Urgent solutions to climate change

In order to reduce the effects of climate change worldwide, several environmentally friendly measures have been discussed in recent decades. Gabriel Di Blasi and Gabriela Salerno look at the role of IP in tackling the problem.

The most recent United Nations Climate Change Conference (in Cancun, Mexico, in December 2010) is an example of attempts to minimise global warming. However, like the previous conference held in Copenhagen, the outcome in Cancun was a rather modest non-binding agreement. It includes the creation of a Green Climate Fund to assist emerging countries in implementing measures to deal with climate change by 2020, but it does not specify how the proposed fund will be raised.

Deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions were also discussed in Cancun, but there was no progress regarding the extension of the Kyoto Protocol, whose first round expires in 2012.

There is no consensus about whether developing countries should have compulsory emission reductions or whether rich countries would have to reduce their emissions first. Developing nations believe that rich countries should extend the agreement beyond 2012, before the poorer ones agree to implement measures to reduce their emissions.