In the past week hundreds of countries and their leaders gathered in Copenhagen to talk about environmental issues. World leaders including President Obama, spoke about set goals for the countries in order to reduce pollution emitted into our atmosphere. However several smaller, and poorer countries boycotted the conference several were countries from Africa and India and China. The countries wanted to extend the Kyoto protocol which would highly tax richer nations for their pollution, but it would not charge developing nations. The boycott disrupted several hours of the conference and left the other hundred nations to wait for it to end.

China which is now the worlds largest greenhouse polluter did not want to take direct action on the protocol. The leaders of this nation would fear this would slow economic growth. Several delegates from Africa would try to block out certain protocols from passing, when the African delegates spoke applause would break out from India and China. It is obvious from this story that the developing countries do not wish environmental acts to pass because this would disrupt economic progress or tax countries that cannot afford to pay. The White house has stated that in the next four years it plans on joining in spending $350 million to give to developing nations clean energy. It will create more solar power alternatives for homes, supply cleaner appliances and more renewable energy to be made available. $85 million of that share will be given by the United States the other countries paying are Australia, Britain, Norway, Netherlands, and Switzerland. The conferance hopes that these developing countries will use the money wisely and make sure that a greener more renewable plan is made for the contries. These developing nations are one the most polluting countries that attended the conferance out of 192 nations.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091214/ap_on_sc/climate

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