This week, for my current class (global environmental and survival issues), we had a mock climate conference (a COP 15.5 if you will…). Myself along with a partner represented the small, vulnerable country of Bangladesh, and the “conference” lasted an entire school day. Countries represented included China, India, Japan, USA, Bangladesh, Samoa, Uganda, the EU, Saudi Arabia and Russia, along with two Swedish organizations (a non-profit organization and an energy company). We began by researching climate issues on each of our countries, registering (with a fake name: mine was Anika Saha), and presenting our goals to the group.
As a delegate from Bangladesh, I was given the heavy task of representing one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to climate change. Only 13 years ago, 2/3 of my country was forced underwater due to severe climate. My country has one of the highest population densities, with 160 million inhabitants, 60 million of whom are below the poverty line. We are a developing nation, at risk of being home to some 20 million climate refugees in the near future. Our main goals in the climate conference were to negotiate agreements with other countries (mainly industrial countries) to sign binding commitments of emissions reductions. We also supported a flexible mechanism on the technological side, where countries would agree to reduce emissions while simultaneously aiding developing countries reduce their own emissions.
As such a small nation, we had very little power in the meetings. Binding contracts were signed to reduce emissions as well as give money to the developing nations (in our group that included Bangladesh, Uganda and Samoa), however the sum agreed upon was not enough. In order to properly allow us to continue developing and reduce emissions, we would need a total sum of 400-500 billion Euros annually, and we ended up only receiving 200 billion.
At the end of the conference, I was satisfied with my role, yet disappointed with the results reached. The climate conference was extremely interesting and educational, and I got so much out of it. I can understand so well how difficult the actual issue of climate change is affecting every single country in the world, and it was amazing to have this experience of a mock conference to see the extreme difficulty that countries are actually having in trying to solve the issues. Also, I was able to see what a negative impact the US has on climate change (20.6 tons per capita emitted annually versus Bangladesh only emitting 0.3 tons per capita per year). Also, the US has agreed in the past to commit to emissions reductions, however their numbers continually go up.
If we want to change the future of our world, and avoid a detrimental fate of negative affects on the environment, we truly need to take action. Small steps will have more of an impact than you can imagine, so hopefully everyone will take this blog into consideration and work on reducing your own carbon footprint. I started walking places instead of taking the bus, and I have started going green in many other ways, as well. Thanks to this conference, I was able to get a glimpse of the urgency of the problems, and plan on doing anything I can in my own life to improve our world.
Location: Jonkoping, Sweden