UN Opens New Negotiations on Climate Change

by Janet Ritz

Hopeful news! Following the report by the IPPC and the UN's own Climate Change Roadmap, the UN has just opened new negotiations on Climate Change. Citing the growing impact of climate change this year on its member countries, the United Nations has invited representatives of 100 countries to negotiate a new climate deal:

Nearly 100 countries speaking at the first U.N. General Assembly meeting on climate change signaled strong support for negotiations on a new international deal to tackle global warming.

There was so much interest among worried nations — many facing drought, floods and searing heat — that the two-day meeting was extended for an extra day so that more countries could describe their climate-related problems, how they are coping, and the help they need.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20102028

The meeting is focused on signing an upgrade/replacement to the Kyoto accord that will take into account the new tipping point deadlines provided by the IPPC and the UN's own Climate Change Roadmap.

The report goes on to say that the new UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, has made climate change a top priority and that he is urging all countries to reach a comprehensive agreement by 2009 (too late? Maybe. But it's more than was done before).

So, is the US is supporting these meetings? Well..... George Bush did announce his own climate change meetings for September to be chaired by that world renowned climate "expert," Condolezza Rice

President Bush invited representatives of major industrialized and developing countries to a separate climate change summit on Sept. 27-28, hosted by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to discuss “life after” the Kyoto Protocol expires.

“In recent years, science has deepened our understanding of climate change and opened new possibilities for confronting it,” Bush said in his invitation letter Friday.

Hmmm.... Life after the Kyoto Protocol expires... Did I miss where we signed that???

Floods in Oxfordshire, the impact in Europe, disappearing glaciers, droughts the the US...

And then there was this report on the Bush Administrations' drastic cuts in climate satellites...

Life after Kyoto expires...

What will that life be like?

Here's a link to a bit more on the hot politics behind global warming.

A story on the UN's climate change roadmap.

And here's the link to the MSNBC-AP article on the new UN Climate Change Meetings.