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It was februrary 12th, yes, it was.. i clearly remember the faint drizzling rain that fell on the three of us as we alked along the banks of the river. . it was shivaratri(one of the festivals to worship lord shiva) and Kripa, Apoorva and i had planned to start with our video-visions of nepal. we had thought of the most likely place that would help to depict the gravity of the situation of environment degradation in our country.thus, we started walking along the bank of the bagmati river. as we walked to reach the temple, we came across numerous piles of waste scattered around the roads, gutters, almost everywhere-not a big surprise in our country, people are simply USED TO IT! I felt bad, really bad. it was worse because i felt-more than anything- helpless. for some reason i felt worse than all the times that i had seen these huge piles of wastes all around-everywhere. maybe, it was the cloudyday, the gloomy atmosphere, the light drizzle or the dogs that were skulking around looking for food in the dirt piles that i felt something sting me in my heart so bad.it was feeling that was hard to let go of. i remember seeing a temple(a sacred place for gods)that was overflowing with waste piles. it was scary. we then reached the banks of river where i was shocked by the diconsolate situation of the slums and the dwellers. i felt heavy hearted. as the three of us looked at the slums, i remember asking apporva what the small cottage like shacks were. those shacks were almost in the river. i got to know that it was their toilets and these would often be washed away by the river. their were children were torned clothes who found happiness in playing with the plastic bags from the waste piles and women who looked decrepit and sad for not being able to feed crumbs of food to her family. i was disturbed and equally scared for my country-my world.
I am truly sorry for having to post the link of the video here, but I was unable to upload the video to comfu as the link was not supported. It is a must watch.
Sub-Saharan Africa is the least urbanized region in the world. Only 39.1% of the region’s population lives in cities.1 However, the region’s urban population is projected to more than double to 760 million by 2030.1 The rate of urbanization makes it very challenging to manage. A recent paper in the New England Journal of Medicine argued that urbanization is a “health hazard for certain vulnerable populations, and this demographic shift threatens to create a humanitarian disaster.”2
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived today in Copenhagen, Denmark, the scene of the historic United Nations climate change conference, to give fresh energy to the negotiations that are set to wrap up at the end of the week with an ambitious new agreement.
Talks were briefly suspended yesterday by African nations over the future of the Kyoto Protocol, currently the only legally binding pact on climate change.
Many industrialized countries are hoping to merge the Protocol and the outcome of the two-week Copenhagen meeting, in its second week, into a single agreement.
However, their developing counterparts, among the least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, want to extend the Protocol past 2012, when its first commitment period ends, and hammer out a separate agreement this week in the Danish capital.
“This process is not about ramming the interests of a few down the throats of many,” Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change UNFCCC), told reporters today. “This process is about many trying to address all interests.”
Complicating the negotiations in Copenhagen are the various interests, he said, including small island nations’ fears that they will be inundated by sea level rise, oil producers fearing the future of the economy and major developing nations who are concerned about economic growth and poverty eradication.
The ministerial-level portion of the conference begins today, while the high-level segment will begin later this week.
“Now is the moment to act,” Mr. Ban told a news conference at UN Headquarters in New York yesterday before departing for Copenhagen, where some 115 heads of State and government, including the leaders of the world’s top two emitters of greenhouse gases, China and the United States, will gather to hopefully ‘seal the deal’ on a new agreement.
“Seldom in history has a choice been so clear. We can move toward a future of sustainable green growth, or we can continue down the road to ruin. We can act on climate change now, or we can leave it to our children and grandchildren – a debt that can never be paid, that threatens our planet and its people,” he added.
“I call on the world’s leaders to lead. Time is running out. There is no time left for posturing or blaming. Every country must do its part to seal a deal in Copenhagen.”
Nobel Peace Prize laureate and green advocate Wangari Maathai will be inducted as a UN Messenger of Peace with a special focus on the environment and climate change at a ceremony in Copenhagen today.
“Professor Maathai’s long record of achievement in environmental conservation and sustainable development makes her an excellent choice,” the Secretary-General said yesterday.
Professor Maathai, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, founded the grassroots group known as the Green Belt Movement, which has planted more than 40 million trees on community lands across Africa and worked to improve environmental conservation and reduce poverty.
What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly. Similarly, Comfu has taught me the power of broadening my perception and looking at things from all possible dimensions. Looking back at the experience in this online blogging, I became cognizant of the fact that we can consummate so much by the sheer alacrity of “sharing knowledge.” Comfu has given us all a platform that we all really needed. All of us have learned to see things through a wider panorama, a clearer perspective and an even better understanding. Here in comfu, I learned, truly, the salience of the need to seek more knowledge, meet more people, understand each other and interact with one another to get to know about every other individual so as to make this earth a home with an affable vicinity so that we can all call it our own. The best part about Comfu is that initially, all of us here were learners and we still are. Thus we learn from each other’s mistakes, as well as our own.
The corridors were buzzing on Wednesday afternoon following an “intense” COP morning plenary. Tuvalu’s statement calling for parties in Copenhagen to sign a new legally-binding protocol under the Convention to complement an amended Kyoto Protocol, and to discuss this in a contact group, was the cause of the commotion. Many countries from AOSIS, Latin America and Africa were backing Tuvalu’s call. However, several other developing countries, such as India and China, opposed the idea, fearing it would divert attention away from negotiations on a second commitment period for Annex I parties under the Kyoto Protocol. These countries stressed the need to focus on the AWGLCA’s outcome on the Convention’s implementation, rather than adopting a new protocol.
