KENYA: A climate conference in Nairobi opens today amid urgent calls for action, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor.
A new round of UN talks on climate change, which opens today in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, must produce a "road map" for agreeing on a new international strategy to deal with global warming, according to Friends of the Earth.
Last week's publication of the British government's Stern review, which painted a stark picture of the Earth's future unless governments start taking action now, has injected a new impetus into the latest round of negotiations.
British prime minister Tony Blair recently wrote to EU leaders warning that "we have a window of only 10 to 15 years to take the steps we need to avoid crossing catastrophic tipping points" - a point reinforced by Nicholas Stern.
The Nairobi conference is taking place against the backdrop of stronger calls for international action on global warming. The 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 1991 while 2005 was the warmest year in the northern hemisphere.
The Kenyan "Green Belt Movement" has warned that Africa's two highest and most symbolic mountains, Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya, will lose their ice cover within 25 to 50 years if greenhouse gas emissions are not cut substantially.
Studies suggest that temperature rises of just 2° or 3° would see crop yields in Africa fall by as much as 30 to 40 per cent. Small-scale farming provides most of the food produced in Africa as well as employing 70 per cent of its people.
"The talks are crucial in taking forward the international agenda on tackling climate change, with scientists agreed that urgent action is needed if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change," Friends of the Earth's Irish director, Oisín Coghlan, said at the weekend.
The 12th Conference of the Parties to the UN Climate Change Convention - or "Cop 12" - brings together representatives of 190 countries for two weeks of talks in the hothouse atmosphere of a city located just south of the Equator.
Mr Coghlan said Cop 12 needs to "build on the successful UN discussions in Montreal last year, and begin shaping an agreement on greenhouse gas emissions cuts" in the years after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires.
Current commitments are based on modest targets for 36 developed countries, which would only reduce their overall emissions by a theoretical 5 per cent - a fraction of what scientists say is needed to prevent dangerous climate change.
One of the key issues is how rapidly developing countries such as China and India can be drawn into making commitments for the "post-Kyoto period". Another is how to induce the US, which spurned the protocol in 2001, to join the effort.
"The momentum we saw in Montreal last year demonstrates the desire for action," FoE climate campaigner Catherine Pearce said, adding that the Nairobi talks must lead to agreement on deeper cuts by the end of 2008 at the latest.
"We have a strong international framework already in place. We must build on Kyoto and strengthen it, with developed countries committing to deeper cuts after 2012, and some of the bigger developing countries also joining the process."
International agreement is also urgently required to resolve arrangements for an adaptation fund, which would finance projects in the more vulnerable developing countries to help manage the impacts of climate change.