MA Sultan - محمد سلطان
The trials to preserve the nature or to fix and mitigate the climate changes have been on the rise since the Montreal 1989, Brazil 1992 and Copenhagen 2009 summits. The world has never been giving serious attention to the climate changes, and the only beneficiary of such negligence is the industrial side. Moreover, the majority of the multinational corporations have depleted the wealth of the third world countries by the assistance of the high-tech machines- inducing and exacerbating the carbon emissions. Exploiting the environment in such a cruel way accounted for dramatic changes, like the increase of the carbon levels or other side effects accompanied with the advent of industrialization.After almost 25 years of the Montreal's protocol, 150 countries responsible for 90% of the world economy will hold a conference in Paris to confront the climate changes through collective work and plans. However, the third world countries still doubt the event since the main goals of the COP21 do help the leading countries solely and may not suit the developing countries' development initiatives. Serious actions against the exacerbation of the environmental situation should be taken by the major powers at first, for a country like the US emits 11% of the global carbon emissions, and China contributes by 25% which makes it the most emitting country of carbon.
The goals of the Paris conference as stated by the French minister of the international affairs in the embassy's website in Washington, D.C. that the summit aims at limiting the global warming rate to 2ºC and mobilizing 110 billion dollars annually by the G77 to the developing countries by 2020 to invest in and achieve sustainable development. Also, the minister added that managing the environmental statuesque and avoiding the future consequence are other goals for the conference.
As for the funding part, many countries have argued that reorienting the money to be for the low carbon industries does only represent the desires of the great countries, and will boost their economies, whereas for the developing countries there are other priorities for them that have to be juxtaposed to the goals of the conference. For example, the minister of foreign affairs in Ghana, Ms. Hanna Tetteh, urged the developing countries to re-prioritize their mitigations issues about climate change with their development initiatives. She said that the main issue for Ghana is the shortage of water as the climate changes accounted for lowering the crop yield and rainfalls to the extent that the dam is not saving the maximum load of water anymore because of the effect of rainfalls.
Another major aspect of the funding part includes the investment in low carbon industries with the private sector. Even though it sounds auspicious for the economy as it would be regarded as incentivizing the private sector, it sounds vague especially because the implementation and the means of accomplishing the entire goals are not clear. Many countries, in the Bonn climate talks in Germany, raised their suspicion about the role of finance and how it is going to be done, and even others are raising the fact that the developed countries are responsible or such damage that affected the poor countries the most, which makes the rich countries obligatory to compensate the poor ones . In Bonn's talks, the Sudanese, Chilean, Saudi Arabian, and others countries talked about the issue of ambiguity concerning the way of accomplishing the declared goals for the Paris conference, which may even make it impossible as the Sudanese side stated.
Finally, Minister John Kerry in the official office of the state's blog wrote that one of the dangerous effects of climate change is "undermining the military readiness". He expounded on how the floods and other environmental calamities may prevent the vehicles from the proper functionality and gave examples of wildfires. He followed this part by explaining how climate change exacerbated the already occurring conflicts because of the political inability to cope with the droughts and other disasters, like in Syria and Nigeria. In fact, such article, in my opinion, does affirm the threat and fear the poor countries have about the hidden intentions for COP21 goals. Also, the countries fear from the dramatic changes in the market because of the expensive technology that should be utilized by the factories to omit or at least decrease the carbon emission. The use of such high-tech will lead to economic shocks in the poor countries because of the insane rise in the prices and the less profit the factories can expect in reward. Therefore, the outcomes of the COP21 are beyond the climate change and directly linked to a new economic order.
References
Carbon Puls. (june 2015). COMMENT: BUSINESSEUROPE’s 10 priorities for the Paris climate summit. Retrieved from http://carbon-pulse.com/comment-businesseuropes-10-priorities-for-the-paris-climate-summit/#sthash.BxbuLyKd.dpuf
Climate disruption/Paris Climate Conference.(Sep 2015). France in the United States / Embassy of France in Washington, D.C. Retrieved from http://fr.ambafranceus.org/spip.php?article7044
GhanaNewsAgency.(2015). Ghana urges developing countries to prioritize climate change mitigation. Retrieved from http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Ghanaurgesdevelopingcountriestoprioritizeclimatechangemitigation3950
McGrath,M.(Oct 2015). Bonn climate talks: Questions over cash dominate. Retrieved form http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34611093
King,e.(Sep 2015). Countries divided on priorities for UN climate deal. Retrieved form http://www.climatechangenews.com/2015/09/01/countriesdividedonprioritiesforunclimatedeal/
Kerry,j. (Nov 2015). Climate Change: A Threat to Security and Stability Everywhere. Retrieved from https://blogs.state.gov/stories/2015/11/12/climatechangethreatsecurityandstabilityeverywhere
Johnson,L,.(2015). Why is the Paris UN climate summit important? Retrieved from http://www.pwc.co.uk/services/sustainability-climate-change/paris-2015/why-is-the-paris-un-climate-summit-important.html
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