Climate Talk Showdown in Denmark

Climate Talk Showdown in Denmark

It’s been a wild ride in Copenhagen, and President has just arrived. Obama arrived at the U.N. climate talks on Friday and had sent a very large team of representatives to start negotiations last week. They’ll be joined by leaders of more than 100 countries to work out a global deal. More than 100,000 eco-protestors stormed the streets over the weekend, while ministers from around the world met behind closed doors trying to figure out what will happen to global warming policies.

The main issue is what changes will be made to U.N. treaty negotiations completed 12 years ago, called the Kyoto Protocol, which was never adopted by the U.S. during the Bush administration. Kyoto allowed developing countries to be excluded from the environmental standards, but that may change this time. This year’s debate was brought to a halt earlier this week when the Group of 77, representing developing countries and large emerging economies such as Brazil, India, and China, walked out of negotiations. Some of the debate centers around how much wealthy countries should pay poor nations to help them protect themselves from climate change and to shift away from burning coal or oil, which contribute to climate change. And how much should emerging economies invest in emissions control as their economies surge and grow dramatically each year?

How Much Should Be Cut?

Another sticking point in negotiations is how much carbon reduction should be the standard for producers of greenhouse gas. Perhaps a country like the U.S. should cut emissions to 25% to 50% of the amount produced in 1990 by the year 2020? So far, the U.S. is committing to about 4% reduction while the European Union is going for 20%. How much the U.S. is willing to adopt will become more clear in the coming days, but the U.S. does want emerging economies such as China to join the team. China recently took the lead as the world’s biggest producer of greenhouse gases, and the U.S. for one, wants much stricter limits than China will accept.

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