On Saturday Oct, 3, Columbia hosted a panel talk with three specialists on the upcoming Copenhagen Conference where the UN will attempt to formulate an agreement and plan for how to deal with the world's ever increasing global warming problem.

The talk was essentially two talks, given by Mr. Schelling and  Mr. Pachauri. Mr. Schelling is the recipient of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Environmental Sciences. He speech mostly outlined how he sees the problem with arriving at a conclusion among many nations, especially the US and China (as well as a number of other countries like Brazil and India which are now increasing emissions rates and energy consumption).

The problem, he states, stems from the fact that global warming hurts countries unequally. Richer countries are affected less because they do not have large agricultural sectors which are vulnerable to things like floods or droughts, in addition to not being able to better aid against other problems stemming from or connected to global warming, like energy crisis (and the consequential need to turn to alternative sources of energy) and diseases like parasitic diseases spread in warm areas. He argued that the best way developing nations can help themselves, is not to agree to an emissions cut down regulation, but rather to become rich themselves and be able to use their economic advantage to protect their citizens from the adverse side effects of global warming.

He also mentioned that the US doesn't want to take part in any international agreement to cut down on emissions if China will not also participate because the US sees such effort as futile, especially as China has recently surpassed the US in emissions. This, Mr. Schelling, says could be a big hindrance to the success of the Copenhagen Treaty Convention. His final point was a relatively simple one-- a solution to the dilemma he started out talking about. He suggested that richer countries provide developing countries with an incentive to cut back on emissions by giving them aid money. He pointed to the success of the Marshall Plan after World War II and how it not only helped reconstruct countries, but also forced countries receiving aid to figure out how they would distribute it in an unanimously agreed fashion. This he argued was very important for agreement among all parties and was something that needed to happen with the global warming problem as well.

Mr. Pachauri agreed that the task at hand was to split up how to deal with the climate change problem, but noted before such a splitting of task could occur, the world needs to first acknowledge and agree that the Earth's climate needs to be stabilized within a certain limit. He went on to discuss different proposed resolutions about how much emissions should be curbed and what kinds of actions should be taken. He applauded Japan's government for making a commitment to reduce emissions by 30% by 2020 despite overwhelming industry pressure. He also applauded California's progressive regulations which he said would make it easier for the federal government to pass regulations for the whole country. His views on Copenhagen were more realistic, saying that if it can define a framework for these changes that need to take place, then there will be initiative regardless of the exact percentage of emissions cut. He sees Copenhagen as the beginning of the solution, not the solution.