Technology Slice Blog

Cancun Climate Change Meeting Reaches Agreement - A comprehensive global deal is now back on track after the agreement, which was reached despite protests by Bolivia during a dramatic finale to the United Nations meeting in Mexico. The crunch talks went late into the night as more than 190 countries attempted to agree on the best way to cut carbon emissions. The last attempt to reach a global deal in Copenhagen at the end of last year ended in chaos and there were fears that the UN process could collapse completely if talks failed again. However, after two weeks of negotiating, rich and poor countries agreed a compromise that will see all countries committed to cutting emissions for the first time. The "Cancun package" also sets up a "green fund" to help poor countries cope with climate change and a new scheme to halt deforestation. Cancun Climate Change Meeting Reaches Agreement Bolivia claimed the agreement was "tantamount to genocide" becau...

Cancun Climate Talks - Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa said she had asked other pairs of rich and poor nations -- including Sweden and Grenada and Australia and Bangladesh -- to work to end other, lesser disputes at the November 29 to December 10 talks. "The conditions are in place to reach a broad and balanced package of decisions," she told delegates from almost 200 nations in the Mexican beach resort of Cancun. "However, the positive outcome that our societies demand is still not complete." The talks seek a package of measures including a new fund to channel aid to developing nations as well as ways to share clean technology, protect tropical forests that store carbon and help the poor adapt to the impact of climate change. A treaty is out of reach after a 2009 summit in Copenhagen summit fell short of a legally binding deal to avert what U.N. climate experts say will be droughts, floods, heatwaves and rising sea levels caused by a build-up of...