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.

Which animals are most vulnerable to climate change?

Ever-increasing climate change impact will no doubt have tremendous negative effect on many animal species but some animals are more vulnerable to climate change than the rest of the animal world. Which animals are considered by scientists to be the most vulnerable of them all?

Some would say climate change will mostly affect animals in polar areas because of ice melting, the other would say the animals that live in tropic areas will be the ones mostly exposed to climate change because they have adapted to a life where temperatures are pretty much stable all the time.

The latest interesting study that deals with this question has come from the Durham University's School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, and the lead author of this study Dr Phillip Stephens, believes that large predators such as polar bears and tigers will be the ones most affected by climate change.

He explains this by saying that climate change will cause pray to become scarce, and once there is not enough prey, large predators are the ones that suffer the most because they need lot of meal, and finding enough meal in times when pray is scarce is anything but easy.

In fact, several other studies have showed that large predator populations decreased five to six times more than those of their smaller predators when prey was rare.

Large predators such as tigers and polar bears are known to be extremely sensitive to any serious environmental change, and climate change is certainly looking as the most serious environmental change of them all. Animals which will fail to adapt to climate change will perish from the face of the Earth, and large predators will certainly find it hard to adapt.

This is the reason why entire world will have to increase its conservation efforts, and do everything to preserve habitats where large predators roam in search for prey. If we fail to address this issue, in future not far away, there won't be large carnivores left in the wild.

How to save sharks from going extinct?

Sharks, the world most famous marine predators, are almost everywhere in the world in danger of going extinct. In many places of the world shark's meat is one of the top delicacies and this has led to significant decline in their population on global scale. According to the current estimates each year between 50 to 73 million sharks are killed by people in commercial and recreational fishing, and this number will likely continue in years to come if world fails to do anything about it.

What is the best solution to save sharks from going extinct? Many environmentalists are very fond of the shark sanctuary idea, and this is the idea that became quite popular since the time Palau's president Toribiong announced that his country will ban all commercial shark fishing in its waters, and provide 600,000 sq km (230,000 sq miles) of ocean to be free of shark fishing, at least till shark population recovers in numbers.

The latest example is Indonesia. Indonesia has recently declared large shark sanctuary area which will cover 46,000 square kilometres (17,760 square miles) of waters around the Raja Ampat islands in eastern Indonesia. This is one of the world's richest marine biodiversity areas, and hopefully shark population will not be the only species to prosper, as this is also the home of other famous endangered animals such as sea turtles and manta rays.

Sharks are on top of the marine food chain, and their extinction would cause irreparable damage to many marine ecosystems. Some shark species, for instance angel sharks and deep-water gulper shark, are already listed as critically endangered, and many more will follow unless we see a decent number of new shark sanctuaries around the globe.

The importance of this shark sanctuary in Indonesia is great because close to 80% of shark species in this area are threatened with extinction, mostly from overfishing. Shark fin soup is traditional dish in many Asian countries, and its consumption has risen dramatically with the middle class becoming more affluent, and with it shark meat is becoming even more sought after "merchandise".

People that enjoy in shark meat care very little about the fact that sharks are heading for extinction. Perhaps they'll care more once there won't be sharks left to satisfy their gourmand desires.

Shark population is decreasing steadily on global scale, and world has to do something about it. One of the best available solutions to save sharks from going extinct is to create more shark sanctuaries. The problem is that many countries will only consider this idea once their domestic shark population starts experiencing huge decline, instead of doing the necessary measures to preserve their local shark population at optimum level.

What is the best way to fight climate change?

Climate change is the biggest environmental threat of all time, and world still hasn't done anything that could be characterized as a decent fight against climate change. Many people believe that the best way to fight climate change is by agreeing international climate deal but this is only true under one condition, if this climate deal provides solutions (in form of adequate funds and technology) that would enable poor countries to adapt to climate change.

Why? Because climate change is already happening, and the only thing we can do at this point is to adapt to it, and try not make it worse. If we continue with our current CO2 emissions we will make climate change look much worse then it looks today, and the worst possible scenario includes frequent extreme weather events, floods, droughts, new diseases, sea level rise, and extinction of many animals.

However, world still heavily depends on fossil fuels when it comes to energy, and burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide emissions which are characterized by many scientists as the main cause of climate change.

Renewable energy is one of the possible answers that would reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, and help tackle climate change, but sadly global renewable energy sector still has many years of developing before being able to put a decent challenge to fossil fuel lobbies.

Some climate change scientists believe that in this current situation the best solution would be to transfer the best available low carbon technologies from the rich to the poor nations.

Developed countries such as US are mostly responsible for the rise in carbon emissions, and not only should these countries curb their emissions, they should also feel the moral duty to help poor countries adapt in form of funds and technology.

Cancun climate talks are just behind the corner, and world is anxious to see whether something has changed since the last year's Copenhagen failure.

Hopefully there won't be yet another "lot of talks, no action" scenario because I no longer have the stomach to swallow this.

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.