Sublimating climate change

Author: Sunita Narain
Dec 31, 2003

Surreal. This is how a newspaper described the just concluded meeting on climate change in Milan. Ministers and several hundred government officials gathered to fuss over the final details of a treaty they know may never come into force.

But even more surreal is what the negotiators spent their time fussing over. Their big achievement was a resolve to include -- by rule now -- genetically modified forests in the calculation for sinks (sinks are forests that sequester carbon from cars and power plants and other sources). Their issue was: could this 'soaking in' could be 'accounted' for in the carbon balance sheets each country is supposedly working on? Their deal was: each country can use its own laws to "evaluate the potential risks with the use of genetically modified organisms".

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Russia ambiguous on Kyoto

Author: Neelam Singh
Dec 31, 2003

With Russia blowing hot and cold on ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, the ninth conference of parties (COP-9) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was reduced to a near non-event. The meeting -- held in Milan, Italy, from December 1-12 and attended by over 5,000 participants -- ended with the world no wiser about Moscow's intentions. In fact, the confusion over the matter only increased


With Russia blowing hot and cold on ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, the ninth conference of parties (cop-9) to the un Framework Convention on Climate Change (unfccc) was reduced to a near non-event. The meeting -- held in Milan, Italy, from December 1-12 and attended by over 5000 participants -- ended with the world no wiser about Moscow's intentions. In fact, the confusion over the matter only increased.

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