The 100-day meltdown show
On Friday morning, the Temple of Earth Park in Beijing that was once a site for imperial sacrifices for good weather, will host climate change campaigners and 100 melting ice sculptures made from Himalayan glacier water that feeds rivers including the Ganga, writes Reshma Patil.
On Friday morning, the Temple of Earth Park in Beijing that was once a site for imperial sacrifices for good weather, will host climate change campaigners and 100 melting ice sculptures made from Himalayan glacier water that feeds rivers including the Ganga.
The invitation urges the media to watch the ‘beautiful yet tragic’ meltdown (also live online) and interview Greenpeace activists about what India and China ‘must do’ in Copenhagen when world leaders meet to decide a successor to the Kyoto Protocol to combat climate change.
Exactly 100 days to the United Nations’ climate change summit in Copenhagen, the pressure is building up on India and China to agree to limit their man-made polluting emissions that contribute to global warming. Greenpeace says that the ice sculptures symbolise the threat from global warming to the Yangtze and Yellow river in China and the Ganges in India.
Whatever foreign diplomats and campaigners demand India and China ‘must do,’ the two nations seem to have already firmed up their plans. Both are coming closer to jointly demand what the developed nations must do as well.
This week, under an ash-grey Beijing sky and a skyline wrapped in thick smog, negotiators from India and China agreed to coordinate climate change policy.
On Thursday, China’s legislature made a point of showing it’s serious to combat climate change by approving a detailed climate change resolution that calls for energy saving targets, green technology and investment, and echoes India’s stance on limiting emissions
China’s climate change negotiator Xie Zhenhua told the legislature there remain ‘two major factions’ between developed and developing nations on climate change.