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A climate change breakthrough at G8 summit

Submitted by Bruno De Wachter on Mon, 2007-07-30 07:30.

Offering an opening for a global agreement

According to James Griffin, a journalist from the Issue Alert news website, the recent June G8 summit in Heiligendamm provided a breakthrough.

He points at a statement hidden away in the middle of the final announcement: 'We acknowledge that the United Nations (UN) climate process is the appropriate forum for negotiating future global action on climate change. We are committed to moving forward in that forum and call on all parties to actively and constructively participate in the UN Climate Change Conference in Indonesia (Bali) in December 2007 with a view to achieving a comprehensive post-2012 agreement (post-Kyoto agreement) that should include all major emitters.'


The world as a village

Submitted by Bruno De Wachter on Tue, 2007-03-06 17:18.

From global warming to a global consciousness

A crisis often has the advantage of uniting people. Climate change is the first problem on a global scale that we have faced as a species. We must hope that it has the positive side effect of stimulating our global consciousness. No country, no region, no people will escape the negative effects of the impending worldwide increase in temperature. We must all cooperate in mitigating it if we are to succeed.

Our planet however is large and complex and thinking globally is not an easy exercise. If the world were as small as, let’s say, a village of 100 people, we would probably be more prudent with our resources. We wouldn’t be able to pass the problem off with empty excuses like ‘the others should first…’ because ‘the others’ would be our next-door neighbours.