Copenhagen climate deal - Is it really needed?

The most important meeting on climate change is only couple of weeks away, and there are still many doubts in the air whether this new climate deal will be more successful than its predecessor, the infamous Kyoto protocol, in fighting climate change on global level. As many of you already know the Kyoto protocol expires in 2012, and the new climate deal should battle global greenhouse gas emissions after Kyoto protocol expires. How important is this new Copenhamgen climate deal?

Many countries still do not see the importance of this new climate deal, and all what they see about this new climate deal is something that will hurt their economies and industries, and it will not do any good to planet since there is no such thing as global warming. The doubts about climate change due to global warming are rising because global temperatures have not yet returned to the peak of 1998, Arctic summer ice has grown substantially in the past two years, and there are even some scientists revising their estimates of polar bear numbers. Could we conclude based on this that there's no need for climate deal since there is no climate change and global warming?

Sadly, the answer is no. The fact that people seem to be forgetting all the time about climate change is that climate change is long-term phenomenon, and there were very strong scientific evidences of a long-term warming trend, so the world definitely needs to do something to prevent further warming in years to come. The best answer to this would be new climate deal that would oblige countries to make significant CO2 emissions cuts. But why is this so hard to do?

First of all the recession had devastating blow on many industries, and many countries are very reluctant to do anything that would cause further problems to their industries. Significant drop in emissions should mean less fossil fuels use, and since most industries in the world are fossil fuels powered many economists believe how drastic CO2 cuts would hurt industry too much, and even more people would lose their jobs.

The other factor is public attention. Public simply do not think about long-term consequences of climate change, and is almost impossible to convince people upon something that is yet to happen, and show us its worst face. You can imagine what is going to happen if for instance prediction of some scientists some scientists predict a decade of cooling before the warming trend reappear. You will hear theories of global cooling, stories how this is Al Gore's conspiracy, and God knows what other explanations.

Copenhagen climate deal is really needed, despite some may say. If countries agree to make significant emissions cuts than this could on the short-run cause some damage to industry, but we should also think about the climate change, and the potential of damage that climate change can cause in years to come. On the long run industry will recover, and what is even better this would mean that countries would be forced to use more renewables to satisfy their energy and industrial demand, resulting in much greener planet than it is today.