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Today I decided to put pen to paper about a climate change conference coming up in just a couple weeks in Europe. I make my living as a Toronto realtor, but that doesn’t mean that worldwide affairs do not concern me. Climate and its progression is one of them.

The beginning of December sees the United Nations Climate Change Conference being held in the town of Copenhagen, Denmark. The people attending hope to reach substantial decisions, primarily around a new framework for climate change mitigation beyond the year 2012. However, we shouldn’t see this conference as a meeting ground of climate change enthusiasts. Views are from one extreme to another.

Forceful changes in climate change mitigation were hoped for when Barack Obama became president. What should this new age of climate change look like is the inquiry on people’s lips? The reduction of greenhouse gases was the major feature of the Kyoto protocol and the basis of these types of meetings, but no more.

While the protocol was decided in 1997 it is recognized that the need the agreements made need to be thought out again. Built on GHG emission rates of 2005, individuals around the US president are looking for a further 20% reduction by 2020. The Kyoto decisions called for a 5% reduction on the 1990 levels so the new figures are drastically higher. This lax attitude toward the minimization schedule is being heavily chastised by some activists – as the mild conditions of Kyoto will effectively be loosened even further.

This is not the only area of dispute and there are other issues to consider. The North thinks Kyoto and expected environmental actions will have the largest impact on its economy, while the massive polluters of the South (like China, India, Brazil and South Africa) will remain untouched. These southern countries are more influenced by climate problems consequently they believe the northern countries owe them. Northern countries concede that developing countries may need to manufacture higher emissions to literally fuel their growth (although some activists see such aggressive ‘slash-and-burn’ development as a dead end route anyway), but with the economic problems and China’s emergence as a world power, countries like India and Brazil are less prepared to make any sacrifices.

The organization for anti-climate change has another large concern in relation to the emissions trade. Adversaries to change see opportunities arising for scams and the black market, but advocates who are mainly government officials, believe that market rules could offset any negative economic impact the restrictions could have. To stop this type of trade and the risk of climatic disaster, the people against want to see more control given to local communities.

Important decisions may be reached at Copenhagen, but it’s almost sure they won’t be radical. Having said all that, quite possibly, the most important thing to come out of it all is the activists are now getting together to try and make some improvements. This means that there are more and more voices shouting for a way forward this year, and that can only be a fantastic thing.

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