Clima, questo sconosciuto: già disattesi gli impegni di Copenhagen
M.Ricci, la Repubblica
January 22 2010

One month after it ended, the Copenhagen summit seems like a complete failure. In the wake of the end of the works, a few solitary voices had given the feeling of mild optimism, mostly linked to the commitment (voluntary and not binding) undertaken by the countries that had taken part to communicate, by 31st January, their respective emission reduction plans by 2020. While few people thought that this commitment could be enough to reach the main objective of keeping the increase in world temperature within two degrees, what nonetheless seemed encouraging was the fact that, for the first time, developed and developing countries found themselves side by side among the signatories to the list of commitments against the greenhouse effect which, up to today, the emerging countries (and the USA!) had refused to underwrite. Instead, a few days from the deadline, all the enthusiasm has evaporated: only some twenty countries (out of the 192 in attendance in Copenhagen) informed the UN of their commitments (amongst these India and Russia, while the EU, Japan and the USA have made it known that they will reiterate their previously announced pledges, i.e. a 20% reduction as compared with 1990 and 25% and 17% as compared with 2005). Actually, the 31st January has become a “flexible deadline,” as admitted by Yvo de Boer, UN director for climate. The suspicion is that it will become a useless deadline.