Kyoto plan a must for all nations

Experts from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change announced early Tuesday that nearly half of the world's population will have a shortage of clean water by the year 2080 because of the climate change phenomena otherwise known as global warming.

Professor Wong Poh Poh from the National University of Singapore explained how increasing severity of floods, droughts and storms will leave 2 billion people across the globe with no access to clean drinking water by 2050 and then increase up to 3 billion by 2080 if the weather patterns continue on their way.

Today, countries whose clean water supplies are severely threatened include Asia and India. Rivers around Asia are drying up due to drought, thus reducing the water supply in the area.

In another areas, flooding due to rising sea levels have left clean rivers contaminated with salt from sea water. Due to these negative effects, Wong and his fellow scientists believe that world governments should adapt to the Kyoto Protocol as a short-term solution.

The Kyoto Protocol was created and adopted in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997. The protocol is an international binding agreement that commits countries that sign the pact to meet certain industrial goals of reducing greenhouse gases and investing in clean energy.

Under this protocol countries need to meet standards regulating the amount of carbon that the nation is allowed to emit.

The protocol allows nations to operate under three clean energy industry plans: emissions trading, clean development mechanism (CDM) and joint implementation (JI). These are three mechanisms that are designed to help stimulate the country's economies and increase clean energy investments in a cost-effective way.

If adopted, it is believed that this protocol would help lower the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which would result with cleaner air and water.

In 1997 when the Kyoto Protocol was developed and first discussed at the United Nations, 183 nations signed the pact. But countries such as the United States, China and India declined in taking part on account that the Protocol had more potential to harm the American economy or hinder China and India's booming developments and was deemed too risky of a plan.

This upcoming January, a council is reconvening in Copenhagen, Denmark to discuss industry investments in clean energy.

So, with the whole world deciding that they would like to invest in green energy, what better time for America to join the bandwagon as well?

As long as our economy is almost as low as it can fall, why not encourage car companies such as GM that are asking for billions of dollars, to take those billions of dollars and invest in clean energy for our automobiles.

Then, once converted and at an affordable price, why not sell those autos all around the world thus creating jobs, wealth and stimulating the American economy.

After all, even if we did start to invest in clean energy and help inspire the Green Revolution, what harm is possible to come from that?

Even if our economy is not jump-started into wealth, the Green Revolution would clean our air and water, possibly stabilize our weather patterns, and maybe even help reduce the melting of Greenland's glaciers and save the habitat for the polar bears.