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.

Breaking Homes and Hearts in Jerusalem

If home is where the heart is, then the hearts of countless Palestinians are being shattered as Israel continues to demolish Palestinian homes in Jerusalem.

Last Friday, the United Nations released a report on Israel’s demolition plans for another 1,500 homes in East Jerusalem, based on Tel Aviv’s claim that the homes were built without permits from Israel’s Jerusalem municipality.

There are lots of issues with Israel’s claims about what it calls a “planning crisis” in East Jerusalem. First of all, Israel’s control of East Jerusalem itself is not recognized by the international community, as it illegally annexed the city after the 1967 war. But although Israel’s control of East Jerusalem is unlawful, Palestinians have to deal with the facts that it created on the ground, applying for permits to build their homes on land that has belonged to their families for generations.

This brings us to the second issue: the Israeli authorities have only set aside 13 percent of East Jerusalem for Palestinian residents. Much of that area is already crowded, and with the Palestinian population jumping from 66,000 in 1967 to 250,000 today, Palestinians have been forced to build their homes “illegally,” according to the Israeli government. And finally the third issue comes along, namely that few Palestinians who apply for permits within the designated Palestinian area of East Jerusalem are actually able to obtain them.

If the Israeli government goes ahead with its plans for solving its “planning crisis,” at least 28 percent of all Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem are at risk of demolition. That’s at least 60,000 Palestinians at risk of becoming homeless. Recognizing the situation that could arise from these plans, United Nations has called on Israel to immediately halt its demolitions, and provide real solutions for the housing crisis in the Holy City.

The international community must put pressure on Israel to end this inhumane eviction of Palestinians from their traditional home. It is both illegal and a serious obstacle to any progress on the peace process. Arab newspapers like the secular, pan-Arab al-Quds al-Arabi are calling Israel’s actions in East Jerusalem “ethnic cleansing,” indicating the level of anger felt on the Arab street. Similarly, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called the demolitions “unhelpful,” and EU diplomats have described them as illegal and said they “fuel bitterness and extremism.”

The Palestinians have fought, and continue to fight, for their rights under the state apparatus of Israel. But this is one fight that they cannot win on their own. All those who claim to support human rights and international law must rally together to bring an end to Israel’s unlawful demolition of Palestinian homes. That way, the Palestinian people can focus their energies not on picking up the pieces of their shattered hearts, but on working towards the peace that both they and their counterparts in Israel so desperately need.

Read more on this issue:

• End Palestinian demolitions in Jerusalem, UN tells Israel (The Guardian)
• U.N. Seeks End to Razing of Homes in East Jerusalem (The New York Times)
• UN calls on Israel to end evictions (Al Jazeera English)

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Credit: Nour Merza, a 21-year-old freelance writer whose family’s globe-trotting tendencies have allowed her writing to be influenced by places as varied as Saudi Arabia, Chicago, Los Angeles and the United Arab Emirates. She also enjoys singing and improving her Arabic. Currently, she’s studying International Relations at the American University of Sharjah. Find more of her work on her blog, Crisscrossing Borders.