WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When President Barack Obama and India's prime minister meet next week to talk about climate change the leaders will focus on green technologies rather than narrowing the global divide on greenhouse gas emissions goals, the chairman of the U.N.'s climate science panel said. Rajendra Pachauri said the gap between the United States and India on how to battle climate change has grown over the last six months in the lead up to the U.N. climate meeting in Copenhagen in December. "I doubt if there would be much of a productive dialogue on what the two countries will do at Copenhagen," Pachauri ...
Read Full Story
BERLIN (Reuters) - World leaders cannot afford to leave a U.N. summit in Copenhagen next month without a robust agreement to fight climate change, German government climate adviser Hans Joachim Schellnhuber said Friday. Schellnhuber, head of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said he was convinced the 200 world leaders going to Copenhagen for the summit would be able to thrash out a deal -- possibly with the help of alcohol. "They can't afford to go back home without an agreement," Schellnhuber, an adviser on climate issues to Chancellor Angela Merkel, told a news conference in Berlin, ahead of the December 7-18 talks ...
Read Full Story
GENEVA (Reuters) - Somalia has announced it plans to ratify a global treaty aimed at protecting children, leaving the United States as the only country outside the pact, UNICEF said Friday. Somalia and the United States have long been the last hold-outs to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly exactly 20 years ago. The most widely ratified international human rights treaty, it declares that those under 18 years old must be protected from violence, exploitation, discrimination and neglect. "Adherence to and application of the Convention will be of crucial importance for the children of Somalia, ...
Read Full Story
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. environmental chief called on rich nations on Thursday to pledge $10 billion a year for three years at next month's Copenhagen summit to help poor states begin to tackle the impact of climate change. Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told a news conference that was a short-term figure and that in 10 or 20 years hundreds of billions of dollars would be needed annually to cope with global warming. The December 7-18 meeting in Copenhagen had long been billed as the time when a new treaty to cap greenhouse gas emissions would be ...
Read Full Story
LONDON (Reuters Life!) - An epilepsy sufferer has courted controversy in Britain by creating a public performance in which she will attempt to bring on a seizure and allow the audience to film it on their mobile phones. Rita Marcalo, who suffers around two seizures a year even on medication, has stopped taking treatment ahead of next month's production of "Involuntary Dances," which she claims is to raise awareness of epilepsy, the Telegraph newspaper reported. But Marcalo, who directs a dance theater company, is facing criticism for putting herself at risk and for the voyeuristic nature of the 24-hour event which is being funded ...
Read Full Story
