World leaders are preparing for the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference, being held in Copenhagen, Denmark, from Dec. 7-18. Initially, they’d hoped to establish a new global agreement addressing climate change, one that would update the Kyoto Protocol reached in 1997 and expiring in 2012. But earlier this month, the decision was made to postpone such an agreement. Instead, leaders will attempt to “reach a less specific ‘politically binding’ agreement that would punt the most difficult issues into the future,” Helene Cooper writes for The New York Times.
According to WWF, a group of non-governmental organizations came together to prepare a treaty spelling out how to thwart climate change. The 160-page document, called the Copenhagen Climate Treaty, was completed in June 2009 after nearly a year of work. It has been “distributed to negotiators from 192 states,” and shows “balanced and credible climate solutions based on equity and science,” according to Kim Carstensen of WWF International. The treaty was reworked “into a concise paper called the Real Deal for Copenhagen” in October. Both documents can be downloaded at the WWF Web site.
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