14 DAY TRIAL // The environmental organization Greenpeace announced last weekend that it was pressuring president-elect Barack Obama harder and harder, urging him to take an active interest in the UN Climate Change Conference, which takes place in Poznan, Poland, between December 1-12. Greenpeace says that Bush's disastrous policy, of pulling back from the Kyoto Protocol, and not committing the US to a sustainable rate of carbon emission cuts, paved the way for the negative image America currently has in the world.
The organization announced that very effective and strong caps on carbon dioxide emissions are required both in the industrialized world, as well as in emerging economies, India and China, where the emission rates have skyrocketed over the past few years. In the US, it says that Obama could easily commit the country to a sustainable set of pollution-reducing measures, if the new president simply heard a scientific forum speaking.
Renewable energy is high on Greenpeace's priority list, right next to energy efficiency. These two areas of research probably hold the key to the future of mankind, as fossil fuel will soon deplete altogether, and the world will have to resort to other means of powering up. The new solution will also have to be highly-effective in terms of energy savings.
In tone with the general opinion at the Climate Conference, the organization says that rich nations should find a way of funding poorer nations, so the latter could keep their rain forests and develop a strong and sustainable economic sector in the future.
Last, but not least, adopting a set of measures that would safeguard the poorest nations on the face of the earth from the effects of global warming – including floods, droughts and extreme weather events – is very important, and should be among the most pressing issues discussed in Poznan. Greenpeace says it will continue its protests, at least until someone hears it out.