The nonbinding Copenhagen Accord was hastily cobbled together at President Barack Obama's insistence as the United Nations' Copenhagen climate change conference whimpered to its end in December. Under the Accord, countries are supposed to make their commitments to cut greenhouse gases official by January 31. It now appears that most countries will miss that deadline. As the New York Times reports:
Facing a Jan. 31 deadline, major countries have yet to submit their plans for reducing emissions of climate-altering gases, one of the major provisions of the agreement, according to Yvo de Boer, the Dutch official who is executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which organized the climate meeting.
Fewer than two dozen countries have even submitted letters saying they agree to the terms of the three-page accord. And there has been virtually no progress on spelling out the terms of nearly $30 billion in short-term financial assistance promised to those countries expected to be hardest hit by climate change. Still unresolved are such basic questions as who will donate how much, where the money will go and who will oversee the spending. Read more.
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