• Splits between rich, poor nations persist as climate talks open in Doha

    By The Associated Press

    DOHA, Qatar -- U.N. talks on a new climate pact resumed Monday in oil and gas-rich Qatar, where negotiators from nearly 200 countries will discuss fighting global warming and helping poor nations adapt to it.

    The two-decade-old talks have not fulfilled their main purpose: reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are warming the planet.

    Attempts to create a new climate treaty failed in Copenhagen three years ago but countries agreed last year to try again, giving themselves a deadline of 2015 to adopt a new treaty.

    A host of issues need to be resolved by then, including how to spread the burden of emissions cuts between rich and poor countries.

    Focus on Kyoto Protocol, raising money
    That is unlikely to be decided in the two-week talks in the Qatari capital of Doha, where negotiators will focus on extending the Kyoto Protocol, an emissions deal for industrialized countries, and trying to raise billions of dollars to help developing countries adapt to a shifting climate.

    EPA

    South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana Mashabane speaks during the opening of the climate talks in Doha, Qatar, on Monday.

    Activists hope storm-struck US will deliver at Doha climate talks

    "We all realize why we are here, why we keep coming back year and after year," said South Africa Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, who led last year's talks in Durban, South Africa. "We owe it to our people, the global citizenry. We owe it to our children to give them a safer future than what they are currently facing."

    The U.N. process is often criticized, even ridiculed, both by climate activists who say the talks are too slow, and by those who challenge the scientific near-consensus that the global temperature rise is at least partly caused by human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil.

    The concentration of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide has jumped 20 percent since 2000, according to a U.N. report released last week. The report also showed that there is a growing gap between what governments are doing to curb emissions and what needs to be done to protect the world from potentially dangerous levels of warming.

    The goal of the U.N. talks is to keep the global temperature rise under 3.6 F, compared to pre-industrial times.

    Slideshow: Rising ocean levels threaten Maldives

    The Maldives, the lowest-lying nation on Earth, is at risk of disappearing from the world map, scientists say.

    Launch slideshow

    Obama: 'I won't go' for climate action that hurts jobs, growth

    The threat 'today'
    But efforts taken so far to rein in emissions, reduce deforestation and promote clean technology are not getting the job done. A recent projection by the World Bank showed temperatures are expected to increase by up to 7.2 F by 2100.


    "Climate change is no longer some distant threat for the future, but is with us today," said Greenpeace climate campaigner Martin Kaiser, who was also at the Doha talks. "At the end of a year that has seen the impacts of climate change devastate homes and families around the world, the need for action is obvious and urgent."

    Dangerous warming effects could include flooding of coastal cities and island nations, disruptions to agriculture and drinking water, the spread of diseases and the extinction of species.

    Many scientists also say that extreme weather events, such as Hurricane Sandy's onslaught on the U.S. East Coast, will become more frequent as the Earth warms, although it is impossible to attribute any individual event to climate change.

    The Kyoto Protocol, adopted in 1997, is the most important climate agreement reached in the U.N. process so far. It expires this year, so negotiators in Doha will try to extend it as a stopgap measure until a wider deal can be reached.

    Ex-climate change skeptic: Humans cause global warming

    For thousands of years, permafrost has trapped Siberia's carbon-rich soil, a compost of Ice Age plant and animal remains. But global warming is melting the permafrost and exposing the soil, causing highly flammable methane to seep out. NBC's Jim Maceda reports.

    Divisions
    The problem is that only the European Union and a handful of other countries -- that together are behind less than 15 percent of global emissions -- are willing to put down emissions targets for a second commitment period of Kyoto.

    The United States rejected Kyoto because it did not impose any binding commitments on major developing countries such as India and China, which is now the world's No. 1 carbon emitter.

    Climate-changing methane 'rapidly destabilizing' off East Coast, study finds

    The United States and other Western countries insist that the firewall in the climate talks between developing and developed countries must be removed so that the new treaty can apply to all nations.

