As we approach week two of the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen and anxiously await the arrival of the world’s heavy hitters, Lexington 24:25 asked the Zicklin community, “How do you define success in Copenhagen?” The following are the responses we received.
Don Vredenburgh
Donald Vredenburgh, Professor of Management
While the conference participants will likely successfully enjoy the interesting city of Copenhagen, they and the rest of us should focus on the conference’s outcomes.
This conference represents an event in a process of social change, and in the geopolitical realm change carries considerable complexity. Developed and lesser developed countries must address an uncertain, long run health condition whose treatment includes economic, technological, and moral implications.
With the effects of Kyoto having proven disappointing, the objectives for Copenhagen should focus on acquiring some measure of consensus about the nature of the problems and the alternative opportunities for confronting them. The conference’s audience sits all over the world, and this audience needs evidence based education about the issues. Influential leaders demonstrating readiness for change based on acceptance of well formulated problems as well as plans for establishing an international research and policy structure would constitute realistic, meaningful outcomes. It’s too early in the process to expect concrete actions in cooperative pursuit of costly, specific objectives, but articulating a vision for change would be contributory.
Kevin Ng, MBA Student
If leaders of all the major industrialized nations can personally attend the conference and fully commit to developing a universal environmental policy, incorporating a specific action plan that encompasses responsibility and accountability, the summit will leave a lasting impression for a global movement toward sustainability. Furthermore, BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, & China) other and developing nation leaders should be invited to participate because of their significant influence in the global economy. If at all possible, decisions should be made to support developing nations’ efforts in the form of subsidies and in-kind assistance. The policy should set discrete and measurable goals to strive toward by a specific date, which would also act as a catalyst for legislation in each country.
Myung-Soo Lee, Associate Dean and Professor of Marketing
“To consider the Copenhagen Conference a success,” I think that a concrete agreement should be reached among the nations to fairly share the burden of making climate change under control. Given political pressure to create more jobs (including green jobs, of course) in their home countries, many developed countries are reluctant to agree with any immediate measures to curb carbon emissions by a huge magnitude. President Obama will commit significant contribution in our standard (17% down in greenhouse gas emission) but that may not be enough from the perspectives of other countries since the United States emit the largest amount of greenhouse gas. Based on the principles agreed upon at the conclusion of the Copenhagen Conference, the UN member countries should be able to sign a legally binding treaty as an ultimate outcome. If that happens, the Conference in 2009 may be recorded as a historic moment when the global warming trend has reversed.
Varun Kumar Vummidi, Full-time Honors MBA Class of 2010
In the last week India, a nation under pressure to reduce greenhouse emissions, had issued a statement saying that it will take steps to reduce emission levels over the next decade but, like China, was against developed nations imposing a strict guideline on its emissions. This is seen as a set back to the outcome of the summit but there is some truth to India’s & China’s stance to the growing concern of climate change.
In the backdrop of such a stance from India & China, I hope that developed countries, who already possess technology that can help factories emit lower levels of pollutants, must pledge to facilitate the flow of such technology to developing nations quickly. This would rapidly reduce the learning curve for factories among these nations and help reduce the growth in greenhouse gas emissions and cause them to fall from around 2015 to 2020. The COP15 will most keenly be watched by politicians, businesses and world citizens as it also takes place in the light of the controversy surrounding the revelations of “climategate.”
John Elliott, Dean Zicklin School of Business and Professor of Accountancy
When I think about Copenhagen, success takes many forms. The USA has already succeeded because we changed our approach and are treating climate change as a real problem for which the science is compelling and concerted effort is required. I hope we commit the US fully to reducing greenhouse gases consistent with existing and expanding efforts by other developed nations. Equally important is an agreement by developing nations to slow their emmission growth rates. A great outcome of this conference would be to validate and add momentum to President Obama’s agenda for green technology as a spoke in our wheel of economic growth.
Barry Rosen
Barry Rosen, Professor of Marketing
Of all the major developed western economies, the U.S., through both the Clinton and the Bush years was the lone holdout in making any serious moves towards CO 2 reduction. Although we led the way on ozone layer protection, we have done very little in terms of CO2 and methane which are the leading climate change factors right now along with tropical deforestation.
As unfortunate as it was, the recession and high gas prices last year did some of the job but I believe that if gas prices went down we would see a return to the old situation. Thus I think that the US has to commit to a binding carbon reduction plan, preferably based on carbon taxes, at Copenhagen in return for the developing countries agreeing to work more aggressively on deforestation questions. The Europeans will fall in behind on this.
The Chinese have already committed to green development and green exports although they have a huge amount of work to do. The Indians will follow them so as not to be marginalized in future international trade patters. Unfortunately, I don’t think that any of this can happen right now beyond broad generalized statements as Obama is now engaged in the health care fight. However, next year, if Obama is successful in getting health care through and reducing unemployment, he may have the political capital to do something forceful about climate change. We’ll see.
Ryan O’Connor, Full-time Honors MBA Class of 2010
The law needs to change in favor of innovation over the status quo. The COP15 is not just an opportunity to implement social responsibility on a global scale, it’s a window for the United States to lead the development of policies that will position our country to take advantage of lucrative business ventures in rapidly developing alternative technologies. We are, and must remain, a beacon for the entrepreneurial spirit. Entrepreneurship is the main cylinder driving our economic engine; it is the cornerstone of our capitalistic ideals and through the vicissitudes of our economy, it is what will guarantee our prosperity.
