Planet in peril: Passers-by look at a picture of the Earth at the "Technologies for Climate Protection" exhibition during the UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan this week.
Credit: AFP
POZNAN, POLAND: With slim results so far, U.N. climate talks in Poland enter the home stretch this week haunted by Europe's splintering resolve over its own climate package and the void created by a lame-duck negotiating team from the USA.
Some 10,000 delegates return today from a two-day break to lay the groundwork for a new global climate pact slated for completion in Copenhagen in December 2009.
Shift to high-gear
Things will shift into high gear with the arrival, on Thursday, of government ministers from more than 150 countries, but the meeting is still likely to spill past its scheduled Friday closure, organisers said.
The urgency of slashing greenhouse gases is not contested: U.N. scientists have warned that the failure to do so would unleash dreadful consequences for large swathes of humanity within a matter of decades.
But the highly technical negotiations have stalled over how to distribute the commitments and costs of cutting carbon pollution.
Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), rich countries acknowledge their historical role in pushing up global temperatures, but say rapidly emerging economies must also take quantifiable action.
Developing and poorer nations argue the industrialised world should lead by example, and foot the bill for clean-energy technology and coping with global warming's inevitable impacts.
Ambitious plan
Attempts to construct a climate pact have been made even more difficult by the global economic crisis.
Key to progress thus far has been the EU's ambitious plan to cut carbon dioxide output by 20 per cent – using 1990 as a benchmark – before 2020, and by 30 per cent if others follow suit.
The 27-nation bloc is also shooting, by the same date, for a 20 per cent increase in energy efficiency and a 20 per cent market share for renewables in the energy sector.
But the plan – slated for approval at an EU summit at week's end – has run into stiff resistance from East bloc countries which rely on heavily-polluting coal-fired plants for energy and are demanding concessions.
Global Warming not a lame duck it's a dead duck.
The sooner people come to realise that Anthropogenic Global Warming is a gigantic con trick then less time will be wasted on pointless conferences and meetings and hopefully this energy will be directed towards the real problems of the world.
Global Warming
The belief that man has caused global warming is the single largest hoax in history. How sad.