Guarded hope at U.N. climate talks

U.N. climate talks move into decisive phase
CANCUN, Mexico (AP) — U.N. climate talks moved into their decisive week Monday with the agenda dominated by future cuts in Carbon Emissions and keeping countries honest about their actions to control Global Warming. Government ministers arrived in force to begin applying political muscle to negotiations that in the past week have narrowed some disputes, but which are likely to leave the toughest decisions for the final hours of the 193-nation conference on Friday. Delegates were feeling pre...

Guarded hope at UN climate talks
Negotiators on Climate Change were raising their hopes Monday after signs of modest progress in Mexico, but a dispute over the future of the Kyoto Protocol threatened to derail momentum. The 194-nation talks at the Caribbean resort city of Cancun were trying to finalize a general statement on the world's long-term action against Climate Change as envoys arrived for the main thrust of talks starting Tuesday. But with few expecting a full-fledged climate treaty anytime soon, the UN-led negotiation...

Guarded hope at UN climate talks
The United Nations has pointed to progress in one track of negotiations on Climate Change, but questions persisted on whether the talks in Mexico can take concrete steps toward a new treaty. The 194-nation talks at the Caribbean resort city of Cancun were trying to finalize a general statement on the world's long-term action against climate change as envoys arrived for the main thrust of talks starting Tuesday. But with few expecting a full-fledged climate treaty anytime soon, the UN-led negotia...

Guarded hope at UN climate talks (AFP)
Cancun, Mexico (AFP) – The United Nations has pointed to progress in one track of negotiations on Climate Change, but questions persisted on whether the talks in Mexico can take concrete steps toward a new treaty. The 194-nation talks at the Caribbean resort city of Cancun were trying to finalize a general statement on the world's long-term action against climate change as envoys arrived for the main thrust of talks starting Tuesday. But with few expecting a full-fledged climate trea...

Experts: Glacier melt speeds up, risking lives
CANCUN, Mexico — The lives and livelihoods of people in South Asia are at "high risk" as Global Warming melts Glaciers in the Himalayas, sending floods crashing down from overloaded mountain lakes and depriving farmers of steady water sources, U.N. and other international experts reported. Worldwide, "since the beginning of the 1980s, the rate of ice loss has increased substantially in many regions, concurrent with an increase in global mean air temperatures," the U.N. Environment Program ...

If Cancun Climate Talks Falter, Blame the US
The most recent round of United Nations-led Climate Change negotiations began this week in Cancun, and although international expectations are muted this year, the stakes are still high. As Mother Jones‘ Kate Sheppard explains,"The 2010 meeting could make or break the future of global negotiations.” This is the sixteenth Conference of the Parties, convened by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). After the tepid results of last year’s conferen...

Experts: Glacier melt speeds up, risking lives
CANCUN, Mexico (AP) - United Nations and other international experts say the lives and livelihoods of people in South Asia are at "high risk" as Global Warming melts Glaciers in the Himalayas. The glacier melt is sending floods crashing down from overloaded mountain lakes and depriving farmers of steady sources of water. The U.N. Environment Program says that worldwide, "since the beginning of the 1980s, the rate of ice loss has increased substantially in many regions, concurrent with an increa...

Guarded hope at UN climate talks
The United Nations has pointed to progress in one track of negotiations on Climate Change, but questions persisted on whether the talks in Mexico can take concrete steps toward a new treaty. The 194-nation talks at the Caribbean resort city of Cancun were trying to finalize a general statement on the world's long-term action against climate change as envoys arrived for the main thrust of talks starting Tuesday. But with few expecting a full-fledged climate treaty anytime soon, the UN-led negot...

Bolivia Alleges U.S 'Blackmail' At Climate Change Negotiations
Should the rights over water resources be returned to the S'gor state govt? Cancun, Mexico, 7 DECEMBER, 2010: Bolivia alleged that the United States was using "Blackmail" tactics at Climate Change negotiations to force other countries to accept its position. "We are not sold to anyone. We are not bought. We are not scared," Bolivia's Ambassador to the United Nations Pablo Solon told reporters at a press briefing here. Solon said that the integrity of the negotiations at the current Cancun 16th U...

Compromise spirit at climate talks in last days
CANCUN, Mexico (AP) - It may not last, but a spirit of Compromise seems to have settled over the annual U.N. Climate Conference as negotiators enter its final days looking for agreements on secondary tools for coping with Global Warming. The open sniping between the U.S. and China that marked periodic talks earlier this year was not in evidence Monday as the second week of the two-week meeting got under way. "There were heated discussions at Copenhagen. Here the atmosphere is relatively mild,"...

Climate summit in Cancun intent on progress
Cancun, MEXICO - The U.N.-sponsored climate talks, which began here a week ago, entered a new phase Monday, as delegates and high-ranking ministers from nearly 200 countries settled into vast, sunless meeting rooms, intent on restoring the credibility of a process aimed at slowing Global Warming. While last year's climate talks in Copenhagen produced little despite attracting more than 100 heads of state, some experts suggested this wonkish two-week meeting in a resort better known for colleg...

Global Warming Stopped...15 Years Ago
How inconvenient: A year ago tomorrow, just before the opening of the UN Copenhagen world climate summit, the British Meteorological Office issued a confident prediction. The mean world temperature for 2010, it announced, 'is expected to be 14.58C, the warmest on record' - a deeply worrying 0.58C above the 19611990 average. World temperatures, it went on, were locked inexorably into an everrising trend: 'Our experimental decadal forecast confirms previous indications that about half the years ...

More Nations May Pledge Carbon Limits at UN Talks
CANCUN, Mexico -- More countries are expected this week to pledge specific actions to limit Carbon Emissions over the next decade, in what would be very good news for arduous negotiations on a climate-change agreement, host country Mexico said. As the talks began their second and final week Monday, delegates said the 193-nation conference was moving toward decisions on practical steps to help countries fight Global Warming, especially developing nations under severe threat from changing climate ...

