Push for new climate change agreement

There was worldwide gloom following the Copenhagen conference in December which failed to reach agreement on a new global climate treaty. The eventual Accord fell well short of many expectations. As recently as February, many experts believed that it would be almost impossible to come up with a solution — and new treaty — this year. And the recent controversy about some of the climate change data and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has done little to improve the mood. " There has been a lot of talking about climate change. It's an area under strict scrutiny, " said Rajendra Pachauri, head of the IPCC panel of experts and at the heart of the controversy about some of their data, at the annual meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank. " We at the IPCC, we've listened, we've learnt, we've done something about it. " And the wider mood now appears to be changing. The UK stated a new flexibility — its possible support for a new twin-track climate deal was announced last month to help end the deadlock. This is a key demand from developing countries and championed by China. In a policy turnabout, instead of seeking a single comprehensive new global agreement, the climate and energy secretary, Ed Miliband, announced that the government would agree to an extension of the current international climate treaty — the Kyoto protocol — which, since its agreement, puts the onus on developed countries to cut their emissions, exempting developing countries from similar levels of action. As the developed world is responsible for most of the increased greenhouse gas emissions, the developing countries thought this was fair. Britain is no longer now seeking a comprehensive agreement and would accept a renewed Kyoto protocol, Miliband said, alongside the entirely new, legally binding global agreement it had been pursuing. In effect there could be two separate international climate treaties, covering emission cuts in different countries. The move is likely to put pressure on China, now the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, which blocked agreement at Copenhagen and may now come under pressure to join a News focus comprehensive new global climate arrangement. Analysts now believe it was the insistence of the EU on abandoning the 1997 Kyoto agreement which was the cause of the Copenhagen talks breakdown. The Copenhagen Accord put together by world leaders on the last day fell far short of a …