Azernews.Az

By Nigar Orujova

While being deeply involved in economy and security challenges, the world should not forget about the nature that is still suffering from human interference all over the globe.

Paris is hosting COP21 climate change summit that gathered more than 190 nations to find a new global agreement on climate change, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that can cause dangerous warming on the planet.

Conference of Parties is an annual forum that discusses the climate change on a global political level. This year, the leaders of 150 nations and 40,000 delegates from 195 countries are attending the conference on November 20-December 11.

Opening that climate talks, world leaders noted that the stakes are too high to end the conference without achieving a binding agreement to help slow the pace of global climate change, CNN reported.

“A political moment like this may not come again,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addressed the leaders. “We have never faced such a test. But neither have we encountered such great opportunity.”

The summit aims to limit warming to 2C above pre-industrial level, which is believed to be dangerous for the population of the Earth. And the planet have already made a step to this danger point. The average temperature around the world has risen by almost 1C since 1880, 0.6C of which was noticed in the past three decades.

Heads of the U.S., China – the largest producers of greenhouse gases, as well as Russia, Germany, and India addressed the event.

Barack Obama told the conference that the United States recognizes its role in creating climate change and its role in solving the issue, but noted that the agreement should be global in nature, assertive and flexible.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said that the conference “is not a finish line, but a new starting point” and that any agreement must take into account the differences among nations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called climate change one of the greatest threats the humanity is facing. He said Russia not only prevented the increase of greenhouse emissions, but reduced them, promising a 70 percent reduction in emissions from 1990 levels by 2030.

While the world leaders are positive to find the solution, the previous global climate change negotiations show that a breakthrough is doubtful especially taking into account challenges in the global economy.

What can Azerbaijan do?

Azerbaijan has already experienced the global warming caused by the greenhouse gases emission around the world.

On its part, the country is keen on providing legal reforms for air pollution reduction, such as the law on enterprises.

Being the oil producing country that today switches to the nonoil sector, Azerbaijan is believed to produce 0.1 percent of the worldwide greenhouse gas emission.

Still, the State Oil Company is processing 21 out of 24 grades of Azerbaijan crude and 15 different petroleum products, including automotive gasoline, aviation kerosene, diesel fuel, black oil, petroleum coke, and others.

SOCAR also implements a program for controlling the exhaust of used automobiles. Another measure is introduction of the Euro 4 ecological standard and ban of import of old cars in the country.

Scientists believe climate change in Azerbaijan may lead to fewer crops in the next 20-30 years. Special attention must be paid to planting and developing drought- resistant crops in the country.

The country is now preparing a plan with appropriate adaptation measures, the implementation of which will mild the consequences in the future.

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Nigar Orujova is AzerNews’s staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @o_nigar

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