D3: International Day of Action on Climate Change
http://www.climateimc.org/ 01 Dec 2005 18:50 GMT
WalkAgainstWarming
On November 28th the signatories to the Climate change Convention begin meeting in Montreal - The United Nations Climate Change Conference.
The Montreal meetings are being accompanied by worldwide protests on December 3rd. People will be mobilising in thousands of locations around the globe to call on governments to take real action on climate change.
Find an action in YOUR area:
Global Climate Campaign | Montreal March on the UN Climate Change Conference [en, fr] | US Marches | Oceania - Walk Against Warming | UK | The Rest of the World | Climate Change Independent Media CentreMost countries at the UN Climate Change Conference will be signatories to the Kyoto Protocol, a plan to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions of industrialized countries by 5.2% (compared to 1990 emissions). Only the United States (highest emissions globally) and Australia (highest emissions per capita), have refused to sign. Despite it's flaws, many countries threatened by climate change see the signing of Kyoto as an important first step.
But government's rarely reflect what their citizens want. People from the US and Australia have created their own "People's Ratification of Kyoto" to send a message to George W Bush and John Howard and the rest of the world that "it is our duty to respond". And the protests around the world on December 3rd will call for a stronger emissions reduction treaty to prevent dangerous climate change.
US People's Ratification of Kyoto www.kyotoandbeyond.org | Australian People's Ratification of Kyoto sign it here
homepage:: http://www.climateimc.org/
Dec 3rd Climate Fair in Wellington New Zealand
No New Oil 03.Dec.2005 07:08
Climate Change Demo in Edinburgh-Scotland.
Calvin Jones 04.Dec.2005 23:20
The demo makes its way through Edinburgh.
There are a few small video clips, some photos and an mp3 of all the speaches from the Edinburgh demo on the campaign against climate change web page for scotland.
http://climatechangecampaign.blogspot.com
LARGE SCALE POLLUTION
Peter 09.Dec.2005 17:46
Our country is being run by an elite group who seem to see economy first and nature a servant of the economy. This thinking is limited. While the Western culture consumes, buys, develops their way through existence we collectively leave an impression on the larger world. The larger world cannot afford to have billions living the way the United States does. Our economy is not more important then the system that sustains 6 billion. We have to realize as China, India and other countries become more industrialized we have to utilize what knowledge we have gathered. The pollution in the cities, the poisonous fish, and unsustainable production of goods does not make the world bulletproof. Our world like me is vulnerable and will not fight back. It will not stand up for itself, it will not control an economy. Nature will not tell them enough is enough. It is our leaders responsibility to look 50 100 200 years into the future and see that our lifestyle is not scalable. Can you imagine Boston with 10 million people, New York City with 20 million people. People driving a long distance to get across a city. We need to realize the distances between each other large now will not be that large in the future. That is why I am asking George Bush to sign the Kyotote Accord and bring this nation into the future. Our eyes need not see each other a nd think historically, we need to think futuristically and multiply the existence now and see what the fruit of our ways are.
Will it help?
NR 12.Dec.2005 21:07
Will the Kyoto treaty really help anything? Most of the large polluting countries that have actually ratified the agreement have actually raised their emissions of GHG's (google it if you believe otherwise... see canada, japan, etc). Also, since many countries are exporting industrial production to developing economies like China and India, wouldn't it be wise to include them in the regulations? The greatest declines in GHG emissions were from ex-Soviet Bloc contries that closed their poorly constructed Soviet utility sites. I am usually critical of the US's stance on global warming issues, but the whole Kyoto thing seems kind of bullshit, based upon the reality of the actions of many governments.
NR
Kyoto
Peter 13.Dec.2005 02:28
I think countries need to begin policing their entities. I do not think that without direct laws large scale polluters would find different chemical solutions to produce the goods that they seem to produce. I am suprised to hear that India and China are not part of the accord. The problem is with the end user in my opinion. Wherever the goods are produced laws should follow. Laws like Kyoto are a first step then laws that prevent environmental degradation will be more likely to be instated in developing countries. Some day their could be laws that tax a good based on its depletion of natural resources and then that tax would be reinvested in sustainable production. Kyoto like TV is a drug for the masses. It gets the average person and company thinking about their environment.
Let me know what you think NR.
Partial Agreement
NR 13.Dec.2005 19:45
I partially agree with you. Governments do need to pay close attention to the amounts of GHG that are produced by various productive processes. My problem with the Kyoto methodology is that it doesn't actually produce much real environmental benefit, but will be used as an excuse for not doing anything else to prevent the release of GHG's. Countries can simply use their acceptance of the treaty as a reason for not enacting direct laws on their emissions (i.e. "we don't have to explore alternative energy sources, because we ratified kyoto... hence we are environmentally sound...").
India, China and a handful of other developing countries are not required to abide by the Kyoto rules, since they are classified as developing economies. The problem with this classification is that capital is mobile. It is already expensive enough to produce in many European countries and I fear that classification will force many corporations and governments to create tax benefits for moving dirty productive elements to these developing countries, instead of engineering cleaner production methods.
What we need is a worldwide push for research into clean manufacturing techniques and energy production. An international pool of money should be created to provide seed money to small start-up companies and non-profit research organizations to produce clean these required technological advances. This pool could be created by contributions from all countries in the UN as a percentage of their GNP. A discount could then be applied to this contribution based on the countries successful implementation of the discovered technologies. Just a random idea... I know it isn't as "take on the system" as people seem to like to be around here, but it seems rational to me.
NR