Climate Change Sumit opens in Bali

Governments from around the world meet up this week to discuss the issue of climate change and how to reduce carbon emissions.  The two-week meeting in Bali will also debate how to help poor nations cope in a warming world.

It is the first such meeting since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gave warning that current evidence for global warming was “unequivocal”.  The annual meeting, organised by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is under pressure to deliver a new global agreement on how to cut rising greenhouse gas emissions. 

The Indonesian environment minister, Rachmat Witoelar, who has been named president of the conference, pledged to do his best to deliver a new deal.  Mr Witoelar said: 

“Climate protection must form an integral part of sustainable economic development, and it is critical that we act and we act now,”

At the top of the agenda is the need to reach a consensus on how to reduce emissions beyond 2012, which is when the current phase of the Kyoto Protocol ends.  The Kyoto Protocol commits industrialised nations to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by an average of about 5% from levels measured in 1990.