Doha 2012, What's Next?

"You don’t know how to solve the world's problems? So stop destroying it. If you do not know the answer then do not create the question. "Severn Suzuki, 12 years old. Thus spoke, in 1992, before the assembly of the UN held in Rio De Janeiro for the first United Nations Conference on Climate Change. From what, by now seems to be a distant year, exactly twenty years have passed. Adolescence for Severn is just a sweet memory and now she’s a grown woman, but despite this all seems to be unchanged and her demands fell on deaf ears.

Today the negotiations of the 18th conference of the 'UN climate is held in Doha, Qatar. The delegates are meeting in the city that produces more CO2 emissions per capita in the world (3 times the entire United States). And I do not mean to be ironic, but the goal is to: reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases in general. So far nothing new, but let's take a step back

Everything began with the Kyoto Protocol. Signed in 1997,this is the only legally binding treaty, which clearly fixes the main goals: reducing emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases (GHG) in industrialized countries in a manner not less than 5% of the emissions recorded in 1990 (taken as the base year), in 2008-2012. This may sound complex, but well planned. So basically we just have to join the treaty and improve our lifestyle in order to reduce GHG emissions, yet it is not so immediate. There are a lot of exceptions, for example United States (which are responsible for 36.2% of total global emissions of GHG) have not ratified the Protocol. Besides, also China and India, which have signed the agreement, due to their state of "non-responsible" are not necessarily required to reduce their  production of CO2. From this point of view any type of agreement loses value and an international integration seems to fade away. How can we fight the increasing of the global average temperature, whether approximately half of the world refuses to do so?

Despite the importance its importance, this meeting seems to go unnoticed, almost hidden. It 's understandable, of course the economic crisis continues to make victims and resolve it continues to be a priority. However, this is not a proper justification. If we do not solve the enormous environmental problems which are leading to an increase of almost 2 ° C of the earth average temperature, there will be more victims, real ones. And even though the world is still divided between supporters and deniers (the members of the latter decreasing day by day more and more)of the theory on global warming, the time seems to be over. The more optimistic scientists say that we have until 2020 to complete the "mitigation" and revolutionize our economic production systems. But  most of them are resigned, they  cite the increasing numbers of such catastrophic events as  "Sandy" to tell us that now we’re really running out of time. Everything we can do is to put our trust in the delegates hands, but will they  succeed in the difficult task of giving concrete form to the Kyoto Protocol? Will Doha 2012 finally be the end point, or it’ll be just another postponement? What will come after this meeting, sustainable future or failure? We'll see.


Nader Moukarzel