Green agenda

MONTREAL – Environment ministers from around the world began a three-day meeting here yesterday on tackling the escalating peril of climate change.

The conference gathers ministers or their stand-ins from 189 countries and entities under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the fruit of the 1992 Rio Summit. The meeting’s big focus is the future of the Kyoto Protocol, the troubled UN pact on curbing greenhouse gases.Emissions of this carbon pollution have surged in the past century thanks to unbridled use of oil, gas and coal.Scientists say there is mounting evidence that the first effects of climate change are already kicking in, with the melting of Alpine and Himalayan glaciers and erosion of Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets.The United States, the world’s number one carbon polluter, walked away from Kyoto in 2001, saying its legal requirements for reducing emissions were too costly.- Nampa-AFPThe meeting’s big focus is the future of the Kyoto Protocol, the troubled UN pact on curbing greenhouse gases.Emissions of this carbon pollution have surged in the past century thanks to unbridled use of oil, gas and coal.Scientists say there is mounting evidence that the first effects of climate change are already kicking in, with the melting of Alpine and Himalayan glaciers and erosion of Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets.The United States, the world’s number one carbon polluter, walked away from Kyoto in 2001, saying its legal requirements for reducing emissions were too costly.- Nampa-AFP