COP15: What you need to know!

Follow all of Marcia’s copenhagen coverage at http://youngvoter.org/cop15

Hi! My name is Marcia Lee and I am a volunteer of the Wisconsin affiliate of The League of Young Voters and Education Fund. I have been on location in Copenhagen since last Monday and will be providing some information on what has been happening inside the center where the officials have been meeting to negotiate a treaty and basic feedback on the last couple of weeks. Please comment and let me know if you have specific questions and I will do my best to answer! I’ll start with the basics

1) Why is this meeting called COP15?

The conference is not called COP15 because it is based in Copenhagen. COP actually stands for Conference of Parties and the number 15 follows because this is the 15th year that these meetings have been happening. In 1990, the United Nations General Assembly decided to work on climate change and the first meeting occurred in 1995 in Berlin.

2) What is the purpose of this meeting?

According to the official COP-15 website, “The overall goal for the 2009 (COP15) United Nations Climate Change Conference hosted by Denmark is to establish an ambitious global climate agreement for the period from 2012.”

This meeting between the highest environmental ministers in the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) is supposed to decide how we will move forward as a globe to address climate change in light of the fact that the Kyoto Protocol is supposed to expire in 2012.

3) What is the Kyoto Protocol?

The Kyoto Protocol was the only document on climate change that was agreed upon as legally binding guidelines (countries that have agreed to the guidelines have to follow through according to international law). The guidelines are aimed to reduce four greenhouse gases that impact the ozone layer that protects us from the sun. The agreement was made in 1997 and formally ratified in 2005 when a certain number of countries signed on.

4) What has the U.S. done to apply the Kyoto Protocol?

The U.S. has not done anything. Our government rejected the Kyoto Protocol and is also one of the greatest hindrances to a deal in this negotiation.

5) Why is this meeting such a big deal if they have been meeting for 15 years?

This conference is a big deal because there are over 150 heads of states that are gathering today and tomorrow to work on coming to an agreement. This is very important because the heads of states for most countries have the ultimate power to make decisions for the country. It is a bit more complicated in the U.S. because we have to get approval from the Senate and House as well. But if President Obama does agree to something, it will have much more weight than if a representative for the U.S. did.

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Marcia Lee