    China and other developing countries want to maintain a clear division, saying climate change is mainly a legacy of Western industrialization and that their own emissions must be allowed to grow as their economies expand, lifting millions of people out of poverty.

    Slideshow: Greenland’s shrinking ice hurts native tribe

    The Inuit, who survived for centuries by hunting seals and whales, are watching their way of life disappear.

    Launch slideshow

    Complete Environment coverage on NBCNews.com

    That discord scuttled attempts to forge a climate deal in Copenhagen in 2009 and risks a relapse in Doha as talks begin on a new global deal that is supposed to be adopted in 2015 and implemented in 2020.

    The rich-poor divide is also deepened by arguments over climate aid meant to help developing countries convert to cleaner energy sources and adapt their infrastructure to rising sea levels and other effects of global warming.

    More world stories from NBC News:

    Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

     

    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Canada 'preposterous' for quitting Kyoto climate deal, China says

    By msnbc.com news services

    BEIJING - China's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday Canada's decision to quit the Kyoto treaty on greenhouse gas emissions was "regrettable" and called on the country to continue abiding by its commitments on climate change.

    On Monday, Canada became the first country to announce it would withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol. Canada, a major energy producer, has long complained that the agreement is unworkable because it excludes many significant emitters from binding action.

    The United Nations climate conference reached an agreement Sunday on a new program that was meant to set a new course for the global fight against climate change in the coming decades.

    China, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases from human activity, has long insisted the Kyoto Protocol remain a foundation of international efforts to curb these emissions causing global warming.

    "It is regrettable and flies in the face of the efforts of the international community for Canada to leave the Kyoto Protocol at a time when the Durban meeting, as everyone knows, made important progress by securing a second phase of commitment to the Protocol," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said at a news briefing.

    "We also hope that Canada will face up to its due responsibilities and duties, and continue abiding by its commitments, and take a positive, constructive attitude towards participating in international cooperation to respond to climate change."

    China's state news agency, Xinhua, denounced Canada's decision.

    "Canada's so-called reason for dropping out of the agreement is preposterous and completely an excuse to shirk responsibility," Xinhua said.

    The commentary urged Canada to "retract its decision and return to the Kyoto Protocol, so that it can make positive contribution to the cause of global emissions reductions."

    Legally binding emissions reductions
    At recently concluded climate change negotiations in Durban, South Africa, China won an extension of the protocol until 2017, but also bowed to pressure to launch later talks for a new pact that would legally oblige all the big emitters to take action.

    Under Kyoto, poorer countries including China, take voluntary, non-binding steps to curb the growth of emissions while they focus on economic development, and rich nations must sign up to quantitative cuts in emissions.

    The United States has refused to join the protocol and argued that China and other big emerging emitters should come under a legally binding framework that does away with the either-or distinction between advanced and developing countries.

    In the past century, as the climate has warmed, sea level rise has accelerated. Scientists predict it will only increase, and they're studying changes in the ocean and land to better understand how and why the water is rising. NBC's Anne Thompson reports for "Changing Planet," produced by NBC Learn in partnership with the National Science Foundation.

    The protocol, initially adopted in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, is aimed at fighting global warming. Canada's previous Liberal government signed the accord but did little to implement it and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government never embraced it.

    "The Kyoto Protocol does not cover the world's largest two emitters, United States and China, and therefore cannot work," Kent said on Monday. "It's now clear that Kyoto is not the path forward to a global solution to climate change. If anything it's an impediment."

    Canada's exit no surprise
    Monday's announcement was not a surprise. Canada faced international criticism at the recent climate talks in South Africa amid reports it would pull out of Kyoto. Kent had said previously that signing the Kyoto Protocol on climate change was one of the previous government's biggest blunders.

    The accord requires countries to give a year's notice to withdraw. Kent said the move saves Canada $14 billion in penalties for not achieving its Kyoto targets.

    "To meet the targets under Kyoto for 2012 would be the equivalent of either removing every car, truck, ATV, tractor, ambulance, police car and vehicle of every kind from Canadian roads or closing down the entire farming and agriculture sector and cutting heat to every home, office, hospital, factory and building in Canada," Kent said.

