Re: SC29

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/front/2006/1113/1163060123446.html

Frustration as climate change talks stall

Representatives of 190 countries have been playing a diplomatic poker game at the UN Climate Change Summit in Nairobi for the past week, with almost none of them prepared to spell out what they intend to do about global warming.

Developed countries who have taken on targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol are reluctant to enter into further commitments after it expires in 2012 without indications that developing countries such as China are prepared to climb on board.


Many of the 56 developed countries that have ratified the protocol are finding it difficult to achieve even the fairly minimal curbs on emissions required by Kyoto, and some of them - including Ireland - have fallen way behind in terms of meeting their commitments.

But China and other major players such as India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa are equally reluctant to sign up for cuts in emissions pending the outcome of a dialogue on how to deal with an issue that nearly everyone now accepts has become more urgent year by year.................

............But there is frustration over the lack of progress. Japanese ambassador Mutsuyoshi Nishimura, described climate change as a deadly serious business and said if countries were unwilling to discuss the stabilisation of emissions at this summit, he wanted to know when they would do so..................

.........."The slow pace of progress is in direct contrast to the urgency with which this issue needs to be addressed," he said.

"These are the most important set of negotiations in the history of humanity - far surpassing Versailles," Mr Ryan said. He also noted that the US delegation had barely featured in the talks so far, possibly reeling from last week's "thumping" for President Bush in the mid-term elections............

The Kyoto Treaty was mankinds first real attempt to try and control Climate Change ( worldwide CO2 production from mankinds burning of fossil fuels, wood, etc ), but the various governments of the world are seeing the realities of how inadequate they really are in even meeting the small cuts in CO2 emmisions proposed by Kyoto. As is evident in this new round of talks, there is really no concrete measures being taken to address the looming menace of Climate Change. Will the citizens of the affluent developed nations cut back on thier lifestyles in the consumption of resources by 70-80% as is suggested is realistically needed to have any hope of stalling or stopping burgeoning CO2 levels in earths atmosphere? I wouldn't bet any money on that.