Environment Forum
Global environmental challenges
from Commodity Corner:
Getting down to business at U.N. climate talks a hard task
A U.N. concession to delegates at this week's climate talks in Bonn to take off jackets and ties due to recent high temperatures may be going to some participants' heads.
Breaking the back of negotiations for a new climate pact after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012 is proving hard work even though the talks' chair hopes to have a new negotiating text on the table by the end of the week.
Developing nations are still blaming the rich for global warming and the issue of who will contribute most to climate financing is still a matter for debate.
A year-end meeting in Cancun looms closer and the pressure is on to get the job done.
Yet, the acronyms being bandied around -- LULUCF, CDM, AAU, AWG-KP, AWG-LCA, REDD, to name a few -- are enough to make your head swim.
Obama honeymoon short-lived at U.N. climate talks
After one of the briefest honeymoons in history, developing nations at U.N. climate change talks in Poland are saying that President-elect Barack Obama’s goals for cutting greenhouse gas emissions don’t go far enough.
Delegates from China and India told Reuters at the Dec. 1-12 talks that they welcomed Obama’s plan to cut emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 compared to less ambitious goals set by President George W. Bush. (Emissions are now about 14 percent above 1990 ).
The world’s most costly cows?
Farm subsidies in many rich countries are high but the Norwegian $16-a-day cows have to be among the most astronomical examples.
The problem is that Norway wants farmers in the Arctic county of Finnmark to produce milk — but since it’s so cold for much of the year the herds have to live in heated barns and food has to be trucked in.
