COLOMBIA PASSPORT

The President of the UN Climate Change Conference and Minister of International Relations, South African Nkoana-Mashabane, said that the summit has taken crucial steps forward for the common good and the global citizenry. He believed that the decisions of Durban will play a central role in saving tomorrow.

In Durban, governments decided to adopt a universal legal agreement on climate change as soon as possible, but not later than 2015. Work will begin on this immediately under a new group called the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action. Governments, including 35 industrialized countries, agreed a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol from January 1, 2013. To achieve rapid clarity, Parties to this second period will turn their economy-wide targets into quantified emission limitation or reduction objectives and submit them for review by May 1, 2012.

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change said that this is highly significant because the Kyoto Protocol as accounting rules, mechanisms and markets all remain in action as effective tools to leverage global climate action and as models to inform future agreements.

The deal will not oblige any nation to take limits on their carbon emissions, however, most industrialized countries have volunteered to do so. According to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, only industrialized countries are legally obliged to emissions targets until 2012, but it was extended in Durban for five years more. This new agreement is seem by experts as a more shared responsibility for the control of carbon emissions and the support to poorest and most climate-vulnerable nations - like Colombia - to cope with the global problem.

The U.S. climate envoy to the summit, Todd Stern, said that this is a very significant package, though none likes everything in it. He declared also that there is plenty the United States is not thrilled about and that the agreement will meet much opposition in the U.S. Congress, according to CBSNews.

United States is the first country with more CO2 emission to the atmosphere of the planet with 5,762,050, followed by China with 3,473,600, Russia with 1,540,360, Japan with 1,224,740 and India with 1,007,980. Colombia is in the 41st position with 63,998.4

Colombia is in the 41st position of CO2 emissions with 63,998.4, but it is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, according to the UN report 'Climate Change: Impacts, Vulnerabilities and Adaptation in Developing Countries' that includes Colombia as vulnerable to extreme weather events such as rain, windstorms, hurricanes, surges and sea level rise. It is also included in the group of countries likely to have adverse impacts on buildings and tourism. The last two years, for example, the Andean nation has endured heavy weathers, destroying roads, causing floods, landslides and thousands of victims, displaced population and agriculture lost.