International climate talks continue, but its is the action (or lack thereof) that humanity needs to worry about.
“By ignoring the need to prevent a breach of the 2C tipping point, the point beyond which scientists are unable to predict the sheer scale of [climate] impacts… Paris will go down in infamy as the scene of a modern day crime against humanity.” — Asad Rehman, Friends of the Earth
As representatives from nearly all the world’s nations meet in Bonn, Germany this week with the aim of building a framework for a final deal that can be signed at the UN climate summit in Paris later this year, voices from the least developed countries and members of civil society are warning that the major powers are still offering far too little in the way of meaningful action.
According to the sharpest critics of the largest polluting nations—which includes the U.S., Canada, China, and the European Union—a continued failure to make bold and enforceable reductions of greenhouse gas emissions should be considered nothing less than a “crime against humanity.”
As observers describe progress at the talks in Bonn as moving at a snail’s pace, the attempt to forge a meaningful agreement for Paris appears to be slipping quickly through the fingers of world leaders.
As the Guardian reports on Sunday: