Copenhagen 2009 Climate Conference in Copenhagen 6. - 18. December 2009

In 2012 the Kyoto Protocol to prevent climate changes and global warming runs out. To keep the process on the line there is an urgent need for a new climate protocol. At the conference in Copenhagen 2009 the parties of the UNFCCC meet for the last time on government level before the climate agreement need to be renewed.

Climate friendly city car in front of the Bella Center

Therefore the Climate Conference in Copenhagen is essential for the worlds climate and the Danish government and UNFCCC is putting hard effort in making the meeting in Copenhagen a success ending up with a Copenhagen Protocol to prevent global warming and climate changes.

The Climate Conference will take place in the Bella Center. The conference centre is placed not far from Copenhagen and near the Copenhagen Airport, Kastrup.

Governmental representatives from 170 countries are expected to be in Copenhagen in the days of the conference accompanied by other governmental representatives, NGO's, journalists and others. In total 8000 people are expected to Copenhagen in the days of the climate meeting.

Minister for Climate and Energy, Connie Hedegaard. Photo: Jakob Dall

The host of the meeting in Copenhagen is the government of Denmark represented by Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister of Climate and Energy and Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen. The official sekretariat is placed in connection to The Prime Ministers Office in Copenhagen. Originally the hosting of the climate conference was initiated by the former Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Former Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen

Photo: Hung Tien Vu

The Danish Government has decided that not only the subject of the conference should be focused on the climate but also the conference itself. Among other initiatives the organizers work on mounting af windmill near the Bella Center to produce climate friendly electricity for the conference.

The conference in Copenhagen is the 15th conference of parties (COP15) in the Framework Convention on Climate Change. The recent meeting in United Nations Climate Change Conferences was held in December 2007 in Bali.

Danish Prime Minister

Lars Løkke Rasmussen

The secretary for the climate conferences is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change UNFCCC - based in the German city Bonn.

An important part of the scientific background for the political decisions taken on the conferences is made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC, based in Geneva, Switzerland. The IPCC is Established to provide the decision-makers and others interested in climate change with an objective source of information about climate change. IPCC is a scientific intergovernmental body set up by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). In 2007 the IPCC received the Nobel Peace Price).

The Climate Conference in Copenhagen is organized in cooperation between the Ministry of Climate and Energy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Ministry of Finance and the Prime Minister's Office.

The adress of the secretariat for the Climate Conference is:

COP15

The Climate Secretariat

The Prime Minister's Office

Christiansborg

Prins Jørgens Gård 11

1218 København K

Denmark

Tel (+45) 33 92 33 00, Fax (+45) 33 11 16 65

The Official secretariat of the 15th Climate Conference in Copenhagen.

Copenhagen Climate Network

Ehlersvej 11

2900 Hellerup

Denmark

Tel (+45) 39 48 18 10, Fax (+45) 39 48 18 01

A Danish network that will underpin the Copenhagen Climate Summit, thus making the 2009 UN climate summit a success for the benefit of sustainable climate policy. The network will use the period before, under and after the Copenhagen Climate Summit to establish networks among businesses, individuals and organisations supporting a climate policy focusing on the environment.

Copenhagen Climate Council

c/ Mandag Morgen

Valkendorsgade 13

Box 1127

1009 Copenhagen K

Tel (+45) 33 93 93 23, Fax (+45) 33 14 13 94

An initiative founded in May 2007 by a group of business leaders and scientists with the aim of helping make the case for a new global climate treaty that will come into force when the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol comes to an end in 2012.

Value of a Tree

Trees have long been valued as an asset and humans have benefited from their co-existence with trees for as long as they have been on this planet. For thousands of years timber has been second to none as a building material and has provided shelter to people from ancient times right up to the present day. Needless to say, the edible fruit of countless trees has been of immense value in providing nutrients and sustenance to people since the dawn of time. But these are just the obvious benefits provided by our leafy wooded partners on this fragile planet of ours.

Ecologists are telling us with increasing urgency that we need to preserve what is left of our forests for the sake of our planet. In fact many people consider that global warming is the greatest threat to our planet in history. Mankind is responsible for the emission of vast quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which has resulted in the so called greenhouse effect, but people need to realise that one of the best ways of storing carbon and preventing it from going up into the atmosphere is to maintain our forests.

