The United Nations Climate Change Conference presently underway in Poznan is facing many obstacles, not the least of which the impact of the current economic crisis on the countries attending at the conference.
Spiegel Online International reports:
Yvo de Boer, the UN's climate chief, is facing an uphill task at Poznan. The world needs a new treaty on global warming to replace the Kyoto Protocol but many nations are now far more worried about the economic crisis. The prospects of reaching a deal by next year in Copenhagen are already looking slim.
And:
"If the carbon dioxide emissions of countries were reflected in the abdominal girth of their populations, Yvo de Boer's work would be much easier. The waistlines of the Indians attending his conference in the Polish city of Poznan would measure only 50 centimeters, while the Americans would boast a girth of a full nine-and-a-half meters. The Egyptians' would have a one-meter and the Germans a five-meter waistline.
There are similar differences, on a per capita basis, when it comes to the consumption of oil, natural gas and coal in the world and, of course, an important waste product of prosperity: greenhouse gases.
At this week's United Nations Climate Change Conference, the corpulent Americans and Germans would have trouble making their way up to the microphones and squeezing through doorways. And yet, if consumption were indeed reflected in girth, the whole world could see what is in store for mankind. By the middle of the century, world CO2 emissions will have to be reduced to correspond, using this analogy, to an average waste size of about 85 centimeters -- otherwise global warming will become a truly dangerous threat.
The waist-size analogy could also be used to describe the work of de Boer, a Dutch citizen, who is not only in charge of this conference, with its 9,000 attendees, but of the entire worldwide climate protection program. The task facing de Boer, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is to convince the world's decision-makers to slim down."
Spiegel Online International reports:
Yvo de Boer, the UN's climate chief, is facing an uphill task at Poznan. The world needs a new treaty on global warming to replace the Kyoto Protocol but many nations are now far more worried about the economic crisis. The prospects of reaching a deal by next year in Copenhagen are already looking slim.
And:
"If the carbon dioxide emissions of countries were reflected in the abdominal girth of their populations, Yvo de Boer's work would be much easier. The waistlines of the Indians attending his conference in the Polish city of Poznan would measure only 50 centimeters, while the Americans would boast a girth of a full nine-and-a-half meters. The Egyptians' would have a one-meter and the Germans a five-meter waistline.
There are similar differences, on a per capita basis, when it comes to the consumption of oil, natural gas and coal in the world and, of course, an important waste product of prosperity: greenhouse gases.
At this week's United Nations Climate Change Conference, the corpulent Americans and Germans would have trouble making their way up to the microphones and squeezing through doorways. And yet, if consumption were indeed reflected in girth, the whole world could see what is in store for mankind. By the middle of the century, world CO2 emissions will have to be reduced to correspond, using this analogy, to an average waste size of about 85 centimeters -- otherwise global warming will become a truly dangerous threat.
The waist-size analogy could also be used to describe the work of de Boer, a Dutch citizen, who is not only in charge of this conference, with its 9,000 attendees, but of the entire worldwide climate protection program. The task facing de Boer, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is to convince the world's decision-makers to slim down."
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