The year 2010 ranked as the warmest on record – together with 2005 and 1998 – according to the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which added that last year also witnessed a large number of extreme weather events, including the heat wave in Russia and the devastating floods in Pakistan. In 2010, the global average temperature was 0.53 degrees Celsius (0.95 degrees Fahrenheit) above the mean for the period from...

The debate on the climate negotiations, instead of discussing the nature of any policy shift, should define the national position and determine red lines for future negotiations. A new paradigm has emerged at Cancun. Instead of the multilaterally agreed emissions reduction targets of the Kyoto Protocol, there is now a shared target for all countries, where deep cuts in greenhouse gases are required according to science. Developed countries are to take...

The climate talks ended with uncertainty over the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol and no agreement on binding emission reductions. The difference between optimists and pessimists is that the optimists have more fun, joked Elias Freig-Delgado, a member of Mexico's Ministry of Finance Special CO{-2} Task Force and the working groups of the U.N. High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing. Mr. Delgado was speaking at the Forest Day meeting during...

Let's assess the outcome of Cancun in terms of what the world has achieved to avert climate change. We know the threat of a changing climate is real, we in India are most vulnerable and the world needs drastic emission reduction. Just think: to keep the world below 2 degrees Celsius temperature increase, global emissions must drop to 44 billion tonnes of CO2e (all greenhouse gases) by 2020. The world...

The UN climate summit reached the Cancun Agreement here early Saturday - but there was no mention of the extent to which industrialised countries would commit to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol's commitment period ends.Nor was there any agreement on a second commitment period of the protocol, only a decision to keep talking about it. The Kyoto Protocol is currently the only legally binding...