Climate talks heat up in Bali, focus on Kyoto Protocol replacement

Dec.3.- For the next two weeks, diplomats will be meeting in Bali, Indonesia to try to decide what the next steps in tacking climate change should look like. With 192 nations taking part in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and a host of related issues to deal with, no major breakthroughs are expected to be announced …

There are two major reasons to start the negotiations now. The first is the impending demise of the Kyoto Protocol, set to expire in 2012. Kyoto set carbon emissions limits on a few dozen nations that represented the industrialized, developed world. With yesterday's ratification by the newly-seated Australian government, the US has become the only member of that group that has not accepted the Protocol on paper …

The second reason to act now is that momentum for change has built behind the release of the 2007 report from the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Due to the continued accumulation of information regarding the climate, this year's report was unusually blunt, terming the evidence for human-driven change "unequivocal." It was also the first time the report considered possibilities beyond the high-probability consequences, which were an already disturbing 1.8-4.0° C (3.2-7.2° F) change, with rising, acidified oceans.
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China has consistently suggested that its highest priority is ensuring that nothing inhibits its industrial growth …

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