From Zhang Yashu, Shanghai Fudan University Middle School
I am Zhang Yashu from Fudan University Middle School.
The Kyoto Protocol might seem distant from the lives of middle-school students. But as a member of Roots & Shoots, at a good school, I can see from events and classes that my peers are becoming ever more concerned about the Kyoto Protocol and the issue of climate change. I once read Mark Lynas’s “High Tide: News from a Warming World”, and saw the process by which the Kyoto Protocol was signed. His sad and indignant tone recorded the rejections of the US and some other developed nations, and those ridiculous statements can only cause anyone with a sense of crisis for the world to laugh and feel shame.
Undoubtedly, all nations will work both in public and behind the scenes for their own interests. Combating climate change will inevitably result in changes in our lifestyles, and that means nations will pay an economic price – and we know that is worth doing, for the long term. As a middle-school student, I sincerely hope that while fighting for their own right to grow, each nation will accept their responsibilities. I believe that the market and technical agreements reached at this meeting will make those responsibilities clearer.
All individuals are facing a similar plight, albeit on a smaller scale. When we sit in our cars, do we consider that on the other side of the world a beautiful glacier is disappearing, that animal habitats are disappearing? Regardless of what happens by the close of the Copenhagen meeting, we should all sign agreements in our hearts to acknowledge our responsibilities.
Every inch of earth is longing for our protection, and every life needs us to extend it.