Climate talks: UN forum extends Kyoto Protocol to 2020

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: BBC

Delegates at UN climate talks in Qatar have agreed to extend the Kyoto Protocol until 2020, avoiding a major new setback.

The deal, agreed by nearly 200 nations, keeps the protocol alive as the only legally binding plan for combating global warming.

However, it only covers developed nations whose share of world greenhouse gas emissions is less than 15%.

The US - a major polluter - has never ratified the original 1997 protocol.

The agreement had been due to expire later this year.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20653018

[Uncle Joe]

1. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, muriel_volestrangler.

[RobertEarl]

2. Never ratified?

Why haven't we ratified the Kyodo protocols meant to head-off climate change?

What the hell is wrong with us?

What Should Obama do?

[Hestia]

3. Obama now has the chance to sign it, and with a flourish, sticking it to big

lobbyists for coal, gas, and oil industries. Everyone knows that Kyoto is and will be the ultimate arbiter of global warming, but it does get the world on the same page to really discuss global warming. Look at Germany, 60% of power is clean energy. They paid for it with a surtax that guarantees, and pays for, to bring everyone over to renewable's. It was done in the middle of the night, with no discussion. Chris Hayes had a really good this a.m. about this conversation. (I just wish they would have on half as many commercials. I am sick of the conversation being cut off due to a sponsored break.)

[CRH]

5. Actually Obama can't ratify, needs a Senate vote.

[CRH]

4. Ratification failed in the Senate 98-0 in 1998. n/t

[Pterodactyl]

6. It's actually Clinton's and Gore's fault.

Clinton never delivered it to the senate for ratification and the senate passed a resolution saying it would not pass. Clinton failed to lead on this and Gore, as VP and president of the senate, failed, too. Now we're reaping what we have sown with super storms like Sandy and Bopha.