Encouraging new Developments on the issue of Climate Change?

Despite all the recent activity regarding climate change – running the gamut from breakthroughlegislation in California regarding groundwater protection to huge protest marches – manyexperts concur that international talks won’t be a decisive factor in climate change policy. Agathering of world leaders at the United Nations in September 2014 for an international summiton climate that’s meant to kick off 15 months of negotiations aimed at finalizing a climatechange agreement in December 2015. In an article in Forbes Magazine, Michael Levi, a seniorfellow at the Council on Foreign Relations warns:

“Climate change has long been approached as the ultimate foreign policy problem. Greenhousegas emissions anywhere raise temperatures everywhere. What that means for climate policy isthat emissions cuts anywhere curb global warming everywhere. Since cutting emissions usuallycosts money, it makes sense for each country to ask other countries to act while trying to do aslittle as possible themselves: that way, they keep their costs to a minimum, but still benefit fromreduced climate change because of what others have done. The danger is that if every countryadopts this attitude, no one will do much of anything. The only way out of this beggar-thy-neighbor quagmire, strategists have long assumed, is for countries to reach a legally binding pactin which they all curb greenhouse gas emissions at the same time.”

The Boston Globe’s Robert N. Stavins has a different take on what the end result of theinternational summit on climate change might be. In a September 23, 2014 article Stavins paintsa more optimistic picture when he writes:

“The goal now before negotiators is to produce a new international agreement — under theDurban Platform — in Paris in 2015, for implementation in 2020, as a successor to the KyotoProtocol. This presents the greatest opportunity the world has had in 20 years to makemeaningful progress on this exceptionally challenging issue. The UN summit in New York canaccelerate the momentum toward such a new, path-breaking approach.”

Facts about Climate Change from the World Health Organization:

1. Over the last 50 years, human activities – particularly the burning of fossil fuels – havereleased sufficient quantities of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to affect theglobal climate. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by morethan 30% since pre-industrial times, trapping more heat in the lower atmosphere. Theresulting changes in the global climate bring a range of risks to health, from deaths inextreme high temperatures to changing patterns of infectious diseases.

2. From the tropics to the arctic, climate and weather have powerful direct and indirectimpacts on human life. Weather extremes – such as heavy rains, floods, and disasters likeHurricane Katrina that devastated New Orleans, USA in August 2005 – endanger healthas well as destroy property and livelihoods. Approximately 600 000 deaths occurredworldwide as a result of weather-related natural disasters in the 1990s, some 95% ofwhich took place in developing countries.

3. Intense short-term fluctuations in temperature can also seriously affect health – causingheat stress (hyperthermia) or extreme cold (hypothermia) – and lead to increased deathrates from heart and respiratory diseases. Recent studies suggest that the record hightemperatures in Western Europe in the summer of 2003 were associated with a spike ofan estimated 70 000 more deaths than the equivalent periods in previous years.

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