Committee: Beyond Rio Topic: Disasters Country: Mexico Farah Hamouda and Kiyoshi Maloney (Broughton High School)

The plummeting greenhouse gas emissions throughout the planet have historically led to problems regarding natural disasters. This release of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere inevitably leads to, among other things, Environmental disasters. Rightfully so, critics visualize the Rio Earth Summit of 2012 to be a failure in its goals. No true solutions were formed in this major conference with the vague statements with no delegation really leaving completely satisfied. The safety and lives of citizens worldwide are brutally compromised with the arrival of disastrous environmental events. There is nothing more sacred and important than protecting innocent human life, which is what brings such pressing importance to this issue. There is a pressing significance surrounding the Beyond Rio meeting to leave successful in our goals through creation of a clearly outlined proposals that fully tackle the problems associated with environmental disasters. As mentioned before, an attempt at finding solutions to the environmental problems terrorizing our nations was made at the Rio Earth Summit of 2012. This committee meeting attempted to tackle the issue of greenhouse gas emissions mainly through exploring the idea of alternative energy sources and shifting methods of public transportation. Created by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, The Kyoto Protocol attempted to the stabilize greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Although novel in its goals, the protocol was flawed in much the same way that the Rio Earth Summit was flawed. The Kyoto Protocol, although not as vague, was flawed in the amount of time it took to finalize and also the lack of binding targets for developing nations. Due to this, the country with the largest amount of greenhouse gas emissions, the United States, refused to ratify the treaty1 After the Kyoto Protocol, the worldwide change in greenhouse gas emissions have actually increased (between 1992 and 2007) by 38%2. In the past decades, effects of natural disasters resulting from global warming have been occurring periodically in Mexico. A month does not seem to pass free of environmental disaster in the country. In august of 2012, Hurricane Ernesto caused mass evacuations resulting in the death of three individual and destruction of one hundred homes. The environmental turmoil hardly ends with hurricanes in Mexico; a more frequent occurrence would be earthquakes. The strong quakes originating from California are often felt through the country of Mexico. The densely populated Mexico City has proved to be one of the worlds most polluted areas. Clearly two problems resign with Mexico, which regard safety as well as greenhouse gas emissions. The delegation of Mexico hopes to see the shaky issues of environmental disaster safety precautions and greenhouse gas emission control come to a resolution at the Beyond Rio Committee 2013.

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