Radio Netherlands Worldwide

SSO Login

More login possibilities:

Close
  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • Twitter
  • Google
  • LinkedIn
Home
Sunday 12 February RNW - NEWS AND ANALYSIS FROM THE NETHERLANDS IN 10 LANGUAGES, WORLDWIDE 24/7 ON RADIO, TV AND ONLINE

UN climate chief calls on EU to reduce emissions

Published on 23 November 2009 - 9:43pm
More about:

The United Nations' senior negotiator on climate change, the Dutch diplomat Yvo de Boer, has called on the European Union to raise its goals for reducing carbon dioxide emissions vis-à-vis 1990 from 20 percent to 30 percent. The EU has repeatedly said that it will raise its targets only if other countries do so.

 

Mr De Boer says the goals can only be meaningful and attainable if wealthy countries make concrete pledges. The United States has announced that it is willing to cut emissions by 17 to 20 percent by 2020 in respect to 2005. However, since US emissions have increased by 15 percent since 1990, the reduction will only be a few percent vis-à-vis 1990. The US, the largest greenhouse gas emitter, has never signed the Kyoto Protocol and US President Barack Obama has not yet decided if he will attend next month's UN climate change summit in Copenhagen. The second largest greenhouse gas emitter, China, has also not yet announced whether it will attend the summit.

 

On Monday, the UN agency on global warming announced that greenhouse gas emissions are still rising and have reached record levels.

 

 

 

Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Yvo de Boer
Photo by Wikipedia Commons

  • Photo by Wikimedia Commons

Most popular news in this dossier

Houseboat on dry river bed

2011 weather: warm and weird

The past year has been the third warmest in the Netherlands since record taking began in 1901, with an...

Discussion

Post new comment

Please be reminded all comments must be in English, short and to the point - guideline 250 words. Abusive and inappropriate comments will be removed.

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <p> <br>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.

More information about formatting options

Video highlights

Homs: where is the UN?
The citizens of Homs in Syria are under attack and are asking the UN for...
In from Holland
On this week's show: winter weather takes hold of the country, we find out...

RNW on Facebook

Sign up for our newsletters

Email news bulletin

What's on - Programme Preview

Press Review - of the leading Dutch newspapers every weekday

Media Network

Euro Hit 40 - Europe's No. 1 chart show

RNW - News and analysis from the Netherlands in 10 languages, worldwide 24/7 on radio, television and online