UN climate talks - Last chance to tackle climate change?

If global warming increases average temperature on our planet by more than 2C there is a great chance that this will make our climate totally unpredictable with much more frequent extreme weather events such as floods, drought, and hurricanes.

It is more than obvious that world is still lacking a strong global political will needed to tackle climate change. This is the main reason why there are so few optimists ahead of this year's climate talks in Cancun as many analysts expect yet another failure, and yet another outcome similar to last year's Copenhagen.

The solution to tackling climate change seems rather simple, namely significantly reducing carbon emissions on global level but sadly this is anything but easy.

World still heavily relies on fossil fuels such as coal and oil, and renewable energy sector, despite decent growth in the last couple of years is still nowhere near being able to replace fossil fuels and satisfy a large share of global energy demand.

The transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy will no doubt take some time, and time is currently the luxury we do not have at our disposal. If the world fails to do anything about climate change this will likely put world on track for warming of 7C by 2100.

Politicians still do not take climate change seriously despite saying otherwise. It's like they are waiting for the worst to happen before they decide to act, and this is definitely the wrong tactic for climate change.

Since politicians care so little about environment they should be at least caring for economy, and it has been calculated that just the costs of protecting low-lying and coastal areas from the sea level rise could reach $270 billion a year by 2100.

Poor countries, as always, will suffer the most, because they will find it impossible to adapt to climate change without the help of developed world. And the developed world will likely have enough of its own problems to worry about other countries. In other words, one huge, huge mess.

Lets clean this mess before it is too late.

International climate deal impossible because of the United States?

Climate change conference in Cancun could turn out to be the same failure as last year's Copenhagen climate conference mostly because of result in US midterm elections and big victory for Republicans.

Even president Obama admitted that Republican victory in midterm elections has seriously undermined prospects for comprehensive legislation to tackle climate change, and this will almost certainly have very negative effect in international climate change talks in Cancun which are only couple of weeks away.

Fears about reaching positive outcome in agreeing new international climate deal were further strengthened by the statement coming from Jos Delbeke, director general of the European Commission's climate team who said "We see the U.S. disappearing as a partner in achieving meaningful climate action."

Many people were convinced that US climate change politics will significantly change after Obama's election in 2008, but U.S. election results have pretty much crushed the remaining optimism for a significant result at the next climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, from November 29-December 10.

The entire cap and trade scheme, which should have been the US answer to cut carbon emissions, now looks to be almost forgotten among US politicans, and this will no doubt play significant role in international climate change negotiations because many countries want to see US leading the way in tackling the climate change. At this point US looks anything but a leader in tackling climate change.

Many countries also fear that U.S. reluctance to cut greenhouse gas emissions may also hit plans to raise a promised $100 billion a year by 2020 to help developing nations adapt to climate change because this plan significantly hinges on curbs on emissions to push up the price of carbon.

From the current point of view it looks like Cancun climate change conference will yet again be all about that well known scenario which can be described as "lot of talks and lot of promises, and no action at all".

The EU is doing their part to tackle climate change, heck even China is doing more than US to tackle climate change. So much about the world's leading nation.

Climate change talks - Cancun the last chance?

Will Cancun climate change conference, which will be held later this year, make any difference towards agreeing new climate deal? One thing is sure, the differences between countries are still big stumbling block, and if this situation doesn't change before the conference, climate change talks will once again result in one big failure.

Current prognosis are grim, and many analysts expect the repeat of last year's Copenhagen. The worst part in this whole climate change talks story is the fact that if yet another conference fails miserably then climate change could even become irrelevant issue in the eyes of the world.

If we want to put a decent challenge and really fight against climate change then Copenhagen must not be repeated in Cancun, or else the climate change talks will lose all credibility, and trust in positive outcome will disappear even among the few remaining optimists.

World leaders have to decide whether they are gonna stand still or move forward and fight climate change. The choice should be logical and obvious but in the eyes of politicians, words such as logical and obvious carry little weight compared to individual political and economic interests.

Climate change will affect our entire planet, and world leaders can no longer offer the same old excuse about huge differences between developed and developing world. Climate change is global threat, meaning that countries must unite and act on global level. Individual actions are no longer enough.

Of course the success of climate talks will primarily depend upon United States and China, two biggest greenhouse gas emitters, and whether they'll be able to find the mutual language or not.

Cancun is perhaps the world's last chance to do something about climate change.

New climate deal and protection of species

UN Climate conference in Copenhagen should not only result in new climate deal, but world leaders will also discuss how to cut deforestation in rainforests in developing world. Protecting rainforests from deforestation is of vital importance because of the two main reasons. First one is that rainforests absorb huge quantities of CO2, therefore decreasing climate change impact because of their excellent carbon sinking ability, and the second equally important factor is the fact that rainforests are areas with the richest biodiversity on our planet, areas that contain around half of all living species on our planet.