    Harper's Conservative government is reluctant to hurt Canada's booming oil sands sector, which is the country's fastest growing source of greenhouse gases and a reason it has reneged on its Kyoto commitments.

    Canada has the world's third-largest oil reserves, more than 170 billion barrels. Daily production of 1.5 million barrels from the oil sands is expected to increase to 3.7 million in 2025. Only Saudi Arabia and Venezuela have more reserves. But critics say the enormous amount of energy and water needed in the extraction process increases greenhouse gas emissions.

    Abdication of responsibility?
    Kent's announcement drew immediate criticism from environmental groups. Mike Hudema of Greenpeace Canada said in a statement that it is further signal that the Harper government is more concerned about protecting polluters than people.

    Hannah McKinnon of the Climate Action Network Canada said formally withdrawing from Kyoto after the Durban, South Africa conference is a slap in the face of the international community.

    The world's glaciers are shrinking at alarming rates. Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University and Douglas Hardy of UMass-Amherst discuss glaciers and how they melt, and pay special attention to Africa's tallest mountain, Mt. Kilimanjaro. NBC's Anne Thompson reports for "Changing Planet," produced by NBC Learn in partnership with the National Science Foundation.

    "It's a total abdication of our responsibilities," McKinnon said.

    Opposition New Democrat lawmaker Megan Leslie disputed the dollar figures involved and said there are no penalties under Kyoto. Leslie said pulling out saves the Conservatives from having to report that Canada is falling short of its Kyoto targets.

    "It's like we're the kid in school who knows they're gonna fail the class, so we have to drop it before that actually happens," Leslie said.

    Scientists say that if levels of greenhouse gases continue to rise, eventually the world's climate will reach a tipping point, with irreversible melting of some ice sheets and a several-foot rise in sea levels.

    They cannot pinpoint exactly when that would happen, but the two-decade-long climate negotiations have been focused on preventing global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit above current levels by the end of this century.

    The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

    Read more content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

  • US, China, India blamed for climate talks impasse

    Nic Bothma / EPA

    Delegates attend the High Level Segment of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, Thursday.

    By msnbc.com news services

    Updated: 2:55 p.m. ET

    DURBAN, South Africa -- Developing states most at risk from global warming rebelled against a proposed deal at U.N. climate talks Friday, forcing host South Africa to draw up new draft documents in a bid to prevent the talks from collapsing.

    South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane suspended the talks in Durban after a coalition of island nations, developing states and the European Union complained the current draft lacked ambition, sources said.

    "There was a strong appeal from developing countries, saying the commitments in the proposed texts were not enough, both under the Kyoto Protocol and for other countries," said Norway's Climate Change Minister Erik Solheim.

    Canada's Environment Minister Peter Kent told Reuters there was "serious negotiating to do" if the conference was to wrap up as planned Friday.

    Updated: 12 p.m. ET

    DURBAN, South Africa -- The United States, China and India could scuttle attempts to save the Kyoto climate treaty, Europe's top negotiator said Friday.

    "Durban is holding its breath: Will China, India and the U.S. accept to be legally bound?" asked EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard as a Friday deadline neared.

    Both China and the U.S. have said they would be amenable to the EU proposal to negotiate a post-2020 agreement, but each attached riders that appeared to hobble prospects for unanimous acceptance. India, which lags behind China in development even though its economy is expanding rapidly, was taking "a relatively tough stand here," Hedegaard said.

    The United States, whose Congress is generally seen as hostile on the climate issue, is concerned about conceding any competitive business advantage to China. Beijing, too, is resisting the notion that it has become a developed country on par with the U.S. or Europe, saying it still has hundreds of millions of impoverished people.

    Under Kyoto, rich countries are legally bound to reduce carbon emissions while developing countries take voluntary actions.

