From the enviro-mag, Grist:
The latest round of U.N. climate talks extended the worldwide drought on climate-fighting leadership. Things were going so badly on Thursday that many of the world’s biggest environmental groups stormed out in frustration.
But late during the two weeks of negotiations in Warsaw, Poland, known as COP19, which ended Saturday, a few drops of refreshing news splashed down. Here’s a full rundown.
The big news
In 2015, each of the planet’s nations will offer a proposal for contributing to a reduction in worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. This agreement didn’t come until Saturday night, a day after the talks were supposed to have ended. The AP reported that the “modest deal” averted “a last-minute breakdown.”
The U.S. and other countries plan to publish their commitments to reduce emissions in early 2015 — ahead of what’s supposed to be a final round of negotiations for a new climate treaty in Paris in late 2015. But India, China, and other developing countries have argued that they shouldn’t be forced to spend their own money fighting climate change. As such, they refused to agree to make such commitments. (This despite the fact that nearly half the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were put there by the developing world, and that China and India are respectively the world’s worst and fourth-worst climate polluters.)
At the last minute, a compromise emerged: Instead of publishing “commitments” in early 2015, countries have agreed to announce their planned “intended … contributions” to fight climate change “well in advance” of the Paris meetings. India and China choreographed the semantic gymnastics because they don’t want to hear “legal” this and “contract” that if they fail to follow through.
The rest here.
The next one of these things — COP20 — will be held December 1-12, 2014, in Lima, Peru. Note that it will be the middle of summer in Peru and the perfect warm-weather holiday for all the European-based climate alarmists. Have fun and bring me back a T-shirt!