Mar
12
Back to Square One? Is Climate Change a Serious Problem?
March 12, 2008 | | 2 Comments
By Eva Chang (5)
If a measure of the greater recognition of climate change as a problem is the extent of of advocacy and collecitve action, then initiatives and actions of both the public and private secotr reflect the heightened intensity of the climate change.
After the conclusion of the 8th National Conference on Society, Policy and the Environment, held in Washington, DC, the participants made up of the representatives of organizations belonging to the private and government sector have come up with a number of recommendations. One recommendation is the efficienct energy consumption through information drives and advocacies for green buildings and energy saving techniques for households and car owners. Another recommendation is sustainable energy generation by looking into the current processes of deriving energy from nuclear, solar, hydro and wind energy sources.
These recommendations seem to be practical and effective. However, implementation is much harder. The US Environmental Protection Agency has developed a number of programs and standards and formed partnerships with building and transportation organizations but without motivation for compliance, not many individuals or organizations care to take risks or incur costs. Furthermore, the varying perspectives of the causes of climate change further worsen the difficulty of encouraging compliance.
The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change on March 2-4 held in New York City revolved around the causes of climate change. When majority of the participants from various international organizations and research institutions agree that climate change is indeed happening, there was disagreement on its major causes or its characteristic as a problem. A previous report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) publicized in November 2007 citing human activities as the major causes of climate change was discredited by the report presented by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) that climate change is a natural phenomenon and due to natural causes. The report was a compilation of the studies of 23 scientists. A commentator from the Washington Post stated that the conference was a meeting of skeptics with all previous information on climate change discredited by the reports. In the New York Times, a report stated that the conference turned out to be a media-drawing opportunity for scientists who are skeptics of the problem of climate change and its causes to showcase their claims or rather counterclaims. Nevertheless, at the end of the conference, various perspectives were presented but no substantive agreements were made on whether climate change is really a serious problem deserving focus or whether something should be done with the issue of climate change.
In April 2008, the IPCC will hold its 28th Session in Budapest, Hungary with the session expected to be a response to the NIPCC reports. The Bangkok Climate Change talks 2008 will also happen in April 2008 in Bangkok, Thailand focusing on cooperative updates but this would also likely consider the NIPCC report. With strong skepticism on climate change as a problem, does this mean that all climate change initiatives are back to square one with the need to consider again whether climate change is a really serious problem.
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The sceptics conference is an interesting development. Who were they, and what were their arguments?
The skeptics in the conference are scientists who compiled a report under NICPP. Their main point as mentioned in the blog is that climate change is a natural phenomenon instead of man made. This challenges current efforts in addressing climate change.