Tuvalu’s call for a new legally-binding instrument also roused significant civil society backing. When returning to the plenary in the afternoon, delegates had to pass through a vocal crowd shouting their support for the proposal. As the demonstration was unauthorized, security guards promptly responded and kept the throng in the corridors and away from the meeting room. “We are afraid this is a sign of increasingly tight security to come,” commented one NGO participant. Other signs of the growing tension in Copenhagen included reports of non-violent clashes between civil society and a group of climate change skeptics.
“Things are definitely starting to heat up,” commented one delegate. This was evident also from the fact that ministers and other high-level delegates have started to arrive in Copenhagen, including a Chinese minister and the US Special Climate Change Envoy. A list of Heads of State intending to attend the high-level segment was in the process of being finalized.
There was also further fallout from Tuesday’s leaking of the Danish text, with some delegates wondering who on the Danish side had been taking the lead, and several delegates from the South taking exception to the process as much as the substance. “They should have engaged more with us,” said one LDC representative. “The group that was privy to this document was too exclusive and one-sided,” said another developing country delegate. Many developed countries, however, continued to play down the significance of the text, as well as the leak. Source: http://www.iisd.ca/download/pdf/enb12451e.pdf
Here's a little something that i found in the newspaper. this is something i found i the follwwing source:www.thehimalayantimes.com. i thought it would be an interesting piece of information to share to all comfu members about nepal and some "green promises" that are to be put forwarded in the copenhogen meeting by the nepal's negotiation team who will be going there.
the green promises:
1. coservation area to go up from 20 to 25 percent.
2. 40% of the nation's area will be under forest cover.
3. api nampa conservation area in darchula and gaurishankar conservation in ramechhap and dolakha districts-covering 4000 square km-declared protected zones.
4. to reduce carbin emission to 350 parts per million(ppm). at present the nation's emission stands at 390 ppm.
5. to comission extensive research on glacier meltdown in the himalayas.
6. plea to developed nations for funds to fight climate change.
7.entreaty to pay 1.5 % developed nations' GDP to nepal for a green cause.
more regional and global coperation to ensure clean energy.
What i somewhat find hard to decipher is how some people can be so indifferent towards what directly affects them. when everyone of us know the simplest steps to help in dealing with this situation of global warming , why is it that we fail to implement them? when i am inferring to simple steps, i mean the most basic ones. first and formost, starting of with telling people about the problem. secondly, saving enery every way possible;use energy star appliances, eco-friendly devices, turning off unnecessary lights, use of public tranport. these are the most simple things that we can easily comprehend and implement; starting now! we as humans are gifted with the human brain which is continually able to adapt and rewire itself according to the changing circumstances.in such a case, we can, we should, and we must have the want to seek more knowledge to the curious wonders, discoveries and the diffiult challenges that we face.
Talking in context of my country, Nepal is a country where much can be done. what i believe is ,we, as citizens of our own country should learn to get to know more about our own countries. every country is different in its own way and thus what we need is a solution that is unique(according to each country) and yet having a common ground. also, climate change is surely not something that only affects the environment. it affects every aspect of our lives from our health, education, population to our quality of life. global warming is thought of to worsen health problems related to heat-related mortality, diarrheal diseases exposure to ozones and allergens. the reason why i am stressing on the health aspect is probably because in our country we seem to be at a paucity of the health services and priviledges. the health facilitation in our country is very poor. many people still believe in traditional healing methods that are completely frivolous. what is also needed in our country is factual data based on experimentation. we all obviously know about the glacial retreats through pictures but no study has been done to find out the logistics. the same thing applies for the number of forest fires that have occcured in the past in the himalayan region. the recent forest fire in the himalayan region was a pandemonium as it swept away masses of wild life and forest regions. due to the lack of infrastructure and manpower to reach the high altitude part of the country, the fire caused major devastation.
i would like to finally say that people who are able to do something and are exposed to any form of a dais so as to deal with the situation must take some solid action. this action can be an archetype for all of us to learn, grow and become invigorated.
 just a while ago, i was surfing through the internet and i came across something very innovative and worth sharing here in comfu.
i found out about this interesting innovation known as a biogas digester. A biogas digester, also known as a methane digester, is a piece of equipment which can turn organic waste into usable fuel. In addition to providing a source of renewable fuel, biogas digesters also provide low-cost fuel to people in poverty, and they help to dispose of waste materials which would otherwise be discarded. A number of nations have invested in research on biogas digesters, ranging from devices which can be used by a single household to industrial-scale equipment which could be used to generate large amounts of power.
this is can be a very wise thing to obtain sufficient fuel at low costs.countries like nepal can reallly benefit from this as these can and are known to generate large amount of power.
Nepal is a country with great geographic biodiversity. due to this reason, even if the level of green house gases it emits is negligible, there are plethora conseqeunces that are caused due to it. our country is at a difficult position due to the changing climate change mostly because of the place we dwell in and the lifestyle we have been following. our country is first, a developing country.about 80% of the people live their livelihood through agriculture.even in agriculture most of the farmers do not use modern techniques of farming and their approaches are of a very small-scale. the occupation agriculture itself requires things that are directly affected by climate change or global warming.atleast 95% of this occupation needs water. things such as temperature, humidity, etc should remain at a steady level in order to receive regular yield. just last year, an 8 months drought in the terai region of nepal left the farmers devasted.our country has very little infrastructure and is on the path of development.so, at this crucial stage we cannot affort to lag behind.
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