AP: Climate Change Talks Greow In Importance

[Hissyspit]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Climate-Talks.html

Climate Change Talks Grow in Importance

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 28, 2007
Filed at 11:04 p.m. ET

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Experts are beginning to fear, however, that as time runs down the best that can be hoped for may be an extension of the relatively weak Kyoto Protocol, due to expire in 2012. The alternative is a world without any carbon-reduction rules at all.

The year's bad news on climate change is coming in installments:

In February, a U.N.-sponsored scientific network reported that unabated global warming would produce a far different planet by 2100, from rising seas, drought and other factors. In early April, the scientists said animal and plant life was already being disrupted.

In the third installment, coming Friday in Bangkok, Thailand, the authoritative panel is expected to say the world could still head off severe damage if all countries act urgently, with the best policies and technology, to rein in carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping emissions -- an improbable scenario.

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''There's a lot happening. Whether that translates into a change in negotiating positions is a complicated story,'' said Leon Charles, a veteran negotiator for the Caribbean nation of Grenada who will have a lead role in the upcoming talks. The key complication is a ''you first'' standoff between the United States, on one side, and China and the developing world on the other.

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