update on kyoto ii
Climate negotiators start work on 'Kyoto II'
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Scientists and officials from across the world meet in Thailand this week for the first formal talks in the long process of drawing up a replacement for the Kyoto climate change pact by the end of 2009.
Around 190 nations agreed in Bali last year to start the two-year negotiations to replace Kyoto, which only binds 37 rich nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by an average of five percent from 1990 levels by 2012.
U.N. climate experts want the new pact to impose curbs on all countries, although there is wide disagreement about how to share out the burden between rich nations led by the United States and developing countries such as China and India.
No major decisions are likely from the Bangkok talks, which are intended mainly to establish a timetable for more rounds of negotiations culminating in a United Nations Climate Change conference in Copenhagen at the end of next year.
"The challenge is to design a future agreement that will significantly step up action on adaptation, successfully halt the increase in global emissions within the next 10-15 years and dramatically cut back emissions by 2050," said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N.'s Climate Change Secretariat.
Although the negotiations are likely to be tough and tortuous, a series of U.N. climate change reports last year highlighted the need to curb emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that are driving global warming.
One report in particular said it was more than 90 percent certain that human actions -- mainly burning fossil fuels -- were to blame for changes to the weather system that will bring more heatwaves, droughts, storms and rising seas.
Source: The Star Sunday March 30, 2008
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Scientists and officials from across the world meet in Thailand this week for the first formal talks in the long process of drawing up a replacement for the Kyoto climate change pact by the end of 2009.
Around 190 nations agreed in Bali last year to start the two-year negotiations to replace Kyoto, which only binds 37 rich nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by an average of five percent from 1990 levels by 2012.
U.N. climate experts want the new pact to impose curbs on all countries, although there is wide disagreement about how to share out the burden between rich nations led by the United States and developing countries such as China and India.
No major decisions are likely from the Bangkok talks, which are intended mainly to establish a timetable for more rounds of negotiations culminating in a United Nations Climate Change conference in Copenhagen at the end of next year.
"The challenge is to design a future agreement that will significantly step up action on adaptation, successfully halt the increase in global emissions within the next 10-15 years and dramatically cut back emissions by 2050," said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N.'s Climate Change Secretariat.
Although the negotiations are likely to be tough and tortuous, a series of U.N. climate change reports last year highlighted the need to curb emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that are driving global warming.
One report in particular said it was more than 90 percent certain that human actions -- mainly burning fossil fuels -- were to blame for changes to the weather system that will bring more heatwaves, droughts, storms and rising seas.
Source: The Star Sunday March 30, 2008