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Devil in the Details: World Leaders Scramble To Salvage and Shape Copenhagens UNFCCC Climate Summit

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At issue is the 2012 expiration of the Kyoto Protocol, a binding but effectively unenforceable 1997 treaty that had set greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets for 40 industrialized countries, referred to as Annex 1 countries, yielding an average GHG reduction of 5.2% ” —Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed.

Climate 236
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Perspective: Why Carbon Emissions Should Not Have Been the Focus of the UN Climate Change Summit and Why the 15th Conference of the Parties Should Have Focused on Technology Transfer

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Island states like the Maldives and Grenada argue that a 2 °C target, which is considered by many scientists to be the safe upper limit for warming, will still result in a high enough sea-level rise to wipe them from existence. References. Many of these difficulties are due to the particular nature of knowledge as an economic good.