After a 36 hour extension to COP 17 in Durban there is a new agreement which must be finalised by 2015 to begin in 2020. The Kyoto Protocol will be extended until at least 2017. These are the Sunday morning press that declare the agreement to the World.
N.B. – It should be noted that emissions reduction tergets have not been addressed to ensure that global warming is reduced to less than 2 degrees as agreed at Copenhagen and Cancun. HOWEVER, a new I.P.C.C. report is due in 2014 which will update the science and the existing 2007 Data Set from I.P.C.C.
2012 NEEDS TO BE A BIG YEAR FOR THE PLANET – AS WELL AS THE COP 18 CONFERENCE AT QATAR, THERE IS THE 20th ANNIVERSARY OF “THE RIO EARTH SUMMIT”, – the U.N. conference which began all these discussions in 1992.
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The 194-party conference agreed to start negotiations on a new accord that would ensure that countries will be legally bound to carry out any pledges they make. It would take effect by 2020 at the latest.
The package of accords extended the Kyoto Protocol, the only global pact that enforces carbon cuts, agreed the format of a fund to help poor countries tackle climate change and mapped out a path to a legally binding agreement on emissions reductions.
But many small island states and developing nations at risk of being swamped by rising sea levels and extreme weather said the deal marked the lowest common denominator possible and lacked the ambition needed to ensure their survival.
“We came here with plan A, and we have concluded this meeting with plan A to save one planet for the future of our children and our grandchildren to come,” said South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, who chaired the talks.
“We have made history,” she said, bringing the hammer down on Durban conference, the longest in two decades of U.N. climate negotiations.
Britain’s Energy and Climate Secretary Chris Huhne said the result was “a great success for European diplomacy.”
“We’ve managed to bring the major emitters like the U.S., India and China into a roadmap which will secure an overarching global deal,” he said.
U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern said Washington was satisfied with the outcome: “We got the kind of symmetry that we had been focused on since the beginning of the Obama administration. This had all the elements that we were looking for.”
“It’s certainly not the deal the planet needs — such a deal would have delivered much greater ambition on both emissions reductions and finance,” said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“Producing a new treaty by 2015 that is both ambitious and fair will take a mix tough bargaining and a more collaborative spirit than we saw in the Durban conference centre these past two weeks.”
Amy Goodman is at the Durban COP 17 for Democracy Now ! and looks at perceptions of America and highlights the brave young lady who stood up to say that the U.S. delegate did not represent the people. Great applause met her remarks as she was ejected from the hall, nevertheless, the point was made.
The standard “he says/she says” coverage of the issue keeps to what is called “balance”: the overwhelming majority of scientists on one side, the denialists on the other. The scientists who issue the more dire warnings are largely ignored.
Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about 
CHRISTIANA FIGUERES executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), delivers the 2011 Robert Schuman lecture TO THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY in Lisbon PRE DURBAN.
CANADIAN YOUTH DELEGATE CAM FENTON, part of the very brave crew of intelligent Canadians prepared to “Occupy” a speech by Canadian “environment” Minister Kent whose in town to do business with oil. 6 people stood and turned their backs on Kent wearing ‘T’ shirts that said “Turn Your Back On Canada”, the 6 were roundly applauded but ejected by security, such is the power of a ‘T’ shirt.
Yesterday’s post was centred upon the issue of the UNDEMOCRATIC placement of unelected technocrats to head the governments of Greece and Italy, and the dramatic effects that will have on democracy as we know it. The amazing story that broke today in the French newspaper Le Monde, traced the employment history of Lucas Papademos, (Greek Prime Minister), Mario Monti (Italian Prime Minister) and Mario Draghi (Head of the European Central Bank) and found that all 3, until recently worked for, or have been in partnership with, GOLDMAN SACHS.
In June 2009 Deutsche Bank in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology launched the Carbon Clock. The 70 foot high clock is opposite Pennsylvania station in the middle of New York. The clock measures, in real time, the amount of carbon, in metric tons, which is already in the atmosphere. In June 2009, the amount was 3.641 TRILLION tons. By hitting this link 
The easiest way of determining the truth of the “greenhouse effect” is the loss of ice at the North and South Poles. It is now beyond doubt that ice loss is occuring faster than most scientists had contemplated in the I.P.C.C. reports. In the midst of the financial crisis the environmental crisis continues, and as Susan George remarks, we can always come back and fix a financial crisis, and environmental crisis is permanent. The following films bear witness to the scale of ice loss, and brings back the reality of the environmental crisis that we stand to leave as a legacy for the future. The ease with which trillions of dollars are found to band aid an economic system that must change in the near future is a sad endictment on current values.
No place like home. 