UN Climate change conference in Copenhagen

Post date: Dec 7, 2009 9:45:46 AM

07.12.2009.

Turning Copenhagen into Hopenhagen

UN Climate change conference in Copenhagen, starts today and it will last till December 18th. Leaders of nations from around the world will try to reach an agreement about for reduction of fossil fuels use, CO2 emissions and new protocol that will succeed Kyoto protocol.

U.N. officials calculated that pledges offered in the last few weeks to reduce greenhouse gases put the world within reach of keeping global warming under control.

The Kyoto protocol wasn't signed by the single biggest polluter - USA. Delegates hope Copenhagen conference will change hearts and minds of Americans.

Participation in the Kyoto Protocol, as of June 2009, where dark green indicates the countries that have signed and ratified the treaty, grey is not yet decided and red is no intention to ratify.Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s top climate official, said on the eve of the 192-nation conference that despite unprecedented unity and concessions, industrial countries and emerging nations need to dig deeper.

"Time is up," de Boer said. "Over the next two weeks governments have to deliver."

South Africa on Sunday became the latest country to announce an emissions target. It said over the next 10 years it would reduce emissions by 34 percent from "business as usual," the level they would reach under ordinary circumstances. By 2025 that figure would peak at 42 percent, effectively leveling off and thereafter begin to decline.

"This makes South Africa one of the stars of the negotiations," said the environmental group Greenpeace.

More than 100 heads of state and government have said they will attend the last day or two, making Copenhagen the largest and most important summit ever held on climate.

"Never in the 17 years of climate negotiations have so many different nations made so many firm pledges together," de Boer said. "It's simply unprecedented."

Some were arriving to the summit on trains splashed with a green stripe to symbolize efforts to reduce the convention's carbon footprint. One train carried 450 U.N. officials, delegates, climate activists and journalists from Brussels and more trains were leaving from other European capitals.