The much publicized United Nations Convention on climate change in Bonn that was attended by 170 countries ended recently without any concrete steps and with a common realization that the task ahead is “daunting”!
In fact, the issue has become a complex conundrum of deforestation, pollution, natural calamities, climatic changes, melting of icebergs and extinction of species, all controlled by political and economic vested interests. It involves so many facets that it can not be addressed by one single treaty or declaration. Not to forget about the infighting between the clusters of countries from various regions. Still it has been said that the meet has developed some amount of understanding between the nations and we can look for something concrete in the next summit to be held in Accra, Ghana in August. But the same sentiment is not echoed by everyone. The Indian representative was critical about the apathy of developed nations and he was definitely not the only one. The rich & poor or the developed & developing world’s conflict is becoming uglier with time and it seems no one understands how serious the matter is!
Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat is looking for “new spirits” which probably means the next US president! He might well be day dreaming as populist promises during campaigns and actual decisions afterwards may not be the same. Despite the fact that the fuel crisis is leading a lot of research on greener fuels and the general populations normally support environment friendly initiatives, they have failed to make any visible progress.
Considering the rate at which the forests are disappearing, even if we reach a consensus after some years, there might not be any forest remaining to protect at all! The “new spirit” has to come from the people covering all the strata of the society and it must force all the governments into some meaningful action.
