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Monday 4 February 2013

Durban Climate Summit - Discuss...

C.Krueger has collated some statements about the Durban climate summit below. What do you think? Are these effective in helping to alter climate change? Should we be worried about climate change at all?

Respond with opinions below this post or tweet @bsgeography


The Durban Climate Summit

"Climate change is the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our times, causing suffering to hundreds of millions of people worldwide," – Kofi Annan, former UN secretary-general and president of the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum (GHF)

“The latest science is telling us we are in more trouble than we thought.” –Janos Pasztor, UN climate adviser

The annual ritual of discussions to restrict global warming to within 2 degrees was performed at Durban from November 28 to December 9 2011. Thousands of experts, government negotiators, campaigners, and businessmen gathered and talked, talked, talked… There was considerable skepticism if ever the “dirty boys” of the planet would learn to behave responsibly.

What is the basic issue?
The temperature on the Earth is rising due to global warming, and it is rising at a speed which scientists attribute to human actions leading to excessive emission of CO2 and other greenhouse gases that trap heat. This has changed, and is changing the weather patterns everywhere. The prediction is that a global temperature rise beyond 2 degrees Celsius can lead to catastrophic climatic disasters beyond control.

Evidence of Global Warming?
The statistics from the International Disaster Database found out that in the last 5 years of the 21st century, there were more global disasters recorded than in during the last 200 years. In the period of time between 1900 and 1910 for example, there were just 28 disasters recorded. Everyone is realizing that the weather is changing more often and is becoming harder to predict year by year.

The question is whether summits like the Durban one can change something in human behaviour in order to change the climate… 

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