Climate change loses traction for greens

By STEPHEN MURGATROYD Troy Media

Sun. Jun 6 – 5:18 AM

What a difference a year makes. This time last year the environmental movement was gearing up for a major breakthrough at the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit. With a combination of “doom and gloom” soothsayers — Ban ki Moon, Al Gore, Prince Charles, James Hansen, David Suzuki — and optimistic negotiators, it was clear that Copenhagen was being positioned as “the last chance” we had to save the planet.

We know what happened during the negotiations, however. Polluters couldn’t agree with the small islands and the developing world and the negotiations fell apart, with a compromise “let’s-look-as-if-we-might-save-the-planet” deal being signed off by a few countries at the end of a tough 10 days of negotiation.

Grief therapy
Since then the environmental movement has been going through a period of loss — grieving the loss of an ideal and hoping for a new reality that will culminate in a new global climate change negotiation in Brazil in December.

But the game is up. There will not be a meaningful commitment to climate change mitigation involving all of the leading polluters, especially the U.S., China, India and Canada. What is more, the general public in Canada, the U.S. and Britain are all signalling that climate change is less of a priority for them now than it was five years ago.

Lees hele artikel -> thechronicleherald.ca

Gerelateerd: