Despite Data Avalanche, Nairobi Climate Talks Promise Glacial Pace - NYT

[hatrack]

Climate negotiators are gathering in Nairobi, Kenya, for their 12th conference since 1992, with the world divided into three seemingly inflexible blocs on what to do about global warming. The conference will begin tomorrow and continue through Nov. 17. A host of specialists, including economists, environmentalists and United Nations officials, say the challenge this year is more daunting than ever.

“Right now it seems that the glaciers in Greenland are moving faster than the negotiators,” John Coequyt, an energy policy analyst for Greenpeace, said in an interview during his trip to the meeting. The discussions will focus on two international agreements that call for reductions in heat-trapping greenhouse gases, led by carbon dioxide, which is a byproduct of burning fossil fuels and forests.

The first agreement, the Framework Convention on Climate Change, was adopted in 1992, but its voluntary goals were soon missed. An addendum to the treaty was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 and took effect in February 2005. That pact, the Kyoto Protocol, requires most industrialized countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by 2012.

The United States and Australia, which accepted the 1992 treaty but not the Kyoto accord, will continue to promote voluntary programs to slow growth in emissions.

EDIT

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/05/world/05climate.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1162784325-YtzoZrWpH2yJHFwAAtPVwQ