If ever there was a common cause we should all care for, it would be global warming. Indeed, a further increase of the global temperature results in well-known disasters such as melting glaciers and floods, disrupted biodiversity and the like. Can we reverse this trend? Yes, we can. How?

The often-cited solution looks deceptively easy: If we manage to halve CO2 emissions by 2050, global warming can be stabilised below two degrees Celsius, which is seen as the ultimate limit of global temperature increase. But this simply shifts the question: how do we cut CO2 emissions?

Can one person cut CO2 emissions? Sure. That person could isolate his or her house better, become a vegetarian, turn down the heating and so on. However, these improvements, although admirable, are limited to the goodwill of the individual and often come down to a loss of comfort.

Real impact stems from governmental or intergovernmental initiatives, that can spark a general change of mentality, not limited to one person. Why is it still cheaper to catch shrimps in Belgium, transport them to Asia, peel them and then bringing them back to Belgium instead of producing everything locally? Why are companies allowed to give their employees free fuel cards? These are only some of the questions governments should think about.

Intergovernmentally, governments negotiate international treaties. For global warming, this treaty is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC treaty. This treaty originated on the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, when most countries realized global warming was a problem and they wanted to join forces to reduce emissions. From 1995 onwards, they met yearly in a Conference of the Parties (COP).

In 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was added to the UNFCCC treaty. This protocol had more powerful and legally binding measures, but was not ratified and thus not binding to the US, which until 2006 was the largest emitter of CO2 emissions. Worse still, this protocol ends in 2011, so a follow-up protocol is needed urgently. Unfortunately, countries have not come to an agreement during the most recent COP in Cancún, so an agreement is still uncertain... |