Climate conference approves landmark deal

[one...two...tree 2,762]

DURBAN, South Africa -- A U.N. climate conference reached a hard-fought agreement Sunday on a complex and far-reaching program meant to set a new course for the global fight against climate change for the coming decades.

The 194-party conference agreed to start negotiations on a new accord that would put all countries under the same legal regime enforcing commitments to control greenhouse gases. It would take effect by 2020 at the latest.

The deal also set up the bodies that will collect, govern and distribute tens of billions of dollars a year for poor countries. Other documents in the package lay out rules for monitoring and verifying emissions reductions, protecting forests, transferring clean technologies to developing countries and scores of technical issues.

Currently, only industrial countries have legally binding emissions targets under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Those commitments expire next year, but they will be extended for another five years under the accord adopted Sunday.

The proposed Durban Platform offered answers to problems that have bedeviled global warming negotiations for years about sharing the responsibility for controlling carbon emissions and helping the world's poorest and most climate-vulnerable nations cope with changing forces of nature.

The United States was a reluctant supporter, concerned about agreeing to join an international climate system that likely would find much opposition in the U.S. Congress.

"This is a very significant package. None of us likes everything in it. Believe me, there is plenty the United States is not thrilled about," said U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern. But the package captured important advances that would be undone if it is rejected, he told the delegates.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/12/10/20111210un-climate-deal-up-approval-conference.html#ixzz1gHALAGUP

[Obama 2012 1,714]

oh look, a bunch of kooks at a conference.... cute.

There's a reason why the US rejects this bullshit. Because that's what it is. BULLSHIT.

[luckytxn 2,265]

Hopefully we have a Congress that realizes that agreeing to this is stupidity.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Oh thank goodness! Another meeting!