We don't have the luxury of wasting dollars, euros and yen on fighting against climate change. Failure to compromise could dash hopes of implementing the Kyoto agreement, aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions by over five percent from 1990 levels by 2008-2012. While 180 nations signed the protocol, only 30 have so far ratified it. We need to make hard decisions. Although the Kyoto deal committed the world's industrialized nations to cut damaging emissions, the rules on how this can be achieved need to be hammered out in The Hague.
Temperatures rising Some experts say time is running out.
The weight of the evidence is that we humans are at least partially responsible for climate change. Sea levels are expected to rise 20 inches by 2100, threatening 200 million people who live in coastal areas of China, Southeast Asia and Africa alone, Watson said. Tuesday small groups of government negotiators will start to wade through the Kyoto agreement's technical aspects. Up for discussion in the coming days are how to ensure countries comply with their commitments and rules on so-called flexible mechanisms, which were designed to offer states a number of ways to reach their emission cut targets without actually trimming their output. Another is joint implementation, under which credits for emissions targets are shared by developing states and the rich countries that helped them achieve the goals either by investment or technology transfers.