus would be to determine how funding would be managed to undertake such a treaty and what changes would be undertaken with the new treaty. Such changes, undoubtedly, will face fierce opposition and debate on what climate change policy would mean to consumers, energy and coal industries.

Though I have faith that COP15 will blaze the trail to a more inclusive climate change treaty, it will take a long time before any commitment will come to fruition. While I am hopeful, I will not be holding my breath.

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Get more information on the Copenhagen Summit here.

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Francesca Gacho holds a B.A. in English from Cal State Fullerton. She is an intern at Minority Dreams Magazine, where she hopes to spread her journalistic wings, explore and hone her writing ability, and gain insight into the myriad of issues in today’s soundbite-focused world. Her writing interests include human interest pieces that delve into culture, arts, current events, and community service.