COP15

By the 31st January 2010 the Copenhagen Accord commits all countries to set out the actions they will take to cap temparature rise at 2 degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels. The webcast can be seen on demand.
On the 7th December 2009 the United Nations Climate Change Conference started in Copenhagen described by Ed Milliband (UK Energy and Climate Change minister) as crunch time for the planet.This conference included ministers and officials from 192 countries. The conference culminated in in the Copenhagen accord. This accord was regulated by a small group of countries including the US and China resulting in the conference voting to 'take note of it' rather then an agreement to adopt the Accord.
The result of the conference was the Copenhagen Accord. This was seen by many, myself included as a total failure. Not only was the accord only negotiated by a small number of countries (US, China, South Africa, India and Brazil) resulting in many countries feeling alienated, but it has also been critisised as just being a re-hash of previous agreements and actually achieving very little. Also the Accord is not a legally binding document. The Danish Government running of the conference has also been heavily critsised for trying to rush through to reach a conclusion resulting in protest from many countries who had assumed everything would be properly negotiated. This combined with the sacking of the Danish chief negotiator aweek before the conference, and barring by security of the chinese negotiator for the first 3 days, further undermined the conference.
As many people have said, the meeting of these countries missed a major opportunity to agree and begin to implement measures to protect the earth and curb the effect on the climate we are having. Disasters are happening right in front of their eyes!! Illustrated in the film Age of Stupid.
Whenever so many people with different agendas get together, negotiations will always be tough but the poor running of the conference and too much 'politics' resulted in a weakoutcome and is seen by many as a completefailure to address the issue and implement changes to fight climate change.
The only real positive from the conference was the 2 biggest carbon dioxide producers (China and US) negotiating together for the Copenhagen Accord.

The science behind climate change is reviewed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)


I also attended a climate change conference which was organised by my lecturer Rory Macphee. Our species at risk posters were also prepared for this. This was a very interesting day with the order of running here.


Other wildlife crime topics covered in my degree:

Species at Risk: Bats

The Illegal Wildlife Trade

Bees

Biodiversity Action Plans (BAPS)

The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (WCA81)

Twelve Fish Protected Under WCA81

Breeding and/or Catching Animals for fur: Debate

Traditional Alternative Medicines (TAMs)

Seals

Environmental Ethics and Ecopsychology

The Climate Change Conference 2009

Biological Diversity

Conservation Strategies

Conventions, Legislation and Contributing Bodies

Example Papers of Forensic Analysis used in Wildlife Crimes

Researching Wildlife Crime - My Research Idea

Climate Change Affecting Wildlife

Coral Reefs