The sights are set on smaller, though just as important, issues With the first commitment to emission reductions under the Kyoto Protocol expiring in December 2012, the world is looking to a new regime of cuts, which is unlikely to be successfully negotiated here. In 2009, the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen set a target of achieving a binding treaty and it did not happen. Now the sights are set on...

Focus may be on forestry issues and reducing emissions from deforestation This beach resort, swarming with tourists and sports utility vehicles and having opulent hotels and evident unsustainability, may not be the ideal place for a climate change conference but the real issues of climate change are too critical not to be debated anywhere. The United Nations Climate Change Conference that gets under way here on Monday may not result in much...

Familiar battle lines emerged on Sunday on the eve of a conference to restore the credibility of the UN's talks on climate change after last year's near-disaster in Copenhagen. Campaigners said the interests of the environment and poor countries would not be sacrificed to help boost the faltering process, while the European Union (EU) called on China, the United States and India to agree to "fair" curbs on their carbon emissions. Nearly...

India aims at bringing United States back on board at Cancun climate talks but has termed its offer on climate mitigation as “homeopathetic”. To clinch US, India has two proposals. First, which appeals to the United States, is on measurement review and verification (MRV) regime. India has proposed that nations, whose emissions are one% or more of the global average, should allow verification of their domestic mitigation commitments through a United...

The main greenhouse gases have reached their highest concentration levels since pre-industrial times, a United Nations climate research body said today. The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) 2009 Greenhouse Gas Bulletin warns that carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have all increased their presence, increasing their burden on the earth’s atmosphere. “Greenhouse gas concentrations have reached record levels despite the economic slowdown. They would have been even higher without the international action taken...