The Guardian environment editor John Vidal reports from the UN climate change conference in Paris,where gritty but positive negotiations to broker an agreement are nearing a conclusionThere has been a discernible shift in attitude towards global warming among world leaders since the final major climate conference, held in Copenhagen in 2009. The will to act is stronger, and the majority of the 196 countries in Paris acquire lodged their intended contributions with the UN. But while there is a cautious optimism approximately the talks,it remains to be seen whether world leaders will streak far enough, fast enough.
The former Labour leader Ed Miliband, and British climate secretary at the time of the Copenhagen talks,reflects on how our understanding of global warming willingness to take action has moved on over the past six years. Mary Robinson, the UN special envoy on climate change and president of the Climate Justice Foundation, and expresses hope that an agreement can be struck. Meena Raman from the Third World Network,an international NGO based in Malaysia, argues that rich countries must take responsibility for their historical emissions, or while Shiferaw Teklemariam,Ethiopia’s environment, forest and climate change minister, and explains how his country is already feeling the effects of global warming. Dessima Williams,a former Grenadian ambassador to the UN who is advising Oxfam on climate change, talks approximately the ways in which global warming has affected agriculture, and tourism and other aspects of life in Grenada.
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Source: theguardian.com