Upon stumbling on this reading on the New York Times the discussion about climate change seems to be gaining importance. Much of it is due to the meeting on climate change that is going to be held at Doha, Qatar for the last round of talks under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. But this meeting according to the New York Times will achieve barely anything because of the unwillingness of countries to actually fulfill emission targets. Previous targets set in 2009 for limiting the warming of the planet to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit will not be achieved. Instead of reducing as carbon emissions developing countries such as China and India are increasing their coal related emissions because of these countries high concentration on coal. A criticism is made to developed nations who have decreased their carbon emissions by displacing their emission burdens to other developing countries by simply transferring manufacturing to those countries. In the case of the United States progress has been made for reducing its carbon emissions and increasing the supply of natural gas. But though the United States has made some achievements it is still one of the most carbon emitting countries. What this article seems to point out in general is that though agreements are made for possible emission targets these are in reality never going to be achieved. As the year’s pass rather than trying to meet their goals of reduction they are actually increasing emissions. Inevitably their goals of limiting global warming and carbon emissions will become unattainable if this trend continues. Though people have high hopes for the Doha summit the actual progress in reducing emissions is may be too difficult with emissions at a record high. I agree with this article because it seems to difficult to make anyone accountable for reducing carbon emissions. Countries are finding ways to work around their reductions like moving manufacturing abroad or in the case of China who still wants to be considered a “developing country” to be allowed to continue its emissions. Reductions are difficult to achieve but growing climate changes and rising global temperature tells us that global warming is something that we cannot push-off for too long.
China and the United States are at the top of the list of carbon emissions and they are also the top two economies in the world. In order to get real change in emission levels, policy changes must be made at the top, smaller countries can help, but they cannot save the world by themselves. The United States and China have failed to sign internationally binding agreements to commit to reductions in emissions. Cap and Trade policies that seek to reduce emissions have worked in other countries but the U.S. and China have erased the progress by raising their emissions. While an agreement in Doha would be great, the United States has shown that they aren’t too willing to make sacrifices unless China is willing to take the same steps. The Bush administration feared signing emission reduction policies once the economy started to slow, this is a big factor in getting legislation passed as further regulating businesses would cause growth to slow and perhaps trigger some backlash. This may be something that the U.S. government would be willing to go through, but having a damaged economy combined with putting domestic business at a competitive disadvantage with its top competitor is just too much to handle for the economy. Signing something like Kyoto would be great but it seems far off considering that China can always cite the treaty as an excuse for why they do not have to comply even if they sign and ratify it. Change must happen but China must be on board and the only way to get that to happen is to define them as a developed country some how or to make a new agreement that binds China to the same regulations as every other member of the agreement.