Environment Forum

Global environmental challenges

Vultures circle over U.N. climate talks

Photo

vulture.jpgDozens of vultures landed on the grass the other day outside the building where U.N. climate talks are taking place in Ghana – and more were circling overhead.

“They’ve been attracted by all the delegates falling asleep inside,” one official joked.

(I missed those vultures, but when I tried to get a picture of a group on the grass to try to illustrate this blog they flapped off before I was close enough … The picture on the left is of a vulture in Spain).

The Aug. 21-27 talks among 160 countries working on a new treaty to fight climate change moved at a glacial pace even though the United Nations said they were making progress, for instance, in defining how to give tropical countries incentives to slow deforestation. Burning trees is a big source of greenhouse gas emissions.

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