September 26, 2007—A round of international climate change talks held recently in Vienna, Austria, concluded with an agreement on the rough framework needed to stabilize the concentration of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere at safe levels, according to a report from the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).
The talks, held under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), led to the official recognition that global emissions of greenhouse gases need to peak in the next 10 to 15 years and must then be reduced to very low levels, as indicated by recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
According to the official report from the talks, avoiding the most catastrophic events forecast by the IPCC would entail emissions reductions by industrialized countries in the range of 25% to 40% below 1990 levels. Because of the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism, which gives industrialized countries credit for financing emission-reducing projects in developing countries, such an emissions goal in industrialized countries could ultimately spur efforts to cut emissions in developing countries, as well.
Climate change was also a topic of discussion at the leaders meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), which President Bush participated in recently. President Bush announced in late May that the US will work with other nations to establish a new framework on greenhouse gas emissions for when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
