Barack Obama goes to Oslo, Norway via Copenhagen, Denmark

Keep an eye on President Barack Obama on his next trip to Europe. He will make a stop in Copenhagen on his way to Oslo. In Copenhagen he will attend to the climate summit. Let us hope that his action there further entitles him to be the receiver of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.

USA’s President Barack Obama makes a stop on 9 December in Copenhagen on his way to Oslo, where he will receive the Nobel Peace Prize. The US Government has already published one of the important announcements he will make at the climate meeting.

The USA has announced the planned reductions of the CO2 emissions: Compared to year 2005 the reductions that the USA is prepared to reduce by 2020 is 17%. The further reductions are 30% by 2025; and 42% by year 2030.

Will the result of the meeting in Copenhagen be a Good Agreement or Hot Air?

There are right now intense preparations of the political speeches that will be presented in Copenhagen at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. There have been other preparations: The leaders of the member countries of the European Union has met a month ago; and the Leaders of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) met in Singapore on November 14-15.

The results of these preliminary meetings are not very promising. The announcements made after those meetings have been very political correct, and have given promises to work for a “good agreement in Copenhagen to enable the full, effective and sustainable implementation of the needed global actions to stop the climate changes”.

However, it is now obvious that there will not be reached any legal binding agreements in Copenhagen; and in the worst case, the results of the meeting in Copenhagen might be political correct intentions but without any binding commitments, then it will only be more ‘political hot air talk’. And more hot air will not help solving the global warming problems.

Hopefully the Copenhagen Meeting will be a stepping stone for more serious negotiations, leading to a good agreement that eventually will replace the Kyoto Protocol. It is the Kyoto Protocol that until 2012 sets the rules for how each country should deal with CO2 emissions and other pollution sources that have influence on the climate changes, such as the global warming.

December 2009 is just around the corner

Many has begun to count the days, not yet to X-mas, but to the meeting in Copenhagen arranged by the United Nations.
The agenda for the meeting COP15, is to reach a global agreement about how to reduce the emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses. But as time goes on, more and more people get worried that the meeting will merely be a lot of nice words, and that the agreement of Copenhagen will not be more effective than the useless Kyoto Protocol.
Most of the world’s countries will send delegates, but already now it is obvious that the countries are very far from being able to reach an agreement. It appears that the countries can be placed in some groups:
The European Union, that recently have agreed on what they will propose in Copenhagen as the goals of CO2 reductions. The EU has also agreed upon how much they will give in aid to the developing countries, in order to make it possible to continue the development in the most environmental friendly way.
However, the developing countries do not agree to the ideas of the EU. In particular the African countries have argued that the first step should be a global agreement about how much the total CO2 emissions should be reduced; the next step should be a full commitment from the industrialized countries about how Europe and the USA will participate in the solution.
Many are skeptical about whether the Copenhagen meeting will result in a bad deal, or no deal at all. The reason for the skepticism is nourished by the dispute between Europe and the USA. Sweden’s Prime Minster F.Reinfeldt, representing the entire EU had a meeting with the USA President Obama few days ago; but after Reinfeldt’s return to Europe he expressed deep concern about the willingness of the USA to do their part.
About the US’ willingness to do something effective to save the climate of the world, then it should be kept in mind that the USA has rejected the Kyoto Protocol, and even though the Kyoto agreement will remain as the set of rules until year 2012, then President Obama has no intention of implementing it.
The guidelines of the Kyoto Protocol are not enough! It is important the the agreement in Copenhagen is better, and demand more commitments from all countries, inclusive the USA.