By AL GORE

It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.

India, Dec. 11 -- At stake: WHY: Scientists from every nation have produced data that points towards a steady increase in the global temperatures. According to their estimates the global mean temperature has seen an increase in 0.6 to 1.0 degree centigrade. The reason for this rise is the way we are using energy resources and cutting down forests for agriculture and cattle rearing. The scientists project that if we keep living like this and ravage the earth then temperatures would rise by 2.0 - 6.0 degree centigrade by the end of the 21st century.

Why temperature would rise: The way we produce our electricity and run our transport and perform agriculture and cattle rearing is leading to an increased amount of gases that trap heat in the atmosphere. There are four gases and two compound gases - Carbon dioxide, Nitrous oxide, methane, water vapour, cloroflorocarbons and perflorocarbons. Their emission amount has to be contained if the temperature increase is to be offset. Global efforts: The world started making efforts to jointly address this problem. It began in 1992 June in Rio De Janerio, Brazil. All the countries agreed to work towards making atmosphere cleaner. The agreement framework and its details were worked out within five years and are known as Kyoto Protocol as it was accepted in the Japanese city of Kyoto. Kyoto Protocol The Protocol made a list of 23 nations that were deemed developed. The list was called Annex 1. The countries in this list were asked to bring down their carbon emission. The equation was that the base year was decided as 1990 and all the countries together were required to bring down their emission by 5.2% from this year's emission level.

My sense of these things is that this will happen five or six times before what will be termed as an “historic agreement” is signed, but this one does sound fairly serious:

Jeremy Hobbs, Executive Director of Oxfam put out this statement:

A MAJOR group of developing nations, including China and most African nations, have walked out of working groups, triggering a major stalemate between developed and developing countries at the Copenhagen climate change negotiations.

LUCY KNIGHT IN COPENHAGEN

'Get to work', urges climate head

By Richard Black

I read a couple of articles this morning talking about the environmentally irresponsible behavior of the VIPs attending the conference in Copenhagen this week.

- More private planes than the city's airport can handle.

As we are engulfed from all sides by suffocatingly one-sided coverage of the Copenhagen conference on climate change, three hugely important issues have been largely stuffed away from sight.

The first of these is the matter of cost: the scarcely believable bill our politicians wish to land us with as the price of their proposals to meet the supposed threat of global warming. Few people have even begun to take on board the astronomic scale of the sums involved – the International Energy Agency talks blithely of $45 trillion - because on this politicians and media have in recent days remained more than ever silent.

China and US cooperation in promoting such vehicles is a concrete step against global warming. But how to measure claims in miles "per gallon"? As the two largest carbon polluters, China and the US have yet to agree on much before the international conference on global warming in Copenhagen next week.

But they are cooperating on at least one thing – rapid acceleration in the production of electric and hybrid vehicles.

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent, Sun Aug 30, 2009

OSLO (Reuters) - Activists launched what they called the world's biggest campaign to combat global warming on Friday, urging governments to agree a tough U.N. climate pact at talks in Copenhagen starting in 100 days' time.