Climate Change- the failure of development

Since Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", brougth the reality of climate change to the masses, the issue has risen to be one of the biggest issues of our time. There certainly has been a great deal of discourse and debate which has been beneficial. But arguably, the realities of climate change are not fully acknowledged and the willingness needed to combat it is not there. If one looks at the Kyoto Treaty, and the huge struggle it has been for nations to sign on and/or fulfill their comitments, we are very far away from adequately addressing climate change. This is particularily true given that Kyoto is just a step in the right direction. With the state Kyoto is in, a successor treaty which will be gravely needed, seems very unlikely. This all very important, and I feel it comes to an unwillingness of countries to move away from the current form of economic development towards one that acknowledges the realities in its actions and character. Rather all we are seeing are feable attempts of reducing or controlling the development we do have. THis is being done, denying that a fundamental characteristic of our development is its need for growth, which inevitably means more emmissions.