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  • 2000 In Context
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Global warming

A climate of uncertainty

Nature volume 408, pages 896–897 (2000)Cite this article

The talks' failure leaves the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions, in limbo. Three years ago in Japan, developed countries agreed to cut their carbon dioxide emissions by an average of 5% of their 1990 levels by 2010. But the details of how the cuts would be made remained to be thrashed out. And without this fine print, not one major industrialized nation has been prepared to ratify the protocol.

The meeting in The Hague was supposed to accelerate progress. But the position of the United States was always likely to be a stumbling block. US negotiators went into the meeting determined that their nation should be allowed to offset against its emission targets changes in the management of its forests and farmland to increase their potential as carbon sinks. Sinks are ecosystems that pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it into biomass. Similarly, the United States also wanted 'carbon credits' for planting forests in developing countries.

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Authors
  1. Heike Langenberg
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  2. Peter Aldhous
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Langenberg, H., Aldhous, P. A climate of uncertainty. Nature 408, 896–897 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35050238

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