UN climate talks move into decisive phase
CANCUN, Mexico - U.N. climate talks moved into their decisive week Monday with the agenda dominated by future cuts in Carbon Emissions and keeping countries honest about their actions to control Global Warming. Government ministers arrived in force to begin applying political muscle to negotiations that in the past week have narrowed some disputes, but which are likely to leave the toughest decisions for the final hours of the 193-nation conference on Friday. Delegates were feeling pressur...

Tough UN climate talks move into decisive week
CANCUN, Mexico (AP) — U.N. climate talks moved into their decisive week Monday with the agenda dominated by future cuts in Carbon Emissions and keeping countries honest about their actions to control Global Warming. Government ministers arrived in force to begin applying political muscle to negotiations that in the past week have narrowed some disputes, but which are likely to leave the toughest decisions for the final hours of the 193-nation conference on Friday. Delegates were feeling pre...

Group brings Cancun delegates to nearby village without electricity
In case you were unaware, the United Nations is holding a climate summit right now in Cancun. They are sunning and making big plans to limit international Economic Growth, because they are convinced that the observed phenomenon of Global Warming will result in a disaster right out of some movie. (Cancun, Mexico) On Wednesday, December 8th, CFACT will bring COP16 delegates and press to tour La Libertad, a Mexican community only minutes from the comforts of the Cancun tourist zone, where the poor ...

Experts: Glacier melt speeds up, risking lives
An Activist from Via Campesina, an international movement of peasants, holds a container filled with incense during the 'Global Forum for Life, Environmental and Social Justice', an alternative event parallel to the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico, Monday, Dec. 6, 2010. According to the UN weather agency, 2010 is "almost certain" to rank among the three Hottest years on record, and the 2001-2010 decade is the warmest period since the beginning of weather records in 1850. United N...

IEA director calls for action at Cancun
Published: Dec. 7, 2010 at 10:03 AM Cancun, Mexico, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- There is no time to waste in finding a comprehensive environmental solution because the tab for green energy is rising, the IEA director said from Mexico. International Energy Agency Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka said world leaders needed to find the political will during climate talks in Mexico to advance the agenda beyond vague commitments reached at last year's summit in Denmark. "Despite the positive steps taken last year ...

Bolivia Alleges U.S "Blackmail" At Climate Change Negotiations
Source: Bernama/Malaysian Digest Bolivia Alleges U.S "Blackmail" At Climate Change Negotiations Cancun, Mexico, 7 DECEMBER, 2010: Bolivia alleged that the United States was using "blackmail" tactics at climate change negotiations to force other countries to accept its position. "We are not sold to anyone. We are not bought. We are not scared," Bolivia's Ambassador to the United Nations Pablo Solon told reporters at a press briefing here. Solon said that the integrity of the negotiations at the ...

Ghost of Copenhagen stalks Cancun climate talks
World climate talks in Cancun were on Sunday entering their final stretch beset by fears of a repeat of the failures that nearly wrecked the December 2009 Copenhagen summit. Environment ministers began arriving in the Mexican resort city at the weekend to find themselves plunged into a mood soured by a row over the Kyoto Protocol and a logjam of inter-connected, unresolved issues. After more talks among senior officials, the ministers on Tuesday get down to a four-day haggle, due to climax on Fr...

WRI Climate Solution Proposal at Cancun Gets Approval From Nicolas Stern
One problem besetting climate negotiations, both at Copenhagen and at Cancun, is a lack of trust. This is because there has been no consistent metric by which to measure progress globally. Each nation provides their own monitoring and reporting. The solution, just launched this week at the Cancun climate talks by the World Resources Institute (WRI), is an independent network that will track countries’ progress toward cutting emissions and providing climate finance, by convening independent...

More nations may pledge carbon limits at UN talks
** CORRECTS NATURE OF THE EVENT ** Members of the group World Wildlife Fund stand around a map made of candles during an event to make a call for a strong deal to leaders joined at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico, Sunday, Dec. 5, 2010. The slow-moving U.N. talks on combating Global Warming took a step forward with revised for a $100-billion-a-year climate aid fund and other issues for debate by the world's environment ministers this week. More countries are expect...

Cancun Climate Talks Enter Stretch Run
What is this? Political theater is best practiced on a sunny, sandy stage. Sierra Club Activists bearing the flags of more than 20 countries bury their heads in Cancun, Mexico's, sandy beach Friday to symbolize their view of how United Nations climate talks are progressing. The second week of negotiations kicked off Monday, with participants from 193 countries seeking to reach a deal that failed to materialize at last year's Copenhagen summit. "We cannot leave Cancun empty-handed," Connie Hedega...

US is committed to climate goals: govt
President Barack Obama is determined to meet US commitments to cut down on Carbon Emissions despite an election rout at home, his energy secretary told climate negotiations on Monday. Obama pledged at last year's Copenhagen conference that the United States will reduce the emissions blamed for Global Warming by 17 per cent by 2020 from 2005 levels. But a bill to require carbon cuts died in the Senate. "President Obama has said the United States will meet our Copenhagen commitments," Energy Secre...

Senator Inhofes Climate-gate I TOLD YOU SO
"We won, you lose, get a life." Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) is a long-suffering truth-teller about the absolute, wackjob Fraud of Global Warming.  This video was made as the world’s eco-nutty enviro-elitists are in Cancun for yet another United Nations Climate Change summit, which is an even bigger failure than last year’s summit in Copenhagen.  Sen. Inhofe is enjoying an “I told you so” and he deserves his moment in the “sunshine” of trut...