UNH experts weigh in on climate change conference

When the representatives of 192 countries gather in Copenhagen in the next two weeks for the United Nation's Climate Change Conference, they will be debating a global response to a great deal of scientific data, including some compiled by Mark Fahnestock, a glaciologist and research associate professor within UNH's Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (EOS).

Fahnestock is the co-author of the chapter on Greenland in the "Snow, Water, Ice, and Permafrost in the Arctic" (SWIPA) report. This report will be released at the conference on Dec. 14, along with a 20-minute corresponding video, which Fahnestock appears in.

"The report captures a bunch of different information of what is changing in Greenland [due to climate change] and tries to make it coherent," Fahnestock said.

The United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference, officially known as COP15 in reference to it being the 15^th gathering of the UN's Conference of Parties, began yesterday in Copenhagen, Denmark, and continues until Dec. 18. The goal of the conference is to develop a global framework for climate change mitigation.

According to Robert Mohr, associate professor of economics at UNH, the debate over whether global warming is real or not is effectively over.

"The remaining real question is what to do about it, and that's an economics question," said Mohr, who will be teaching an upper-level economics course on the economics of climate change in the spring that will include a trip to Copenhagen over spring break.

While there is debate over whether a framework for climate change mitigation will actually emerge from the conference, Fahnestock said he is "cautiously optimistic." However, he sees the conference itself as a positive sign.

"I think it's clear that every country is engaged, and that's different from the past," Fahnestock said.

However, Scott Ollinger, associate professor of natural resources and earth system science, said the problem is simply too big to be solved at Copenhagen.

"It's become clear in the weeks leading up to the meeting that an agreement that's ambitious enough to solve the climate change problem won't be reached in Copenhagen," Ollinger said. "At this point in history, the two most important nations are China and the United States, and both are still far from the kind of commitment that's needed."

Mohr said that the conference may not live up to everyone's high expectations for it, but will hopefully be a step in the right direction.