Heavenly Promises

When I read that the PM at Copenhagen pledges to reduce our carbon emissions by 40 percent of 2005 level by 2020, I thought “WOW, this is huge!” It is a very ambitious target especially given the fact that we are currently subsidising the use of fossil fuel like petrol and diesel instead of taxing it. Fulfilling the pledge will require some serious political will, which sadly seems lacking lately in the country. In fact, political will for just about any serious issue seems to be a very rare commodity in any country at the moment. Politicians everywhere are playing it safe. There is no leadership.

In the absence of political leadership, industry shapes our policies.

Then, I read further that the pledge is conditional upon technological and financial assistance from the developed world. Ah, I should have known that there’s a catch. There’s always a catch.

Climate change is a very scary issue to read and ponder about but we don’t talk much about it at all. Even on campus, I don’t see any programs organized either by the university or the students about climate change.

Climate is Changing by h4nd at deviantART

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LINK: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)