The only thing that bothered me about the eleventh hour was the fact that it added some other ideals, for example of a society living in peace, that are not related to the climate change and that probably will not happen, given human nature; these ideals occasionnally give a wishy-washy tone to the movie. However, most of the movie is based on actual data and is credible.

The good news is that this encourages projects. The bad news is that it removes the thinking to a higher level, rather like a person on a diet who justifies eating something with a lot of calories because they will go out running. Humans are so good at rationalizing, especially when it means that they don’t have to change their habits or be less lazy. In an earlier post, I mentioned a friend who is an expert saying that people are not going to change their habits to prevent climate change. Unfortunately, as soon as there is a way to burn coal by planting a forest, things are going to get complicated in the false simplicity of the CDM.

According to him, because of the way the society works, most people will not change their habits just to pollute less: it is simply not a priority. The only way they will choose to use new technologies is if they are more economically advantageous. However, many seem not to realize that these new technologies are rapidly getting less expensive.

It seems that governments could play an important role in promoting change by informing people about new possibilities and of their costs, and by adopting policies that make new technologies competitive.

This is why it is important for as many people as possible to take the lead in the discussions to convince others that while it might seem economically disadvantageous to change habits in order to become more environmentally friendly, this perceived disadvantage concerns only the short term: as Chu said, countries like China are investing heavily in new technologies, and soon countries with the best technology will have leading roles in the global economy. Also, it is politically a logical move to try to become less dependent of the oil exporting countries. But often, the most important point is forgotten: the less there is climate change, the better the chances of avoiding the increased occurrence of droughts and natural other catastrophes like hurricane Katrina. This is where the main cost savings will come from and it is in the best interest of everybody.

All the way back in 1997, former Vice President Al Gore was a key player in putting together the Kyoto Protocol, which was a step in the right direction (although everyone agrees that it was even then too little too late). President Bill Clinton signed it in 1997, but the US Senate nixed it by refusing to ratify it, because it believed that it would be bad for the economy. President Bush – in spite of campaign promises to regulate CO2 – then pulled out of the accord. So if the good news was that the economy could delay the inevitable adjustments due to climate change by being smarter with emissions, the bad news is, well, catastrophic. Now, 12 years later, I am writing this blog about another chance to go back and try to put into place a new and more effective protocol. The Kyoto Protocol called for a moderate reduction in emissions over 7 years, and here we are 12 years later and the global emissions have just continued to grow.

In fact, the debates are taking many interesting turns: for example, in the recent bilateral meeting, the United States and China were much more forthcoming than before in being willing to recognize their respective responsibilities (article in Breaking News section). This should be a positive signal ,for the forthcoming conference.

For now all my research has been only on the New York Times website and the two main websites about the Copenhagen conference (links on the blogroll). The advantage of this is that all the information is quite reliable. But during the next weeks I will try to include articles from other sources too.

Climate change being one of the biggest challenges affecting people globally, it is crucial for countries to be able to collaborate effectively on the matter. One of the key controversies at Copenhagen will be how the burden will be shared in between developed countries, responsible for much of the pre-existing emissions, major emerging economies that are becoming major polluters themselves, and other developing countries. It will be interesting to follow the numerous discussions that will take place during the coming weeks before the conference. My blog will be following these discussions.