In December this year, parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will descend on Copenhagen to wrangle over the details of a new global climate deal — a potential successor to the Kyoto Protocol. See Nature’s Road to Copenhagen special for more coverage.
“We must frankly face the plain fact that our negotiators are not getting to agreement quickly enough. So I believe that leaders must engage directly to break the impasse. … We cannot compromise with the catastrophe of unchecked climate change; so we must compromise with one another.”
UK prime minister Gordon Brown tries to chivvy along world leaders in the run up to Copenhagen (Daily Telegraph).
“Canada will undertake efforts to meet our global responsibilities in a way that balances environmental protection and economic prosperity for Canadians, and is comparable to the level of effort of other industrialized countries.”
Sujata Raisinghani, spokeswoman for Environment Minister Jim Prentice, says Canada hopes to set itself up as an environmental leader at the Copenhagen talks (AFP).
“We should come out of Copenhagen with a deal that will ensure that everyone will survive.”
Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed comments on the negotiations after emerging from the world’s first underwater cabinet meeting, held on the seafloor to highlight the threat of sea level rise (AFP).
“I am 99.9% sure there will be no harmful creatures. I’m sure there won’t be any sharks. The nastiest thing would be a moray eel, but we have checked the reef.”
Nasheed again, with some more immediate concerns before his cabinet meeting (BBC).
“Strong progress has been made in the past few weeks, with Japan, for example, announcing that it will cut its emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 25% by 2020 relative to levels in 1990. But there are still major obstacles and some doubt whether a strong global deal can be hammered out in time for the United Nations’s conference on climate change in Copenhagen, now just seven weeks away.”
Nicholas Stern, author of the Stern Review, writes in the Observer.