The United Nations has launched
the Decade on Biodiversity with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urging humanity to
live in harmony with nature and to preserve and properly manage its riches for
the prosperity of current and future generations.
decade of biodiversity It is now widely recognized that climate change and
biodiversity are interconnected. Biodiversity is affected by climate change,
with negative consequences for human well-being, but biodiversity, through the
ecosystem services it supports, also makes an important contribution to both
climate-change mitigation and adaptation.
After extended negotiations in Durban , the 194 parties to the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreed on a package of decisions, known as
the Durban Platform, which include the launch of a protocol or legal instrument
that would apply to all members, a second commitment period for the existing
Kyoto Protocol and the launch of the Green Climate Fund.
decade of biodiversity
The 194 countries negotiating here also agreed that such a universal plan must
be completed by 2015 at the latest. For the first time, all major
nations—developed and developing—have agreed to a roadmap that would combat
climate change reducing greenhouse gas emissions to control global warming that
would not come into effect before 2020.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed last week the conclusion decision; he was
gratified that countries reached decisions to implement the Cancun Agreements,
which were created at last year's conference in Mexico. The new measures include
setting up a Technology Mechanism that will promote access by developing
countries to clean, low-carbon technologies, and establishing an Adaptation
Committee that will coordinate adaptation activities on a global scale.
biodiversity
The European Union said the world’s three nations that pollute the most are the
biggest obstacles to setting a time line to a legally binding pact on global
warming and that it won’t “cave in” on its demands.
Currently, only industrial countries have legally binding emissions targets
under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Although those commitments expire next year, they
will be extended for another five years under the accord adopted — a key demand
by developing countries seeking to preserve the only existing treaty regulating
carbon emissions.
But environmentalists and representatives from smaller countries were
underwhelmed by the deal, saying the urgency of the problem of climate change
demanded a shorter time line for action. These people also said the deal could
be easily ignored by major economies responsible for mass emissions.
tuvalu
The United States never signed the Kyoto treaty because it did not accept its
division between developed and developing countries. Todd D. Stern, the chief
American climate negotiator, said he was hopeful that talks in coming years
would produce a more equitable arrangement.