UN ambassador gives climate change lecture at UCLA

As representatives prepare to descend on next month’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, the Danish ambassador to the United States came to UCLA to give a lecture on the topic Thursday.

To help make sense of the prospects and state of negotiations of the conference, Friis Arne Petersen spoke to approximately 50 students pursuing a master of business administration, as well as people from various green”“energy fields at the UCLA Anderson School of Business.

Petersen came from Washington, D.C., to visit various places in Los Angeles to give an introduction on the themes of the conference and the Danish perspective on climate change, said Robert Spich, the faculty program director of the Center for International Business Education and Research at UCLA Anderson.

During the lecture, Petersen discussed key issues for the future, including reduction commitments from developed countries and the encouragement of developed countries to take action.

However, he said the United States still needs to be convinced to take action to reduce emissions. He said many Europeans look at Americans with surprise, wondering why a country with so much entrepreneurship and influence would not want to compete and become less energy-dependent.

Developing nations need $150 billion of financing a year from developed nations for new technologies to become energy-efficient, but it will not be easy for this to happen, he added.

“I don’t envy politicians going back to a nation with high unemployment rates and (burdening down) its citizens with the burden of (providing green energy) to African nations,” Petersen said. “But we need to, we’ve gotten so far.”

The topic of global warming was especially relevant for some students, like Li-Wei Chen, an MBA student at Anderson.

Chen said he is concerned about climate change, especially since his native Taiwan suffers from a strengthening typhoon season and rising temperatures in the summer.

He added that he came to the conference to learn more about the future trends of climate change and about a field in which he plans to become involved.

Petersen said that the big question is how much developed nations are willing to cut emissions.

Although the International Climate Conference wants countries to reduce emissions by 25 percent, he said that is unlikely to happen.

Petersen said several states, like California, have already taken action toward tackling climate change, creating “ambitious portfolio standards.”

He added that American companies have consistently tried to brand themselves as environmentally friendly and energy-savvy.

Since Greenland is rapidly losing ice, the effects of climate change are very real for his country, he said.

The ambassador said that the Danish government envisions an international agreement with all major economic and political players to reduce climate change.

Its goal is to limit temperature increase by two degrees, establish a global carbon market and create a strong system for measurement, which reports and verifies emission levels.

He said that even with business-as-usual projections, the United States and Europe will probably not increase their emissions by much, since developing nations produce the most emissions.

He added that he was very confident that a climate change deal will be reached, but also very worried that the U.S. would not have the political will to participate in it, given its recent history with the topic.

Thus, it may take too long to revisit the issue, and every time it fails, it will get harder to try again, Petersen said.

However, he ended the lecture on a more optimistic tone.

“I will not be surprised if we have this climate deal and (have) everyone else abiding by it,” he said.

“In the next many years, we’ll benefit a lot from it, and you’ll wonder why it took so long for us to do that. … We may even fear (the benefits) and think that it was great, maybe even too great,” he said.

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