What have been accorded in Copenhagen?

¿Que se ha acordado en Copenhague?

Es importante conocer los puntos destacables del acuerdo en Copenhague, considerado como fracaso por ONGs, países más vulnerables y por los países mas comprometidos en la lucha contra el cambio climático. It was an accord and not an agreement.
El acuerdo es un texto de cuatro páginas y dos Anejos que no contiene objetivos cuantificados de reducción de emisiones, señalando solamente que es necesario limitar el calentamiento del planeta por debajo de la barrera de 2ºC.
El punto positivo del texto señala un compromiso político entre los casi 200 Estados presentes en la cumbre del clima de donar 30.000 millones de dólares durante el periodo 2010-2012 para la adaptación de los países más vulnerables al cambio climático y 100.000 millones de dólares por año a partir de 2020. Queda por acordar y saber quienes pagarán , cómo y a quienes.
Por último los Estados industrializados del Anejo I deberán presentar voluntariamente antes del 31 de enero de 2010 sus objetivos nacionales de reducción de emisiones cuantificados para el año 2020 señalando el año de referencia (1990 ó 2005).

What do renewable and future energies need?

What do renewable and future energies need? Experts in the Third World Future Energy Summit , held in Abu Dhabi from 18-21 January 2010I, say that to win future energy battle, there is more need for investments, innovation in technology, innovation in business looking for profits for longer periods, innovation in policy and legislation, academic and commercial partnerships and access of researchers to funds and industry partnership.
There is a strong correlation between investment in research and development and GDP productivity, according to Dr. Tariq Ali, Vice President of Research & Industry Relations at Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, who highlighted the United States as a specific example, saying that university inventions contribute $20 billion and 150,000 jobs to the U.S. economy each year.

Research and development of new technologies lead to less consumption in energy, cheaper energy and less emission of gases and so good business. Tariq Ali gave an example about a new technology ‘radiant cooling’ which would result in a 70% reduction in the annual Abu Dhabi electricity load and would reduce CO2 emissions by two million tons.
As another expert, Professor Daniel Kammen, Director of the Renewable & Appropriate Energy Lab at UC Berkeley, put it: We are facing a battle of ‘tipping points’ who continued on to say that developing innovative technical and social ‘tipping points’ is vital in competing with the potential negative climate ‘tipping points’. He highlighted energy ‘systems research’ as being largely neglected yet vital.

Comments about the Copenhagen Accord

I would like to cite some interesting comments published in The New York Times about the deal that followed two weeks of climate talks in Copenhagen among approximately 200 nations.
Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said:
“The Copenhagen Accord is clearly a work in progress, with key details such as the emissions reduction targets for industrialized countries and emissions mitigation actions of developing countries to be filled in later. It is also a voluntary framework, with negotiations to continue in 2010 toward a legally binding instrument that would either accompany or supersede the Kyoto Protocol.”
David Doniger, a policy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, wrote on the blog “Switchboard”:
The Copenhagen climate deal “broke through years of negotiating gridlock to achieve three critical goals. First, it provides for real cuts in heat-trapping carbon pollution by all of the world’s big emitters. Second, it establishes a transparent framework for evaluating countries’ performance against their commitments. And third, it will start an unprecedented flow of resources to help poor and vulnerable nations cope with climate impacts, protect their forests and adopt clean energy technologies.”
Elliot Diringer, vice president for international strategies at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, said last month:
“These pledges are not binding. They are statements of intent, not obligation. But that is not what disappoints me. I never expected Copenhagen to produce more than a political accord.
“What troubles me is that governments did not resolve to move next to a legally binding treaty. That goal was part of the tentative agreement announced by President Obama. But then he left, and in final deal-making, it somehow vanished. The negotiations will of course continue. Governments agreed they’d meet next year in Mexico, the year after in South Africa. But with what type of agreement in mind?”
Ed Miliband, the British secretary of state for energy and climate change, wrote in The Guardian:
“We did not get an agreement on 50 percent reductions in global emissions by 2050 or on 80 percent reductions by developed countries. Both were vetoed by China, despite the support of a coalition of developed and the vast majority of developing countries.”
Wen Jiabao, China’s prime minister, was quoted by Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, as saying:
“These are hard-won results made through joint efforts of all parties, which are widely recognized and should be cherished.”

Mediterranean sea is not worthy of such treatment

Please, save me as a green area in Saida city in Lebanon

I am an orchard of bananas in Saida city in Lebanon. My most probable destiny is my replacement by buildings as those you see around me. Other brothers of orange and bananas orchards had the same destiny before; making wild cement urbanization, not well arranged, without green parts in benefit of the health of people and the environment for a better city.
Please save me as a green area preserving my bananas or converting me into public garden. This will make Saida more beautiful and surely healthier. It will be an example to follow making a more comfortable city.

A working example of partnership between developed and developing countries to save forests

Guyana- a former British colony, sandwiched between Venezuela and Brazil, home to fewer than a million people but boasting an intact rainforest larger than England- signed with Norway on Wednesday, 18th November, one of the biggest forest conservation deals, where the oil-rich country invests $250m to preserve the rainforests of the Latin America nation.
Both sides remarked their intention to "provide the world with a working example of how partnerships between developed and developing countries can save the world's tropical forests".
Speaking during a visit to London, President Jagdeo of Guyana said that public pressure was vital on rich, polluting countries to "help progressive politicians to deliver results on climate change". The Guyanese leader thanked those who had brought the country's rainforest offer into the international arena.
"The Independent was key to getting our original message to the public, and this kind of campaigning journalism will be vital in the years to come," he said.
As The Independent paper indicates: Countries like Guyana, whose capital Georgetown is extremely vulnerable to rising sea levels, have contributed next to nothing to the heat- trapping gases in the atmosphere that cause global warming. Yet they will be among the first victims of a changed climate and have been seeking ways to preserve the vast carbon sinks of their tropical forest without sacrificing development in a country where many live in abject poverty.
Under the terms of the agreement with Norway, Guyana will accelerate its efforts to limit forest-based greenhouse gas emissions and protect its rainforest as an asset for the world. Norway will provide financial support of up to $250m over five years in line with the Jagdeo administration's success in implementing limiting emissions and halting deforestation.
"Through this partnership, we are building a bridge between developed and developing countries," said Norway's Minister of the Environment and International Development Erik Solheim. "We are giving the world a workable model for climate change collaboration between North and South. It's not perfect, but it's good, and it will be improved upon as we learn and develop together."
The Independent puts it in an excellent explanation mode: The accelerating destruction of the rainforests that form a cooling band around the earth's equator is recognized as one the main causes of climate change.
Adding something not well diffused among people: Tropical deforestation accounts for one-fifth of all carbon emissions, more than the entire transport sector – including the aviation industry. The landmark Stern Review concluded that forests offer the single largest chance for cost-effective and immediate reductions of carbon emissions.

Capture and storage of CO2 emissions

CO2 capture and storage: Without decisive actions, energy related emissions of CO2 will more than double by 2050. Capturing and storage of CO2 emissions is an indispensable part of a total energy revolution to change our current path that we can and must carry out to save our planet. The International Energy Agency (IEA) indicates in a report titled “Technology Roadmap: Carbon capture and storage”, dated in October 2009, that “ Energy efficiency, carbon capture and storage (CCS), nuclear power and new transport technologies will all require widespread deployment if we are to reach our greenhouse gas emission goals”. Renewable energies development must be too taken into account.
This roadmap includes an ambitious CCS growth in order to avoid 70% in overall costs, if we want to reduce emissions to 2005 levels by 2050. It envisions 100 projects globally by 2020 and over 3000 projects by 2050.