UN-sponsored Bangkok Climate Change Talks Start Monday

[george]

UN-sponsored Bangkok climate change talks start Monday

BANGKOK: -- More than 1,000 senior environment officials from 190 countries worldwide will participate in a UN-sponsored global climate change negotiations here next week, a senior Thai Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment official said.

Kasemsun Chinnavaso, secretary-general of Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning, said a five-day session of the 'Bangkok Climate Change Talks' begins Monday at the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

Next week's talks will carry forward a set of decisions called the 'Bali Roadmap' which were adopted at the UN Climate Change Conference held in the Indonesian island of Bali last December.

On the other hand, talks on further commitments for Kyoto Protocol Parties will include considering the possible tools available to industrialised countries to reach future emission reductions.

The two processes are set to culminate in a strengthened and effective international climate change deal, to be clinched at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in 2009.

"Thailand will host the upcoming talks after it has relentlessly taken actions on global warming in the past and they've been recognized globally," Dr. Kasemsun said, adding that the country's attempts were made even though Thailand is not among countries which need to reduce emissions.

Currently, the private sector in Thailand has been able to reduce emissions by about 1.2 million tons, he added.

--TNA 2008-03-29

[Khun Jean]

And some 'inconvenient ' facts to balance this GW craze.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...99-7583,00.html

Edited March 29, 2008 by Khun Jean

[george]

160 nations convene in Bangkok to battle global warming

BANGKOK: -- Climate kingpins, negotiators who have been given the tough task of dealing with controlling global warming without harming either the world economy or national economies met Monday at the UN's Asian regional headquarters to once again deal with the climate crisis.

163 countries are having their first five-day talks in Bangkok since agreeing in Bali in December to agree a pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which runs out in 2012.

The deadline for reaching a new accord is at the end of 2009. Although developed and developing countries, including the United States, agree emissions need to be reduced, they are divided on how to go about it.

Thailand's deputy prime minister Sahas Banditkul urged all nations to find common ground to protect the earth.

At a time when many countries are alarmed at their sagging economic performance and the prospects of abrupt negative challenges on the world stage, representatives from 163 nations have joined the top-level UN-convened meeting to deal with the hot political topic of global warning.

"For many of us in the Asia Pacific, climate change is no longer a distant threat," Noeleen Heyzer, Under

Secretary United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), told assembled delegates at the opening ceremony.

"It is a reality and a sign of what lies ahead. For many of our Pacific island states, it is a looming question

of their survival or extinction."

But time is running out for every country when global warming threatens rising seas that will inundate scare agricultural lands.

Floods and worsening storm are, according to scientists, almost certain to become more severe and extensive by mid-century if countries do not act to renew and follow-through with Kyoto Protocol of 1997.

--TNA 2008-03-31