Despite Opposition Climate Conference Approves Deal

19/12/2009 Copenhagen: The UN climate conference in Copenhagen today approved a deal to tackle global warming proposed by world leaders, despite opposition from a number of countries. After another all-night session of wrangling among negotiators and officials, the accord was finally gavelled through to wide applause in the main conference hall of the talks in Copenhagen.

Last night details of the “meaningful” deal agreed between the US and China, India, Brazil and South Africa emerged, which included references to keeping temperature rises to no more than 2C and provisions for finance to help poor countries fight global warming.
But it has no long-term global targets for emissions cuts or a timetable to turn the agreement into a legally-binding treaty – leading environmental campaigners and aid agencies to brand it toothless and a failure.

 

This morning the conference said it “takes note” of the accord – and said the document setting out the deal would specify a list of countries which agreed with it, as some nations were still adamant they would not accept it. The acknowledgment of the accord by the UN conference of more than 190 countries means that provisions for finance contained within it to help poor nations can become operational, officials said. Under the accord, countries will be able to set out their pledges for the action they plan to take to tackle climate change, in an appendix to the document, and will provide information to other nations on their progress.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and EU chiefs said the deal was a first step but acknowledged there was much further to go to get the ambitious and legally-binding treaty countries such as the UK have been pushing for. But Mr Brown attempted to brush off suggestions that his intense efforts to lead the case for a deal had ended in failure – insisting it was significant that all countries now backed the 2C target for the first time.

 

Overnight, however, the main conference of more than 190 countries struggled to endorse the accord – with the main plenary hearing from a number of countries including Sudan, Venezuela and Bolivia which opposed the deal. Sudan’s delegate, Lumumba Di-Aping, said the accord would condemn Africa to many deaths from global warming and compared it with the Holocaust – a statement which was roundly condemned by others including the UK’s Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband. The deal was brokered in a series of bilateral meetings and talks by a group of up to 30 countries – and appeared to have been sealed after US President Barack Obama turned up unannounced at a discussion between China, India, Brazil and South Africa.

Many leaders flew out late last night as details of the deal emerged, leaving ministers and officials to return to the full conference in a bid to get it passed.

Speaking following the formal close of the talks in Copenhagen, a day after they were due to finish, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said: ``We have sealed the deal. This accord cannot be everything that everyone hoped for, but it is an essential beginning.''
The attendance of 119 world leaders made the Copenhagen talks the largest gathering of heads of state and government in the history of the UN, and Mr Ban urged them to remain engaged as “climate change is the permanent leadership challenge of our time”.

The UN’s chief climate official Yvo de Boer said: “We now have a package to work with and begin immediate action.

“However, we need to be clear that it is a letter of intent and is not precise about what needs to be done in legal terms. So the challenge is now to turn what we have agreed politically in Copenhagen into something real, measurable and verifiable.”

Global warming

 activists are warning that global warming could thaw the Arctic and make the sea warm enough for people to swim and sunbathe in.
REUTERS/Francois Lenoir (NORWAY)


Global warming was once an uncommon term used by a few scientists who were growing concerned over the effects  Global of decades of pollution on long-term weather patterns. Today, the idea of global warming is well known, if not well understood. It is not unusual to hear someone complaining about a hot day or a freak storm and remark, "It's global warming."

Well, is it? In this article, we'll learn what global warming is, what causes it, what its current effects are and what the future effects could be. Although there has been a scientific consensus on global warming, some aren't sure it's something we need to worry about. We'll examine some proposed changes in the United States' national policies related to curbing global warming and the criticisms and concerns surrounding them.

Global warming is a significant increase in the Earth's climatic temperature over a relatively short period of time as a result of the activities of humans.

­­In specific terms, an increase of 1 or more degrees Celsius in a period of one hundred to two hundred years would be considered global warming. Over the course of a single century, an increase of even 0.4 degrees Celsius would be significant.

To understand what this means, let's start by reviewing the difference between weather and climate.

Scientists studying our climate have been able to observe and measure changes happening around us. For example, mountain glaciers are smaller now than they were 150 years ago, and in the last 100 years, the average global temperature has increased by roughly 1.4 degrees F (0.8 degrees C) [source: EPA]. Computer modeling allows scientists to predict what could happen if the climate pattern continues on its current course, projecting, for instance, that temperatures could rise an average of 2 to 11.5 degrees F (1.1 to 6.4 degrees C) by the end of the 21st century [source: EPA].

Scientists are able to measure that melt water from Greenland's ice cap directly impacts people in the United States: The flow of the Colorado River has increased sixfold [source: Scientific American]. And scientists project that as the ice shelves on Greenland and Antarctica melt, sea levels could be more than 20 feet (6 meters) higher in 2100 than they are today [source: An Inconvenient Truth]. Such levels would submerge many of Indonesia's tropical islands and flood low-lying areas such as Miami, New York City's Lower Manhattan and Bangladesh.


WHAT IS GLOBAL WARMING?

Carbon dioxide and other gases warm the surface of the planet naturally by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere. This is a good thing because it keeps our planet habitable. However, by burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil and clearing forests we have dramatically increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere and temperatures are rising.

The vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is real, it’s already happening and that it is the result of our activities and not a natural occurrence.1 The evidence is overwhelming and undeniable.

We’re already seeing changes. Glaciers are melting, plants and animals are being forced from their habitat, and the number of severe storms and droughts is increasing.


Courtesy: REUTERS PICTURES OF THE DECADE. Climate activists Lesley Butler and Rob Bell (R) "sunbathe" on the edge of a frozen fjord in the Norwegian Arctic town of Longyearbyen April 25, 2007. The