UN says climate finale may have happy ending

[TomCADem]

Source: Associated Press

COPENHAGEN – Delegates converged Sunday for the grand finale of two years of tough, sometimes bitter negotiations on a climate change treaty, as U.N. officials calculated that pledges offered in the last few weeks to reduce greenhouse gases put the world within reach of keeping global warming under control.

Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s top climate official, said on the eve of the 192-nation conference that despite unprecedented unity and concessions, industrial countries and emerging nations need to dig deeper.

***

South Africa on Sunday became the latest country to announce an emissions target. It said over the next 10 years it would reduce emissions by 34 percent from "business as usual," the level they would reach under ordinary circumstances. By 2025 that figure would peak at 42 percent, effectively leveling off and thereafter begin to decline. "This makes South Africa one of the stars of the negotiations," said the environmental group Greenpeace.

President Barack Obama's decision to attend the conclusion of the two-week conference, after phone consultations with other heads of state, was taken as a signal that an agreement was getting closer. He originally planned to make an hourslong stop in the Danish capital this week.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/climate

[Javaman]

1. Whew! that was close, we're saved now!!

:eyes:

[JonQ]

2. So if they're getting the "happy ending"

what does that make the rest of us?

[unabelladonna]

3. we're getting screwed.

....

[lapfog_1]

4. They are finally reacting to the offer made by the Copenhagen Prostitutes. - n/t

[boppers]

5. They're done "massaging" the targets and treaties, then?

Is this for an extra tip?

:evilgrin: