China, which last year walked away from COP 15 without agreeing to anything, now wants to hold its own climate talks.
The talks, scheduled for October, according to the UN’s top environmental official, Achim Steiner, will take place in the northern Chinese port of Tianjin, northwest of Beijing.
Government officials around the industrialized world are hoping that the Tianjin talks will pave the way for a new, binding, climate change treaty after COP 15’s
The world community should abandon efforts to sign a climate change treaty and instead focus on combating global warming by imposing carbon taxes to fund renewable energy breakthroughs and to deliver clean electricity to the world’s poor, according to a report by 14 academics and scientists.
The group recommends pursuing a “politically attractive and relentlessly pragmatic” climate and energy strategy that combines a huge research effort into renewable energy with pragmatic, near-term solutions, such as reducing heat-absorbing “black carbon” produced by wood fires and industries.