Denmark - climate change being dealt with

While in Denmark our group met with a UN representative. One of the UNs largest tasks right now is fighting climate change. This climate change is worse in many developing countries and that is the focus for the United Nations. It can create droughts and changes in rainfall patterns which results in food shortages, it helps to melt glaciers which results in flooding and rivers drying up. Even the United States is not immune, if the snow in California’s high sierras melts, cities like LA would be vulnerable to water shortages. All these disastrous outcomes and many more can and will occur if we don’t do something drastic soon. The United Nations is focusing on making the world aware of the climate change and helping reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we put into the air. It focuses on reducing these gases in the developed countries though because the third world countries don’t produce that much gas, “the poorest 1 billion people is around 3 percent of the world’s total carbon footprint.” The United Nations is trying to get developing countries to cut greenhouse gases by 20 percent by the year 2050 and the developed countries to cut emissions by 80 percent by 2050, all this is necessary to have sustainable emissions by the end of the 21st century.

Nick Kruger, june 8th 2009