The Western media publicly announced that the Copenhagen Conference was a unique moment ever to be achieved in history. It is salient to examine whether this uniqueness is measured in terms of achievement with regard to environmental issues or integration of the world leadership.
The BBC News indicated that despite the hassles that the leaders had at Copenhagen Conference there are changes that this conference had made which among will be talked about in this story.It is therefore salient to question whether the achievement talked about can be viewed the same from an African context.
The conference had 110 world leaders present and a single issue on the agenda, judging from history there has never been a meeting like this. The countries that brokered the text, the US, China, India, South Africa, Brazil and the EU, also reflects a world in which the balance of power has significantly changed in the last 20 years. This statement can be a born of contention in that only few countries are talked about here and nothing much is said about third world countries like Zimbabwe, Senegal, Ethiopia,Somalia and so forth. Again it is debatable as to whether what the conference discussed will be fully factored by leaders who attended the conference. It can be argued that this conference sounds like a meeting that was meant to rate the countries with potential, or countries that had emerged to join super powers like America, Canada, Australia, Germany and Britain.
The conference is said to have redefined the debate between countries in terms of awareness of climate science and support for action. There is no longer any question that climate change is central to the political thinking of every country on the planet. Again environmental awareness is important but western countries or developed countries are the ones in lead when it comes to emission of gasses that destroys the environment. Most developing countries do not produce mass destruction weapons which have gasses that destroys the environment. The western powers are the ones who does that and are including developing countries to be part of their mess. In Zimbabwe, not even a single day have i heard the manufacturing of dangerous explosive that destroys the environment. Yes we do have industries that produces too much gasses, but which i hope do not causes drastic emission that can destroy the environment. Apart from that the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) as an organisation that deals with environment preservation is doing a lot to curb that. This is just like the human rights convention of 1948, that was convened after the first and second world war, that benefited the western countries who were involved in wars. The third world countries did not benefit much on that, if they did it was by chance. Perhaps what can be recommended about it is that it created consciousness to the the developing world population that there is need to respect human rights.
Public awareness has also massively increased. The vast campaigns run around the world in the run-up to Copenhagen by governments, NGOs and business and the media coverage of the issue and the summit have made addressing climate change widely understood and discussed from the pubs of rural England to the bars of Beijing. This perhaps is one aspect i will agree with the rest, but differ in that the conference was embodied with political tension than with environmental knowledge to improve our environmental conditions.
The other very important change is that green growth is now the prevailing economic model of our time. The idea that addressing climate change is bad for business was buried at Copenhagen. Countries from both developed and developing worlds have announced low-carbon economic plans and are moving forward. Well i guess this is a gloss over picture which need thorough investigations and which many people will beg to differ. In Countries like Zimbabwe where we have too many scrap cars with running engines i do not think this is true.
On the other hand, it is said that Copenhagen despite its positive achievement had certain issues that it failed to resolve which among include combination of political will, economic direction and public pressure was not enough to overcome the concerns over sovereignty that many countries have in the context of international law. The final decision reflects the fact that many countries only want to be answerable to themselves. They will co-operate, but not under the threat of legal sanction. From my view i guess this is the most important issues this conference should have resolved. For environmental policies to be full implemented at global standards there is need to address political and economic tension that exist between the super powers and their colonies. For instance,sour relationships between Zimbabwe with Britain and other western powers is a serious issue that can block the fully implementation of environmental policies initiated in such conference.
Again setting standards for developing world similarly to the developed world is a mammoth task which can not be easily measured and quantified. I support the BBC news view that the first time actions by countries can be assessed globally, but there is no verification of the actions undertaken in the developing world unless they are paid for by the developed world. Assessment measured used against the developed worlds can not fit well in the developing worlds. It is however questionable how this will be achieved and how developed worlds can be put in the same footing with the developing worlds.
It remains to be seen whether committed targets on emissions, which are due to be made at the end of January, will make a difference. The BBC news is quoted saying that there will also be a review of progress in 2015 which may offer the opportunity to adjust any targets in light of the science. There is query whether the review in 2015 will be all encompassing due to the political and economic tension that exist among the superpowers , and also between the developed and the developing worlds
For any better understanding on this issue please feel free to email Masuku caven on masuku.caven@gmail.com. Thank you!
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