A summit of world leaders has dimmed hopes for a strong new U.N. climate pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen in December, with details looking ever more likely to be left for 2010. But climate change experts and observers also refused to focus on the negative, noting that many countries struggling with recession were likely to make concessions only at the last moment.
China laid out a plan to curb carbon emissions by 2020 and U.S. President Barack Obama called on all nations to act now to tackle global warming, as world leaders tried to inject momentum into climate change talks.
The most anticipated climate meeting in years will be held in the Danish capital in December. Out of those talks a broader climate pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol is expected to emerge.
Environment Ministers from about 190 nations gather in Copenhagen at the end of the year to try and agree to a broader global pact to fight climate change partly spurred by scientists' bleak findings in 2007 about likely heatwaves, floods, desertification and rising sea levels.
Developing emissions markets to encourage farmers in poor countries to store more carbon dioxide in soil should be a key topic on the U.N. climate talks agenda, global warming activist Al Gore said.
Nasheed has said when addressing the issue of climate change, instead of focusing on what countries should not do, focusing on what countries should do, can be the answer to reaching an effective agreement at the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen.
The world leaders who met at the United Nations to discuss climate change on Tuesday are faced with an intricate challenge: building momentum for an international climate treaty at a time when global temperatures have been relatively stable for a decade and may even drop in the next few years.
Like most large international conferences, the United Nations climate summit meeting in New York this week generated a hefty dose of greenhouse gas emissions.
The Environmental Protection Agency said on Tuesday that it would require the nation
Amid a growing split in the business community over climate policy, Pacific Gas and Electric, a major California utility, is withdrawing from the United States Chamber of Commerce, citing
Chinese President Hu Jintao announced new goals on Tuesday to slow the growth in his country's carbon dioxide emissions while U.S. President Barack Obama warned time was short to act on global warming. Following are reactions to the summit, meant to spur negotiations on a 190-nation deal due to be reached in Copenhagen at a meeting from December 7-18:
The U.S. government will begin requiring big companies to monitor and report greenhouse gas emissions, officials said on Tuesday, a move that could make it easier for federal regulators to cut emissions if Congress does not pass a climate change bill.
A group of 500 businesses and nonprofit executives on Tuesday urged global governments to take action on climate change, saying failure to do so would result in catastrophe for the planet and global markets.
UNITED NATIONS: United States President Barack Obama on Tuesday declared that his country is a serious partner in combating global warming, telling world peers
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would be prohibited for one year from clamping down on some new carbon dioxide pollution under legislation being crafted on Tuesday by Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski. The "time out" would stop EPA from issuing regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from utilities and factories, the Republican senator said.
Global carbon emissions are expected to post their biggest drop in more than 40 years this year as the global recession froze economic activity and slashed energy use around the world. The decline comes as political leaders are struggling to come up with a common approach to dealing with climate change.
Sri Lanka has increased its carbon-dioxide emission levels by 230 percent which is the highest increase in the world in 2007. It is mainly due to the increase in the usage of reconditioned vehicles and coal power energy usage, Director, Sustainable Energy Authority, Asoka Abeygunawardana said.
A week of climate talks comes to a head in the upcoming G20 summit in Pittsburgh, where emerging powers will press rich nations for major funding to combat global warming and its impact. Negotiations ahead of the UN climate showdown in Copenhagen in December are at a critical stage and observers are looking desperately to the US gatherings to provide momentum.
A coalition of more than 500 international companies on Tuesday urged rich countries to commit to "immediate and deep" cuts in greenhouse gas emissions at U.N. climate talks to help combat global warming.
Recession has set the stage for the sharpest fall in world greenhouse gas emissions in 40 years, an estimate Monday showed, as world leaders gathered in New York to seek a way forward on a new climate change treaty.
