The realities of climate change are here for all to see and act fast

Images of emaciated, malnourished, and wretched Kenyans, dying livestock, carcasses, drought, and cracked earth are still etched in people’s minds. That was only a few weeks ago. Then the floods came. And these too battered the country. The rains wreaked havoc and misery.

It seems we can never win as the effects of climate change continue to be felt around the world. But the images of devastation are a constant reminder of the need to take care of the environment, to engage more proactively and actively in the search for solutions to the problems engendered and aggravated by climate change.

Indeed, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — an organisation set up to establish a scientific consensus on what is happening — droughts, floods, heat waves and hurricanes have increased to serious levels in the past few years that remedies to forestall them are urgently required.

The above scenarios will undoubtedly play out and occupy leaders from all over the world in Copenhagen, Denmark, during the two-week United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that runs from tomorrow through December 18.

Green House Gas

The United Nations adopted the FCCC at the Rio de Janeiro 17 years ago to "achieve a stabilisation of green house-gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate systems". This was followed by the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. It set about realising those aims and came into force in 2005.

As its first commitment period runs out in 2012, the implementation of the anticipated Copenhagen Protocol is expected to find serious mechanisms and agreements through which further global warming and climate change can be prevented.

Conspiracy theories

Although there have been numerous conspiracy theories on the causes of climate change, from human activity to natural causes, there is an overarching view that a lot more needs to be done to protect the environment for the wellbeing and posterity of the world.

Yet despite the above realisation and the fact that major powers in the world, particularly the United States as the worst culprit, emit loads of carbon dioxide, there is little indication that the Obama Administration is ready to take serious measures to save the world.

Although President Obama has indicated he would be heading to Copenhagen on the last day of the conference to push for change, there are serious obstacles within the United States that need to be dismantled before the US can make meaningful concessions.

According to reports, the average levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere currently stand at 387 parts per million. Apparently the optimal level at which the earth can stay relatively unaffected is 350ppm. This calls for concerted efforts particularly from polluting industrialised countries.

Cut Emissions

The problem is some industrialised countries have refused to heed the advice because such reduction will affect their productive capacities and hence their economies. Such arguments make efforts to cut down the emissions more difficult.

Yet, the world cannot wait as developed countries dither and make the earth a more difficult and dangerous place to live. This is perhaps why it is gratifying to see attempts by Obama to provide the leadership and commitment in the quest to make the world a better place for all. He should perhaps make his pre-election campaign mantra, ‘Yes we can’, work for him again.

The world is watching, and for this Obama cannot afford to fail.