More On the United Nations - Tackling The Isuue

At the United Nation's meeting yesterday in Bali, Indonesia, children were present. These children were taking part in a program that they call Zoom. Atleast 128,000 children have made the choice to help make the Earth a greener place by walking or riding bikes to school, using greener forms of transportation. The children's goal was to make a greener footprint, one foot print for each trip to school. Most of the children that attended the conference came from Europe and aimed to make enough footprints to go around the world twenty times.
When the Children presented their efforts to the United Nations, they presented enough green footprints to go around the Earth almost eighty times which is about 1,457,039 green footprints. The children showed the delegates that a little bit of change in daily life makes a huge impact, and that more changes will help even more.

The issue of deforestation seems to be the hardested debated one in the last few hours of the conference, according to Marcelo Furtado of Brazil. Some of the countries do not realize how important it is to control this, and that deforestaion really is a problem. In accordance to Furtado, the developing countries are looking for quick cash, and the developed countries are looking for cheap carbon credits.

Carbon Credits are, "A tool for certifying carbon emission reductions, from fuel switching, technology change, carbon sequestration, or other means. Carbon credits can be traded in carbon markets, such that clean energy producers can sell credits to facilities that pollute more, thus offsetting emissions at the least possible cost."
(http://www.americanprogress.org/projects/energyfuture/glossary.html)


Louis Palmer made a trip to Bali from Switzerland in a completely solar powered car. Palmer has now traveled 13,5oo kilometers and not once were greenhouse gases emitted, nor was as much noise as a regular vehicle heard. Several Swiss universities as well as the UN, Switzerland, and the company Q-cell are involved in the developement of this solar taxi. With out sunshine, the car can run for 300 km and with, it can run for about 400km at a time. The cost right now is as much as two feraris according to Palmer, but as the mass produce them, or if they mass produce them, the cost will go down.

The United Nations and Climate Change

Right now in Bali, the United Nations is holding the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The convention began on December 3rd, and will continue to December 14th, 2007. Representatives of over 180 countries are at the conventions, as well as governmental and nongovernmental agencies.

As of the 6th, the representatives have been working on the clean development mechanism (CDM) for Africa. Africa still needs more in the terms of donor support. The representatives are looking into the future with what to do when the Kyoto Protocol will expire in 2012. Industrialized countries will have to reduce their emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020 as of negotiations today.

A problem facing many developing nations is the lacking of technology. These countries are all ready behind and with restrictions on implementing old technologies that are bad for the environment. Yet because they can not increase their green house gas emissions, and do not have the new technology, they are not able to develop. These countries want to be able to be aloud to develop just as other countries were. Nairobi is one of the countries advocating for this.

Leaders of the conference want to make sure that even though it is important to look towards the future, and learn from the past it is just as important to look at what is going on right now.

Links Used: The EIA, Terra Daily, The United Nations Work on Climate Change

China and Global Warming

China’s emissions of greenhouse gasses were about 54% of that of the United States as of 2004. On average, The People’s Republic of China is building the equivalent to one coal power plant per week. According to earlier predictions, the United States would not be beaten out by China until sometime between 2007 and 2010. However, China took the title of the country with the largest greenhouse gas emissions away from The United States, in 2006.

In June of 2007, the Chinese government released a sixty page climate change control plan. China is currently the largest consumer of solar energy as well as a large participant in the use of hydroelectric power. Chinese researchers are trying to develop better ways to use biomass/ biofuel because after studies, they concluded that there would be an extremely steep increase in the price of food.

China's energy demand is rapidly increasing with strong economic growth. China is also the third largest importer of oil behind the United States and Japan.

Right now in China, pollution from fossil fuels are damaging the quality of air and water and human health. China is not set under restrictions of the Kyoto Protocol because it is a non-Annex I country, and is not bound to any GHG emissions reduction targets. The country is to however supposed to try to increase use of renewable resources by 10% in 2010.

Links Used - EIPA, China Climate Change Info-Net, China Energy Group

The United States and Global Warming

When dealing with the US and climate change, we begin with the fact that the United States emits the second largest amount of greenhouse gases. The United States was the leader in greenhouse gas production until 2006 when China surpassed the US. President Bush commented on the matter saying that the US will decrease emissions by 18% in the next 10 years from the rate we were at in 2002 until 2012. He also believes that we first need to stop the problem and then go back to reverse what we have all ready done to the environment. That is an estimated 183 metric tons per million dollars of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 151 metric tons per million dollars of GDP. The US EPA says that this will be done through technological developments, improving energy efficiency, shifts to cleaner fuels and energy conservation.

The United States Federal Government policy has three main parts. These include slowing the growth of greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening science, technology and institutions, and enhancing international cooperation.
Here is what the US has done regarding climate change:
- In February 2002, a national goal was instated . (This was the 18% in ten years)
- Current and near term green house gas reduction incentives
- The Climate Change Technology Program
- The Climate Change Science Program
- International Cooperation ( IPCC, WMO, ESA)
- US CAP -> although this was formed without governmental influence or policy.


The United States Climate Action Partnership (US CAP) is a series of companies and nongovernmental coorporations, with a series of comprehensive approaches calling for mandatory action against climate change. These groups meet to form a range of effective policies.

Sites used (in links) - The US EPA, IPCC, The Pew Center on Climate Change

About this Blog

This blog is a forum to discuss the affect of global warming on other countries, and what various governments are doing about global warming.