UN Continues Push for Global Climate Treaty
Posted at 9:45 a.m. on Nov. 29, 2012
As the next round of UN climate treaty talks takes place in Doha, Qatar, Brad Plumer provides a handy summary of where we have been and what the current negotiations aim to achieve.
“Under the Kyoto Protocol, which was finalized in 1997, a bunch of countries committed to targets on their greenhouse-gas emissions… But those cuts were all swamped by the rise of China, India, and other developing nations… Over the years, most nations have agreed that they’d like to limit global warming to below 2°C, although others have said even that’s too dangerous.”
“But right now, 2°C is still just an ambitious goal… A successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol would have to figure out how to get emissions to peak within the next five years or so. It would have to commit China and India to reductions of some sort. And the new treaty would have to divide up responsibility for cuts fairly, so that poorer nations still have room to develop.”
