The first post-Kyoto negotiations

Press release - Monday, 31 March 2008, at 11:03 am

Climate: The first post-Kyoto talks begin.

The first round of official negotiations for a post-Kyoto agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions began in Bangkok this morning. "The world awaits a solution that is long-term and economically practicable," the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon warned in a video message to a thousand delegates from 163 countries, signatories to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (CNUCC). The objective of the five day negotiation is to mitigate the differences at the Conference in Bali last December that prevented agreement for laying the foundations for a new global protocol by next year. The Kyoto Protocol, signed by 37 countries (and not by the USA), expires in 2012. There is disagreement, however, about a possible new understanding among the major emerging economies such as China and India.

Two notes aside.
Firstly, we learn that the Conference in Bali in December 2007 failed, despite the widely proclaimed last-minute agreement and the wide smiles of all our politicians.
Secondly, I have not seen great attention from the newspapers to this story. Perhaps it is not interesting.
Who knows if they will al least tell us how it ends?

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)