Climate Conference

Today the international climate conference opened in Copenhagen Denmark. 190 nations will send delegates to this two week conference. Barack Obama and 110 other world leaders are expected to attend the final meeting at the conference. The conference hopes to achieve many things. One of the main things is to replace the Kyoto protocol which will end in 2012. As we learned the United States was one of the only countries not to sign the Kyoto Protocol. The conference also hopes to gain financial support for less wealthy nations we are affected by climate change. The conference opened today with dire warnings and examples of what might happen if officials fail to come to an agreement on how to curb climate change. As the delegates entered the conference they walked past a melting ice sculpture symbolic of the melting ice around the world. Demonstrators and protestors from around the world are in Denmark this week to try to help persuade the delegates to make changes and come to decisions to try to help our environment.

It will be interesting to see the decisions the conference will come too in these next few weeks. It will also be interesting to see if the United States will sign the new protocol. This conference will attempt to find ways to solve environmental issues in two weeks that have taken hundreds of years to make. While I think good things will come out of this conference, I think many people have unrealistically high expectations. New protocols and treaties will help us work towards our goals. But it will take decades to really start to see the results of these changes we are trying to make.