UN Climate Summit, Copenhagen, 7 - 18 December 2009

It’s pretty simple:  to avoid runaway climate change, the world needs to quit its addiction to coal and stop destroying forests.

Climate conferences come around every year, but this is the big one. At Bali in 2007, governments pledged to nail down an agreement to save the climate by December 2009 in Copenhagen. At Poznan in 2008, they kept on talking about it, but failed to shape a deal that would make the real cuts. 

Meanwhile, temperature increases, global emission rises, and loss of ice at both the Arctic and Antarctic have all overshot scientists’ worst case scenarios.

The extermely slow progress on climate action has increased the pressure to deliver in Copenhagen.