- In typical international climate summit fashion, the COP18 meetings ended in a last–minute marathon session complete with frustration, accusation, acrimony and a halting step forward in what is called the "Doha Climate Gateway" agreement
- The agreement contains an 8-year extension of the Kyoto Protocol until 2020 limited in scope to only 15% of the global carbon dioxide emissions due to the lack of participation of Canada, Japan, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, New Zealand and the United States and due to the fact that developing countries like China (the world's largest emitter), India and Brazil are not subject to any emissions reductions under the Kyoto Protocol
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Ultimately steps were taken with the hope that by 2015, only 3 years hence, a global agreement can be forged
Doha, Dec. 14.─ The 2012 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP18) wrapped up last week. Negotiations ran a day overschedule, but concluded with an agreement on the "Doha Climate Gateway". According to information published by the conference website, the deal marks the beginning of discussion on a universal, legally-binding international agreement on greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions. COP18 materials specify that such an agreement could be ratified as soon as 2015, and come into force by 2020. A primary goal of the initiatives is to restrict climate increase to less than 2 degrees Celsius.
The agreement is essentially a bridge between the original Kyoto Protocol, which was established in 1997 set to expire this year, and the next protocol, which was addressed last year and expected to be signed in 2015. With the agreement, the Kyoto Protocol has been amended to continue past the end of the year.
"The UN Climate Change negotiations must now focus on the concrete ways and means to accelerate action and ambition. The world has the money and technology to stay below two degrees. After Doha, it is a matter of scale, speed, determination and sticking to the timetable," said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change ...
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