Latest United Nations Climate Change Conference Stories

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online As a second week of climate talks begin at the Doha Summit in Qatar, the nearly 200 countries gathered there are no closer to a climate deal than when the last summit ended in Durban, South Africa in 2011. In fact, a rift that is continuing between wealthy nations and developing economies has led at least one country to back out of the talks altogether, saying it’s an outdated response to global warming. While New Zealand’s...

The structure and processes of United Nations climate negotiations are "antiquated", unfair and obstruct attempts to reach agreements, according to research published today. The findings come ahead of the 18th UN Climate Change Summit, which starts in Doha on November 26. The study, led by Dr Heike Schroeder from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, argues that the consensus-based decision making used by the United Nations Framework...

As the 2011 annual UN climate summit kicks off this week in Durban, South Africa, the EU and a coalition of smaller so-called 'climate-vulnerable’ island states are already up in arms over a number of political developments that they believe are unfavorable to global progress in fighting climate change. For starters, burgeoning economic powers India and Brazil have both joined the ranks of the wealthier nations in calling for a postponement of negotiations on a legally-binding deal until...

A global temperature increase of up to 4.2 º C and the end of coral reefs could become reality by 2100 if national targets are not revised in the Copenhagen Accord, the international pledge which was agreed at last year's Copenhagen's COP15 climate change conference.Just ahead of the next United Nations Climate Change Conference, which starts on October 4 in Tianjin, China, a new report published today, Wednesday, September 29, in IOP Publishing's Environmental Research Letters describes...

BONN, Germany, June 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is being issued by Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow: The climate talks are back, this time in Bonn, Germany, where the UN is having a tough time escaping the aftermath of its failed negotiations in Copenhagen. De Boer left with only a "muffin" "The three layers of the cake collapsed and we were left with a muffin" is how UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer described the Copenhagen talks. De Boer will be exiting his...

According to recent media reports, Costa Rica's Christiana Figueres is to be the new head of the U.N. climate convention. The U.N. is expected to confirm her taking over the position of the current chief Yvo de Boer later this week. Sources close to the U.N. told BBC that she emerged as the front-runner after an intervention from small island states. She is the daughter of former Costa Rican president Jose Figueres Ferrer, and has taken part in U.N. climate negotiations since 1995. She is a...

In an attempt to revive global talks on climate that were left in shambles after the UN summit in Copenhagen in December, three dozen plus environment ministers will meet near Bonn, Germany on Sunday. The meeting will be the highest-level political conference on climate since the Copenhagen summit which fell spectacularly short of reaching a global agreement on climate change. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Mexican President Felipe Calderon, hosts of the next UN conference at year's end...

The loose framework and "unambitious" carbon-cutting pledges of the Copenhagen accord means that the treaty will more than likely fail to reach its target of limiting global warming to just 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), claim Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) members.In an opinion piece published Wednesday in the online journal Nature, PIK researchers Joeri Rogelj, Malte Meinshausen, and their colleagues say that it is more likely that the average...

A meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) over the weekend once again highlighted the differences of opinions between nations that have been ongoing since the December 2009 Copenhagen conference.The meeting, which was held in Bonn, Germany and lasted from Friday through early Monday morning, saw countries squabbling over minor policy issues, such as negotiation methods for future conferences and how to recognize and incorporate the last-minute deal that came out of...

Countries are gathering this week to restore faith in the U.N. process for combating climate change after the bitter memories of the Copenhagen summit. Negotiators plan to meet in Bonn from Friday to Sunday for the first official talks under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) since the Copenhagen summit. Their first task will be to see what place climate change now has on the world political agenda. Disappointment or disillusion swept many capitals when 120 heads of...