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