Climate talks focus on lesser goals

摘要

The ivory-coloured beaches of Cancun promise tourists a chance to forget their worries. But there is no such assurance for the international negotiators who will flock to the Mexican resort next week to attend the sixteenth gathering of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. One year after the near-collapse of climate talks in Copenhagen, participants will be hard-pressed to map a viable path forward. Global climate negotiations began in 1992 at the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and led to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, in which industrialized countries agreed to curb their emissions. But the protocol was intended as a first step, and countries have been struggling to agree on a follow-up treaty ever since. Jairam Ramesh, India's environment minister, says that Cancun is the "last chance" for such talks.