UN Leaders Hasten Global Warming Deal

On Tuesday, Yvo de Boer, the climate chief at the United Nations, warned that time was running out for governments and national authorities to come up with new and sustainable methods of reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. He said that, with just 265 days left until this December's Copenhagen international summit, the underlying issues causing climate change and low degrees of cooperation between states were still there, despite the UN's best efforts.

De Boer also underlined the importance of this year's meeting, after the Poznan conference, held last December in Poznan, Poland, failed miserably, with no concrete decisions. The high-ranking official also denounced the European Union finance ministers' meeting that took place last week, which was supposed to decide how Europe could contribute money to helping developing countries reduce their impact on the environment and to protect the rain forests.

The European ministers came to no positive conclusion, but rather decided on a number of conditions they wanted to impose on third-world countries, if the latter were to receive any help at all. This way of action directly contradicts the promises that the ministers made at the beginning of the two-year climate negotiations, which began in Bali, in 2007. At the time, they recognized the importance of developed countries assisting their lesser neighbors with money and technology.

“Countries have not come forward with specific proposals on how aspects of the Copenhagen agreement can work in practice. I'm not concerned by the mood, about willingness to get the job done, I'm concerned by the amount of time that's left to get the work done,” de Boer recently told Reuters at a carbon-trading conference in Copenhagen.

It remains to be seen what kind of stance top European leaders will take at next week's meeting in Brussels, but de Boer made it abundantly clear that action was required immediately, if the Kyoto Protocol, which would expire in 2012, was to be replaced by a feasible, applicable document.