10,000 participants add to greenhouse gas burden, critics say

Indonesia (AP): Never before have so many people converged to try to save the planet from the catastrophic effects of global warming, with more than 10,000 jet-setting to Indonesia's resort island of Bali, from ministers to Nobel laureates to drought-stricken farmers.

But critics say they are contributing to the very problem they aim to solve.
``Nobody denies this is an important event,'' said Chris Goodall, author of the book 'How to Live a Low-Carbon Life.' ``But huge numbers of people are going, and their emissions are probably going to be greater than a small African country.''

Interest in climate change is at an all-time high after former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and a team of U.N. experts won the Nobel Peace Prize for highlighting the dangers of rising temperatures, melting ice-caps, ever-worsening droughts and floods, heatwave deaths.

Two massive climate conferences have been held in less than a month, both in idyllic, far-flung, holiday destinations, first Valencia, Spain and now Bali. They were preceded by scores of smaller gatherings. Bangkok, Paris, Vienna, Washington, New York and Sydney, and places like Rio de Janeiro, Anchorage, Helsinki and the Maldivian island of Kurumba.

The pace is only expected to pick up now, prompting some to ask if the issue has become a plague that is creating a ``cure'' industry?

No, says Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Climate Change conference.
``Wherever you held it, people would still have to travel to get there,'' he said. ``The question is, perhaps, do you need to do it at all? My answer to that is 'yes'.''

``If you don't put the U.S., the big developing countries, the European Union around the table to craft a solution together, nothing will happen and then the prophecy of scientists in terms of rising emissions and its consequences will become a reality.''

The U.N. estimates 47,000 tons of carbon dioxide and other pollutants will be pumped into the atmosphere during the 12-day conference, mostly in flights but also from waste and electricity churned out by air conditioners at five-star hotels that line palm-fringed beaches.

If correct, Goodall said, that would be equivalent to what a Western city of 1.5 million, like Marseilles, France, would emit in a day, though he believes the real figure will be twice that, more like 100,000 tons, close to what the African country, Chad, churns out in a year.

Courtesy:thehindu.com
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