Earth Equity News

Interim Climate Pact Approved, With Core Questions Unanswered. By Juliet Eilperin, WashPost, December 12, 2008. "The effort to come up with a global warming treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol inched forward Saturday morning as delegates to United Nations-sponsored talks here agreed on a narrowly framed interim document that leaves all the difficult negotiating until next year. The modest result leaves the three-year process far short of the goal of concluding a binding agreement by the end of 2009 to curb greenhouse gas emissions and slow the planet's warming, which under current conditions scientists predict will reach dangerous and irreversible levels by the end of the century, if not sooner. Given the minimal progress made in negotiations this year, several key players said, it will almost certainly take direct involvement by President-elect Barack Obama and other world leaders to produce a meaningful agreement next year. Much of this meeting's negotiations focused on highly technical details, including how to measure deforestation and how to legally define an international fund aimed at helping poor countries adapt to climate change. But the core questions -- how much industrialized countries will slash their emissions, what they expect in return from major emerging economies, and what they will do to help poorer countries pursue low-carbon development -- remained untouched."