Climate Change Conference in Rough Seas

Things are heating up in Copenhagen as the Climate Change Conference enters its second and final week. Negotiations are scheduled to end on Friday, by which time participants are hoping to have a treaty ready to bring back to their home countries. However, progress has stalled on a number of points of contention. Just this morning, developing countries walked out of the talks when they felt their interests were being subverted to those of a minority of developed nations reluctant to commit to further emissions reductions without similar restrictions on poorer nations. While talks resumed in the afternoon, attendees still have a long way to go to reach a compromise on a number of different issues, including: an acceptable rise in global temperature, global emission reduction targets, financial assistance for poor nations, methods for monitoring and reporting progress, and the future of the Kyoto Protocol.

While negotiations in Copenhagen are teetering, the case for the deleterious effects of climate change is growing stronger. Today, scientists from the UK announced that acidification of the oceans is threatening our global food supply. Only recently has evidence emerged to prove what scientists long suspected was the negative relationship between carbon emissions and marine ecology. As much of 50% of the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere is absorbed by the world’s oceans. Once absorbed, CO2 reacts with water (H2O) to form carbonic acid (H2CO3). This compound makes the water more acidic, which is harmful to hard-shelled organisms like mollusks and coral that require carbonate ions, with alkaline pH, to form hard parts. A drop in the mollusk population would not only be felt by diners at all-you-can-eat oyster bars, but also by sea organisms that depend on mollusks as their primary source of food, namely fish. And with 1 billion people dependent on fish for protein, this would eventually affect large numbers of humans as well.

The iceberg hurtling toward the southern coast of Australia offers an incredibly timely analogy for the situation in which Conference attendees find themselves as well as very tangible evidence of the titanic toll climate change is taking on our planet. Our current consumption habits and international laws that inadequaltely regulate them will put us on a crash course very similar to the iceberg's. And, like the iceberg, negotiations are adrift in previously uncharted waters. Diplomats face an uphill battle as they look for a solution to this incredibly complex dilemma, but unlike the iceberg, there is no chance this problem will just melt away.  Many feel that the time for action is now or never.