Retrieved 15 Jan 2010 from http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1954019,00.html
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The Copenhagen summit held in Dec 2009 was aimed to come out another international accord after the Kyoto Protocol to cut down the carbon emissions. However, the conference is widely recognized as a failure because it failed to set any specific carbon cap. Though, the steps to protect the global climate never stop. The Investor Summit on Climate Risk was held to help through investment. Billions of dollars have been spend on the renewable and low-carbon technologies and a larger amount is decided to give for these green technologies. But, what they needed is the allowance of the cap-and-trade bill from the government.
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In my opinion, the success of climate protection doesn’t only depend on the government efforts through conferences like Copenhagen summit. It may comprise two parts, the action of government and the private supports. There is no doubt that government is the main and most powerful force to fight for the environment as it represents the authority of law. The limit on carbon emissions and the price policy of carbon both can effectively help to control the global warming. But the implementation of these policies to put on limits may cause conflicts between development and environment. Therefore, we need private supports to help. The high attention to environment problems and the large amount of investment in the green technologies will provide more solutions on these problems.
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When the working progress of the government is impeded, the private sector should take active roles. The Investor Summit is a typical example. Since no real promises for cutting down the carbon emissions was made in the Copenhagen summit, the Investor summit come out the cap-and-trade bill which is a more flexible policy to reduce the pollution. The requirement of TLC(Transparency, Longevity, Certainty) for the government is also put forward. The public has the power to facilitate the process of environment protection.
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This is the time of economy and no one will entirely sacrifice the interests for the environment. In the competition between economic profits and nature environment, both the government and the public must put effort to maintain the balance and ensure the economic development won’t strain the nature.
I agree with most of your opinions. The authority should both lead and govern the processes of climate protection. In order to achieve the TLC (transparency, longevity and certainty), they government should come up with more policies to help to fulfill the cap-and-trade bills and encourage the investment. Only the law can ensure the longevity and certainty. All these will spur the investment. In addition, we cannot ignore the power of the public. Different from the millions of investment or donation, if every single person can contribute a little then the amount can certainly make a difference. For instance, majority of the carbon emission come from the power industry hence if everyone can turn off the power supply where leaving the room. We can safe a large amount of power which equals to reduce considerable quantity of carbon emission.
回复删除Yes, we can. With the lead and pledge from the authority, the investment form the big company and the co-operation of everyone, we can achieve the sustainable development.
By the way I am harry. (Zhang Zheqi)
回复删除I also feel that the Copenhagen summit is a failure…Every strong country, especially US, wants to lead the conference to be beneficial to its own country. As a result, the agreement could not be reached. Moreover, I quite agree with your point that the environment protection should win many people’s support. Green technologies are good to protect the environment, but the public’s correct mind towards the protection should be built more urgently. Otherwise, even if green technologies are done, people may not accept them. Moreover, I think telling people exact ways to help to protect the environment like using no more than how many tons of water every month or collecting the used paper to the recycling centre is much more useful than spending much money and time to hold some meetings, like Copenhagen summit…
回复删除(Puluo from PineApple)