The year of environmental respect

Representatives from over 170 of the world’s countries met in Copenhagen from Dec. 7 to 18, 2009, where they discussed the desire to implement emission-reducing targets in an effort to help combat the ongoing depreciation of our environment. The plan was to provide solutions and options about our warming planet to the everyday person but the 15th installment of the United Nations’ attempt to combat global warming once again, came up short. The summit became yet another UN agreement which states that something should be done, versus what we actually have to do. The Copenhagen Climate Accord concluded with no hard numbers and without any of the legally binding aspects they said they’d put in place to regulate the amount of carbon emissions produced. Some will argue that a large meeting of world leaders to discuss the damaging effects of capitalistic evolution on our environment is a step in the right direction. However, world leaders left the 15th Conference of the Parties (the conference known as COP15) in Copenhagen with the objective of fine-tuning the global contingency on climate change for the 16th annual meeting, the COP16, scheduled for late 2010 in Mexico. World media has ridiculed all parties involved for not setting any definite goals or guidelines and for once again postponing any real commitments. In the newest climate accord, a product of Copenhagen, China refused international monitoring of their emission reductions, but said that it was important for countries to report such information to the global community in the years to come. The Copenhagen Accord also agrees to pay poorer countries not to cut down trees as a way to reduce deforestation, and to take proactive measures to save the rainforests. They’ve given no estimation as to how much money will be donated and no foreseeable timeframe. Likely, about finances, the accord states that leading countries have agreed to donate $30-billion to second- and third-world countries by 2012 in an effort to help those struggling nations combat and adapt to climate change. Needless to say, once again they failed to state where this money would come from. So why are we, as global citizens, sitting and waiting for our country’s representatives to agree on a standard regulatory system that would be uniform across the global board? Even when the leaders of our countries find some common ground, how applicable will the new regulations be to the everyday person? The solution to climate change is to stop waiting. Stop waiting for those in power to develop and agree upon regulations. We must collectively come together and make environmental sustainability a moral and ethical issue, on an individual basis, like abortion and gay rights If respecting our environment (not necessarily “saving” it) was as paramount as universal human rights, or spoken about with such conviction as those who would speak against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, then and only then would we see some progress on the issue. Or, if we as a global community regarded climate change, right now, as intently as we do the international credit system, wouldn’t that garner it enough attention to bring about some sort of change, or hope for our future? Climate change, global warming, and respect for our surroundings, and environmental sustainability are one and the same. Respect for our environment should be placed in the upper percent yield of our list of priorities. We as a global population are morally and ethically responsible for the protection and preservation of the world we live in. Could it be that the leaders of the free world see the only solution to climate change being a complete overhaul of the capitalistic structure? Is this why agreeing on a global accord is taking so long? After all, it’s fairly safe to say that the state of our environment is a product of capitalistic industrial practices employed since the first industrial revolution in 18th-century Britain. They were unable to deliver in Copenhagen, and with eyes now turned to the 16th meeting in Mexico, who is to say they will find common capitalistic (with a hint of communist) ground there? Should we wait for those in politics to call the shots about our changing environment on the macro level? Or, should we, as global citizens, do something now at the micro level? Even, if in the end, all we are left saying is, “at least we tried”?

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