Thursday, 13 December 2007
UN climate change conference in Bali enters its final stages
As the UN climate change conference in Bali enters its final stages, the European Union and a number of other industrialised nations, including the United States and Japan, are at loggerheads over the future of carbon emissions targets.
Since last Monday, representatives of over 150 countries have been meeting on the Indonesian island of Bali to try and reach consensus on a roadmap for an international agreement on greenhouse gas emissions after 2012, when the targets of the Kyoto Protocol expire.
The EU, backed by the weight of scientific research and recent UN reports, is adamant that developed countries need to commit to reducing their carbon emissions by as much as 40 per cent by 2020. The United States, Japan and Canada are resisting calls for specific targets, claiming that they would limit the scope of future climate talks.
It is unlikely that the largest developing nations will agree to cutbacks in emissions unless all major developed nations do so too. While the rise in living standards in countries like China and India has resulted in a rapid increase in greenhouse gas emissions, developed countries still carry an overwhelming historical responsibility for climate change.
The world is counting on a breakthrough at Bali, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told delegates today at the summit on Wednesday. He called the fight against global warming ‘the moral challenge of our generation’.
The Bali conference is scheduled to finish Friday – we need your help to ensure that the talks do not end in disaster. UNA-UK urges its members and supporters to sign the Avaaz online petition which calls on rich countries to pull together to take concrete action on climate change: Stop the Climate-Wrecking at Bali
Further resources on the UN climate conference:
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