14 DAY TRIAL // After the Conference of the Parties (COP) 15 meeting ended in Copenhagen, last December, many analysts, and officials in countries that are directly under threat from the effects of global warming, called the results disappointing, to say the least. Many have qualified them as null, and a large number of experts were watching presidents and prime ministers from developed nations going about the success of the meeting in disbelief. Now, the United Kingdom's Lord Stern places the failure in the back of rich nations, that, he says, treated the meeting arrogantly, the BBC News reports.
The economist also says that one of the main problems that stifled any chances of a meaningful agreement being produced was the fact that the developed world failed to take seriously the demands and concerns of the Third World. The opinions expressed by developing countries were also largely ignored, the British expert says. The responsibility for this falls mainly on the shoulders of the United States and the European Union, which both acted with a feeling of “superiority” towards the rest of the world. Oddly enough, Lord Stern does not see the entire meeting as a failure.
He underlines the fact that many countries were finally willing to lay out what they were willing to do in their respective territories to curb the effects of global warming and climate change. One of the positive outcomes of the Copenhagen meeting was the fact that 73 nations signed the document that resulted. However, critics are quick to point out the non-legally-binding nature of the agreement, which means that any of the countries that subjected themselves to its regulations can exit at the time of their choosing. Environmentalists say that this is not the way to go if temperatures are to be kept in check.
“The fact of Copenhagen and the setting of the deadline two years previously at Bali did concentrate minds, and it did lead […] to quite specific plans from countries that hadn't set them out before. So this process has itself been a key part of countries stating what their intentions on emissions reductions are – countries that had not stated them before, including China and the US. So that was a product of the UNFCCC (UN climate convention) process that we should respect,” he tells the British news agency.