There is some hope in Paris

There is a fresh breeze of optimism at the beginning of climate change conference. The world leaders’ meeting of today heard quite a number of nice words about the possibility of an agreement by the end of COP 21.

Let´s hope that will be the case. And that some kind of an accepted monitoring mechanism is put in place to keep track of the commitments made by more than 180 States, those that have already prepared a national plan on renewable energy.

The final document might not be a binding agreement. It might be just a shared pledge. But the monitoring system will help a lot in terms of naming and shaming those countries that might get off-track.

It is also important that the major world corporations be invited to commit themselves to the goals of carbon reduction and to invest on cleaner production and commercial processes. They can play a major role. Moreover, by going green they might be able to make some additional bucks. There is indeed a lot of money to be made during the next few years of new technologies, on research and development, and on marketing blue and green products and services.

Davos 2014

Davos is back this week. The World Economic Forum will discuss, during a few days, how to change to the planet. Some big names from the business will meet again lesser names from the politics. The wheels of networking will get their required dose of grease.

But the meeting itself has lost some of the shine of the past. There are now too many competing initiatives.

In the end, the great and the powerful will go back to their usual occupations. And the world might not have noticed that on the top of a Swiss mountain some beautiful people have spent a few nice days debating how to change it.

The world remains, as we can see, a very ungrateful place.