Gordon Brown: Copenhagen last chance

Today, 50 days until the Copenhagen conference, Gordon Brown met with 17 countries and their enviroment ministers who intotal represent 80 percent of the greenhouse gasses emitted.

"If we do not reach a deal at this time, let us be in no doubt: once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement in some future period can undo that choice. By then it will be irretrievably too late."

The Conference is meant to discuss the Kyoto Protocol, which was established to prevent climate change and global warming, however, it is going to expire in 2012.

This will be the last opportunity for the UNFCCC to meet on a government level before the climate agreement needs to be renewed.

The overall setiment is that a deal at Copenhagen is possible, concern has only recently heightened because negociations in the EU and U.S. are continuing to go unresolved.

India announced on Friday that it was ready to set targets for carbon cutting and China stated it was ready to committ to reducing emissions by 2020.

"I urge my fellow leaders to work together to reach agreement amongst us, recognising both our common and our differentiated responsibilities – and the dire consequences of failure," Gordon Brown.

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Author: Caitlin Martinez

Photo: World Economic Forum/Flickr