After several failures from the second half of the 21th century on climate agreements, hope for truly effective actions to preserve the environment is reborn with the approach of the start of the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (COPXNUMX).
Scheduled to take place between November 30 and December 11, 2015, in France, the Paris Protocol intends to replace the modest Kyoto Protocol (with a small “p”). This time, the agreement should involve 190 countries, four times the number of the Kyoto protocol, and with more ambitious goals.
Unfortunately, the goals applied to date on the subject were not respected. Not to mention that the biggest polluters, the United States and China, did little to contribute to this issue.
As long as the preservation of the environment does not break nationalist limitations and the sovereignty of countries, not recognizing the UN as a true authority, little can be done. In fact, the UN, historically, has shown little influence and world decisions, in most cases, end up being taken jointly by a small group of the most powerful countries in the world. It is no exaggeration to say that the inventor of the pen-drive, intentionally or not, created a device that preserved more trees, removing the need to use paper, than the actions adopted by the UN.
Nowadays, consumer relations govern the maintenance of society. It is not possible for one country or another to apply actions to reduce pollution and others not, even if this impacts on costs and can make products more expensive. The long-term damage can be priceless and, little by little, we are already feeling it on our skin.
Let's face it, the melting of the polar ice caps is not felt by you every day. Some may even think that the problem of polar bears is not our problem, even if in addition to putting another species in extinction, the rise in sea level could have drastic consequences. “But I don't even live in a seaside town,” a less informed person might reply, while filling a bucket with water because it's not raining anymore in their town. Both for countries and for each one of us, there is a lesson: that it is impossible to see new horizons for the salvation of the planet while we only look at our own navel.
- Text written by Diego Rennan from the Eu Sem Fronteiras Team.
