Sunday, January 10, 2016

Afforestation
Planting of new forests on lands that historically have not contained forests.

That is fairly straight forward. The focus is historical. The Climate Summit fully expects historical forests will be returned to Earth's mitigation of greenhouse gases. I am sure there are some places where cities now stand, farmers now till and ranchers now run their herds that cannot easily be turned around. But, in all honesty the true Earth had historical forests far different than any managed forest today.

The historical forests resembled the forests of the Amazon, the aged forests of the Northwest USA or the California Redwoods and the Great Sequoias. Earth managed it's greenhouse gas emissions by having land masses covered with these ancient forests. That is a lot of carbon for each majestic tree that stood. That is why the climate summit will be looking to mitigate that loss of carbon sinks with land not historically a forest.

Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) (click here)
An ad hoc coalition of low-lying and island countries. These nations are particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels and share common positions on climate change. The 43 members and observers are American Samoa, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Cape Verde, Comoros, Cook Islands, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Grenada, Guam, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Kiribati, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Nauru, Netherlands Antilles, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Singapore, Solomon Islands, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, US Virgin Islands, and Vanuatu.

Their website is interesting. These people look for support by the number of people marching at the climate summits. For small nations they are hopeful there is a global consensus of movement to help them. They are losing everything. The least the global community can do is show their support in numbers of marchers, attendees and the commitments made. These small nations are counting on the global community.

Amendment
A modification by the COP to the text of the Convention. If consensus cannot be reached, an amendment must win three-quarters of the votes of all Parties present and casting ballots.

That is good parliamentary procedure. Three-quarters is a very strict standard.

Annex I Parties
The industrialized countries listed in Annex I to the Convention, which committed to returning their greenhouse-gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000 as per Article 4.2 (a) and (b). They have also accepted emissions targets for the period 2008-12 as per Article 3 and Annex B of the Kyoto Protocol. They include the 24 original OECD members, the European Union, and 14 countries with economies in transition. (Croatia, Liechtenstein, Monaco, and Slovenia joined Annex 1 at COP-3, and the Czech Republic and Slovakia replaced Czechoslovakia.)

Self defined. These parties are the ones that have worked hard since the beginning to stem the danger of Earth's warming. They should have special status. They have been dedicated and striving the entire time. Their voices are extremely important. They have been doing the work since the beginning and are excellent historians.

Annex II Parties
The countries listed in Annex II to the Convention which have a special obligation to provide financial resources and facilitate technology transfer to developing countries. Annex II Parties include the 24 original OECD members plus the European Union.

Again, self explanatory. If you have read through this edition of the blog kindly realize how far you have come in understanding all that is at work with this Climate Summit. There is a lot to it, isn't there? But, with persistence it can be understood and embraced. We will all make it to the destination. You'll see.

Anthropogenic greenhouse emissions
Greenhouse-gas emissions resulting from human activities.

This is the great evil, is it not? People can modify their lifestyles and dangerous behavior. People know there are heavy air emissions in China's cities and ask for relief from it. People know that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer. Is saving our lives by modifying carbon emissions so difficult? The only difficult part is 'the money.' Those hooked on greed are also very powerful. We need to do better and realize all that is gold is not good. Nor is it of God. Pope Francis would agree.