Kyoto Deadline Looms

Climate Talks Face Time Crunch as Kyoto Deadline Looms

June 7, 2011 (ENS) - Delegates from 183 countries got down to business at a United Nations preparatory climate change conference in Bonn today. For the next 11 days they will work towards a draft agreement on limiting greenhouse gas emissions that can serve as the basis of negotiations at the annual UN Climate Summit set to start November 28 in Durban, South Africa.

As new data showing another rise in atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions emerged, the UN's top climate change official called on governments to make progress in the fight against global warming, building on the commitments they made last year at Cancun, Mexico.

"Governments lit a beacon in Cancun towards a low-emission world which is resilient to climate change. They committed themselves to a maximum global average temperature rise of two degrees Celsius, with further consideration of a 1.5-degree maximum," said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC.

"Now, more than ever, it is critical that all efforts are mobilized towards living up to this commitment," she said Monday at the opening session of the Bonn meeting.

Last week, the International Energy Agency estimated that 2010 emissions from global energy generation hit record highs, a sharp rebound from the effects of the financial crisis.

In addition, the U.S. government's atmospheric research facility, the Mauna Loa Observatory on Hawaii's Big Island, reported last week that atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide peaked yet again in May. {continued}