MEDIA REACTION: HOPE IN HOPENHAGEN

UNCLAS KATHMANDU 001122

SIPDIS

STATE FOR SCA/INS, PM/CBM, PM/PRO

STATE FOR SCA/PPD, PA/RRU

E.O. 12958 N/A
TAGS: KMDR, KPAO, PGOV, OPRC, NP
SUBJ: MEDIA REACTION: HOPE IN HOPENHAGEN

1. SUMMARY: Nepal's popular English daily Republica
(estimated circulation of 15,000) on Thursday,
December 10, 2009 published an editorial on the
hopes and opportunities the climate change
conference in Copenhagen is providing the world. The
editorial urges the world leaders to seize the
moment and strive for 'tangible progress in
Copenhagen or else the mammoth participation at the
conference will turn out to have been a self-
indulgence.'

COMPLETE TEXT:

2. "Copenhagen, where the climate change conference
kicked off on December 7, has re-branded itself as
Hopenhagen for two-weeks to imbue hope that the
world has woken up to the threat of climate change.
Danes take the issue of climate change seriously, as
is demonstrated by their lofty aim to make
Copenhagen the world's first carbon-free capital by
2025. Hats off to them. But seriousness on the part
of the host alone is not going to change things
unless other countries--both rich and poor-- join
hands. As things now stand, there are hopes that the
Copenhagen conference is going to be a turning
point--from where human beings will start to reverse
their ravaging of mother earth. But there are also
fears that we will, once again, falter and miss the
opportunity."

3. "World leaders--again from both the developed
and developing countries-- must show maturity and
seize this opportunity. The US announcement that
President Barack Obama will join the conference
towards its end and recent pledges on numerical
targets for emissions reduction by the world's big
greenhouse gas emitters -- US, China, India and
Brazil-- have given a boost to the climate
conference. But reaching a deal that everybody will
own remains uncertain still. If a legally binding
emissions target is not possible, countries should
agree to voluntarily set targets and these can be
converted later on into legally binding ones. The
developed countries must also show magnanimity in
offering aid to the poorer ones so that the latter
can also contribute their part in emissions
reductions. In any case, there must be tangible
progress in Copenhagen or else the mammoth
participation at the conference will turn out to
have been a self-indulgence."

4. "Since the UN's climate conference in Stockholm
in 1972 or the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in
1992 and the Kyoto Protocol signed in 1997, we
haven't made much progress in saving the planet.
Since 1992, global carbon-dioxide emissions have
risen by a third. The Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC),a body constituted by the UN
to establish a scientific consensus on the effects
of climate change, has said world temperatures could
increase in the range of 1.1-6.4'C by the end of
this century. If we are lucky, temperatures may rise
by just less than two percent, but if they increase
by over six percent we, as a species, are doomed. We
must therefore recognize the long-term threat of
climate change and not take comfort in the fact that
there is no immediate danger attached to it."

BERRY