Global climate concerns to be addressed in Bali

Creating a new global climate pact will be the subject of a massive UN-backed meeting in Bali, Indonesia, Dec 3 to Dec 14, 2007. 15,000 government officials and environmentalists from 190 nations will meet to discuss the next generation environmental protocol to replace the current 1997 Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.

The Kyoto Protocol, a world-wide measure to combat the rising global warming threat, was weakened due to several developing nations, including China and India, being exempted from the measure. It was further weakened because the U.S. never signed on. The U.S. is expected to once again balk at proposed key provisions under the expected treaty such as mandatory emissions cuts and targets for limiting the rise in global temperatures. It seems economics will continue to overshadow environmental concerns.

Discussions will range from deforestation and the wiping out of species to the economic destruction caused by natural disasters. A major concern is that poorer countries are replacing their forests with crops such as soy and sugar to take advantage of the emerging agrifuel industry, which is only worsening the climate threat.

Forests are necessary to help combat rising levels of carbon dioxide and if they are replaced by a product that has been shown to be an impractical solution, then it is no solution at all. We are only trading one problem for a host of others, one being that we will need to generate more synthetic fertilizer to increase production of crops that will not meet half of the U.S. fuel requirements by 2025, let alone an entire planet. The current method of composting farm waste back into feeding the soil to produce more crop would be interrupted by using that compost for ethanol production and this depletion of soil fertility would have a devastating effect on future farming. Converting food crop into fuel for automobiles is morally wrong in the face of more than 16,000 children dieing from hunger every day.

This round of talks may have more of a world consensus and more of a sense of urgency to meet the problem head on than the 1997 talks did but since one of the biggest generators of greenhouse gases isn’t willing to heed constructive solutions then other countries will feel little pressure to show their support. These smaller countries will feel more inclined to pursue a short term profit through agrifuel production which will destroy future abilities to produce more biofuels.

World leaders like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and new Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd have all made climate change a top priority.

President Bush has recently signaled willingness by the U.S. in favor of mandatory limits on global warming pollution by citing a final Energy Department report showing U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide declined by 1.5% last year.

This is a very small move in the right but it shows signs of hope that the world can come up with a more meaningful and immediate solution to our shared, looming climate threat.