Can the world be saved from climate change?
  

According to data gathered by the UN, the number of major natural disasters – cyclones, droughts, floods, avalanches, forest fires, tidal waves and earthquakes – has increased fourfold during the last 30 years. At this pace, some 2 million more people are likely to be displaced each year on account of natural catastrophes. One heat wave alone killed 20,000 people in Europe. The increase in size, duration and power of tropical storms and hurricanes is being linked to global warming. Climate change is owing to human emissions of greenhouse gases, and thus is causing more frequent floods, droughts, and melting ice caps.

Increasing depletion of fossil fuel energy (4.3% increase in 2004) has swelled carbon emissions in the atmosphere. The original target of reducing emissions by 5.00%, under the Kyoto Protocol, looks unrealistic. We will explore how sustainable land-use practices, to sequester carbon (carbon trading), can work to shift the destruction paradigm between forest communities, their environment and the need for food security and income. Carbon trading puts a tangible price tag on environmental pollution.

Environmental degradation and natural resource depletion continues unabated threatening our natural systems and resources for our existence and development. Desertification, lack of biodiversity, forest loss, reduced stock of marine fisheries and the depletion of the ozone layer continue to pose risks for the global environment.

Travel is the cause of nine-tenths of carbon-monoxide emissions, three-quarters of nitrogen oxide emissions of known origin, and one-third of the particles emitted into the atmosphere. Car exhaust emissions account for one-half of urban pollution and over one-quarter of green house effect emissions. The World Bank assesses at 1.56 million deaths per year the cost to Asia of atmospheric pollution.

More than 1.5 billion people does not have direct access to drinking water and more than half of humanity does not have access to satisfactory water purification plants. Although two-thirds of our planet is water, less than one-half of one percent is available freshwater. The health and economic development of a nation will be significantly endangered with the looming scarcity of clean water in certain regions of the world. It is estimated that by 2050, over 800 million people will be severely affected which may turn into conflicts in a similar way as we see the fight for valuable resources, such as oil and diamonds. The problem is not so much water shortage on a world scale as the inequality of its distribution.

The speakers will highlight the challenges of global warming and climate change, and suggest reforms to improve the environment globally.