COP21 Climate Change Conference

On November 30, 2015 the COP21 conference on climate change will begin. COP21 stands for the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The first conference was held in 1992 in Rio when nations came to realize that it was time something was done about climate change and came together under the United Nations. The nations in attendance signed a convention that stated that the aim was the “stabilization of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” The convention has been ratified by 195 countries, they have agreed that something needs to be done about climate change but not exactly how to deal with it; that is the main goal of this years conference. In 2011 it was agreed that a deal had to be done by the end of 2015 so this conference is the last chance to reach an agreement.

Citizens all over the world realize the importance of this conference and there have been marches worldwide demanding action. 5,000 people were marching in Madrid, 10,000 in Berlin, 45,000 in Sydney, and an estimated 50,000 in London. People everywhere recognize what an important issue climate change is and are hoping that their governments will begin to make real strides towards change. There is such strong belief in the need for change that people even came out in Paris despite the state of emergency in France which bans public gatherings. The march has lead to clashes between the marchers and the police as they try to remove people from the square where demonstrators are gathered. If everyone recognizes climate change as such an important issue why has it taken so long to implement an effective deal?

It has taken so long because climate change is a collective goods problem and because all decisions are made by consensus. This means that agreements are not reached until everything is agreed upon. This method is a big limitation however it guarantees the greatest fairness. Everyone shares the planet so everyone deserves an equal say in what happens to it. However because of the nature as climate change as a collective good it makes decision making near impossible. All the nations agree that it is an issue that needs to be fixed but no one wants to limit their own use of fossil fuels. Developed nations have grown their industry around the use of fossil fuels so it is hard to switch to something different. On the other hand developing countries claim that these rich nations have had an unrestricted use of fossil fuels for 200 years to get them where they are and so now it is the turn of the developing countries to use them. Finding a compromise between these views will be challenging. Who is going to help the poorer countries pay for a switch to renewable energy and help them deal with the effects of climate change are just some of the topics of contention. It will be impossible to create a perfect deal that will convert every nation to renewable energy because of the nature of this as a collective goods problem. However even if the deal is imperfect it will at least hopefully put sustainability at the core of many decisions in the future.

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