Tree expert, Dr. Greg Moore, from the University of Melbourne, in Australia, explains that a large tree may weigh about a hundred tonnes, half of which is above ground and half of which is below ground. About 80% of the tree is water, and the remaining 20% is made up of various chemicals, including 10 tonnes of carbon. If this tree dies, then that carbon in released into the atmosphere, where it combines with oxygen and forms carbon dioxide. A tree can store carbon for four or five hundred years.

There are other, perhaps not so well known benefits of trees, both in an urban and rural landscape. In times of flood, vegetation growing on a river will slow the rate at which the water flows, meaning that less damage will occur downstream. If the trees are lost to the riverbank then the flow of water increases and more destruction will occur downstream.

Trees also perform valuable functions in an urban environment. Dr. Moore explains that mature trees reduce wind speed which results in a reduction in the amount of stress on buildings. They also help to control pollution by acting as filters, but perhaps the most surprising finding is that trees can actually help to prolong the life of roads and other asphalt surfaces in urban areas. It is recognized that root systems of large trees can damage asphalt and concrete, but it is not so well known that the shade from large trees actually prolongs by three or four times the life of materials such as asphalt. This shade also helps to prolong the life of paintwork on our homes.

Dr. Moore believes that it is essential to ascribe a monetary value to trees. He explains that people believe that we can simply replace them if they die, but maintenance is much better value because we have invested huge amounts of money in the trees over hundreds of years.

It seems that no matter from what perspective you are looking, trees are an increasingly valuable asset not only to us as individuals, but to the human race.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Adrian_Broadby

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalaam's Speech in Hyderabad

Please read this article by giving 10 minutes from your busy life. Really good.

* This is then President of India DR. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam 's Speech in Hyderabad .. *

Why is the media here so negative?

Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements? We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse acknowledge them--- Why?

We are the first in milk production.

We are number one in Remote sensing satellites.

We are the second largest producer of wheat.

We are the second largest producer of rice.

Look at Dr. Sudarshan , he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self-driving unit.

There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters.

I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert into an orchid and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news.

In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime.

Why are we so NEGATIVE?

Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things? We want foreign TVs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology.

Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance? I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture,when a 14 year old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is. She replied: I want to live in a developed India . For her, you and I will have to build this developed India . You must proclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it is a highly developed nation.

Do you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with a vengeance.

Got 10 minutes for your country? If yes, then read; otherwise, choice is yours.

YOU say that our government is inefficient.

YOU say that our laws are too old.

YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.

YOU say that the phones don't work, the railways are a joke,

The airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their destination.

YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits.

YOU say, say and say. What do YOU do about it?

Take a person on his way to Singapore . Give him a name - YOURS. Give him a face - YOURS. YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your International best. In Singapore you don't throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores.... YOU are as proud of their Underground links as they are. You pay $5 (approx. Rs. 250) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road ) between 5 PM and 8 PM. YOU come back to the parking lot to punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your status identity... In Singapore you don't say anything, DO YOU?

YOU wouldn't dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai .

YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah .

YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds ( Rs.650) a month to, 'see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else.'

YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop,'Jaanta hai main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so's son. Take your two bucks and get lost.'

YOU wouldn't chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand .

Why don't YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo ? Why don't YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston ??? We are still talking of the same YOU.

YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own. You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the same here in India ?

Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal commissioner of Bombay , Mr. Tinaikar , had a point to make. 'Rich people's dogs are walked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place,' he said. 'And then the same people turn around to criticize and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the officers to do? Go down with a broom every time their dog feels the pressure in his bowels? In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job. Same in Japan . Will the Indian citizen do that here?' He's right. We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility.

We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin.

We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms.

We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity. This applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service to the public. When it comes to burning social issues like those related towomen, dowry, girl child! and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse?

'It's the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my sons' rights to a dowry.' So who's going to change the system? What does a system consist of ? Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbours, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely not me and YOU.

When it comes to us actually making a posit ive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr.Clean to come along work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand or we leave the country and run away. Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England .. When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government. Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money.

Dear Indians, The article is highly thought inductive, calls for a greatdeal of introspection and pricks one's conscience too.... I am echoing J. F. Kennedy 's words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians.....

'ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA

AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKE INDIA

WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE TODAY'

Lets do what India needs from us.

Forward this mail to each Indian for a change instead of sending Jokes or junk mails.

Thank you,

Dr. Abdul Kalaam