Friday, November 25, 2011
1:38 PM
In preparation for the climate summit in Durban at the end of this month, Xie Zhenhua, one of china’s top climate officials, told reporters that the economy is no excuse for not paying attention to the environmental issues: "After the financial crisis, every country has had its problems, but these problems are just temporary." Such a response from a leader of the world’s largest polluter is unheard of in the political realm. The Chinese do not believe that the $30 billion fund will be established during the talks in Durban, more than likely due to the United States’ lack of support for any environmental legislation. China also stated that it would support the extension of the Kyoto Protocol, leading past the first commitment period that is set to end in 2012. Canada, Japan, and Russia have declined to support an extension of the Kyoto Protocol, stating that the binding cuts to emissions are pointless if the two largest polluting nations are allowed to opt out.
This international tension, coupled with the growing commitment to the environmental issue from China, could lead the United States one of two ways. Either the US will continue to simply ignore the problem, and the Kyoto Protocol will fail to go into it’s second phase due to lack of support, or, The US will finally opt into action to combat climate change, for fear of China’s rising influence in the world. The real issue is the fact that the United States refuses to see itself as a connected part of the rest of the world. Though China pollutes more than the US, China has also taken more steps to solving their problems. China has the largest number of “Clean Development Projects” in the world, and is influencing Europe to promote similar building strategies there. The US, on the other hand, is still juggling about whether or not climate change is real. The rest of the world has acknowledged it, yet still the US lags behind. When will the world’s largest economy realize that we cannot ignore this problem any longer? As the article states, short-term economic woes are no excuse for inaction on environmental issues that would ruin the world economy if left untouched.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/22/us-china-climate-idUSTRE7AL0M420111122
4 comments:
I read an article about China and their environmental policies. As of right now China is emitting the most CO2 emissions in the world. They were pressured by the rest of the world to make changes because they are developing their industries and do not have the same strict regulations that industrialized nations have. The environmental movement and climate change is struggling in the United States because we are in a different position than China is. China is in the stage that the United States was in the early industrial revolution. Industrialized nations have to develop new technology which take more time. At the of the day the world needs to work together.
The Kyoto Protocol is set to expire in 2012. I recently wrote a paper on deforestation. In my research I read about a program called the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Program. This program is expected to take over a lot of the things that the Kyoto Protocol was set to do.
It really is not an excuse that the current economic conditions in the U.S. are not condusive to supporting the ideas of conservation. The environoment is not going to wait until the economy is at a more stale place to continue to worsen. It is imperative that the U.S. make conservation a priority.
I agree with Jennie when she said that a tight economy is no excuse when it comes to the US not making advances to help the economy. If the world that we live in dies, where is that going to leave us?
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