    Updated: 5 a.m. ET

    DURBAN, South Africa -- Rich and poor nations at climate change talks are lining up behind a European Union plan for achieving a global pact on cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2015, but delegates said time was running out to reach a deal before talks end on Friday.

    Ministers made incremental progress overnight toward a deal that many envoys see as being a political agreement, with states promising to start talks on a new regime of binding cuts in the gases blamed for global warming and environmental devastation.

    They say that anything less would mean the two-week-long, United Nations negotiations in the South African city of Durban were a disaster, Reuters reported.

    "Time in Durban is now really short," EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard told reporters after talks that stretched into the early hours of Friday morning.

    Amy Goodman of Democracy Now joins "Up" live from the United Nation's Convention on Climate Change in Durban, South Africa

    "The success or failure of Durban hangs on a small number of countries who have not yet committed to the (EU) roadmap and the meaningful content it must have. We need to get them on board today. We do not have too many hours left," she said.

    The slow pace of dealing with the problem is dispiriting delegates from small islands on the edge of survival, and from activists impatient with the familiar posturing of climate negotiations.

    "Waiting is going to be a disaster for us," said Samuela Alivereti Saumatua, Fiji's environment minister, who said the Pacific island this month relocated its first coastal village because of climate-related flooding and unseasonable cyclones.

    "We have cyclones now at any time of the year. We have flash floods in the coastal areas. Water supply is being salinated. Food security is going to be a problem. We are desperately looking at how we will deal with the situation," he told reporters.

    'Got to decide'
    The EU plan envisages a new deal reached by 2015, and put into effect by 2020, imposing binding cuts on the world's biggest emitters of the heat-trapping gases.

    "We're reaching the point where a number of delegations have got to decide whether they want to get a treaty with real environmental integrity," Britain's climate envoy Chris Huhne told reporters.

    "It's increasingly clear that the EU is speaking for the vast majority of participants," Huhne said.

    Two major issues for the negotiators from nearly 200 countries are finding a way of updating the Kyoto Protocol, the only global pact that enforces carbon cuts, and raising funding needed to help poor countries tackle climate change.

    Key to any greenhouse gas deal will be China, the United States, India and Brazil -- the world's largest emitters which are not bound by the cuts regime in the Kyoto Protocol.

    Three U.N. reports released in the last month show time is running out to achieve change. They show a warming planet will amplify droughts and floods, increase crop failures and raise sea levels to the point where several island states are threatened with extinction.

    South African President Jacob Zuma has said Durban will be a failure if a Green Climate Fund, designed to help poor nations tackle global warming and nudge them toward a new global effort to fight climate change, is not put into force.

    A group of 48 of the least developed countries has said it backs the European plan for a firm timetable, joining 43 small island states. Japan has said it shares "common ground" with Europe while Canada and several other developed countries have shown their support.

    US student thrown out
    The EU, Japan and others have said that any deal that does not include all major players would not nearly be enough to head off a global problem.

    The United States has said it will make its emissions cuts binding under an international agreement only if China and other developing countries that are big polluters back their commitments with equal legal force.

    If the discussions hold to form, envoys will extend discussions and release their decisions on Saturday.

    An American college student was ejected from the conference Thursday after disrupting a speech by U.S. delegate Todd Stern. Police escorted the student, Abigail Borah, 21, from the cavernous plenary of the conference as delegates applauded her removal.

    Before she was seized, Borah began reading a speech accusing the U.S. of stonewalling an agreement, but Stern denied that.

    The world's glaciers are shrinking at alarming rates. Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University and Douglas Hardy of UMass-Amherst discuss glaciers and how they melt, and pay special attention to Africa's tallest mountain, Mt. Kilimanjaro. NBC's Anne Thompson reports for "Changing Planet," produced by NBC Learn in partnership with the National Science Foundation.

    "I've heard this from everywhere from ministers to press reports to the very sincere and passionate young woman who was in the hall when I was giving my remarks. I just wanted to be on the record as saying that, that's just a mistake. It is not true," he told reporters later.

    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Read more content from msnbc.com and NBC News: