The international climate conference in Nairobi just wrapped up, and it sounds like it was a bit of a yawn. As expected, no exciting progress or big future plans.
Of course, progress is in the eye of the beholder, as we see in three different articles from MSM sources:
Alister Doyle and Gerard Wynn for Reuters:
U.N. climate talks keep Kyoto on track, but scant progress
Environment Ministers kept plans for widening a U.N.-led fight against global warming beyond 2012 on track on Friday amid criticism of scant progress in aiding Africa and confronting wrenching climate change.
After two weeks of negotiations in Nairobi, about 70 ministers agreed to review Kyoto in 2008 in what many see as a prelude to widening a 35-industrial nation pact to outsiders such as China and India in the longer term.
It also agreed to aid Africa obtain funds for clean energies such as wind and hydro power. But delegates had mixed views on the outcome of the talks.
Charles J. Hanley for the Associated Press:
Climate conference agrees on next steps
More than 180 nations at the U.N. climate conference agreed Friday on the next steps toward negotiating deeper future cuts in global-warming gases, after conceding to China that developing nations won’t be pressed immediately to reduce emissions.
This annual session had been planned as a procedural meeting, more than a substantive one. But the slow pace in the face of mounting evidence of climate change disappointed environmentalists and others.
Andrew Revkin for The New York Times:
Climate Change Meeting Ends Without Pact
Two weeks of international talks aimed at avoiding dangerous human influence on the earth’s climate ended tonight in Nairobi without setting a firm timetable for one of the principal objectives of the talks: establishing long-term targets for reductions in heat-trapping gases that are linked to rising global temperatures.
