A coal-fired power plant. Photograph by Peggy Davis
Delegates at UN climate talks in Qatar have agreed to extend the Kyoto Protocol until 2020. The deal, which has been agreed by close to 200 nations around the world maintains the protocol’s position as the only legally binding plan for combating global warming.
Critics of the protocol contend that it is not sufficient to combat the changes to our environment being caused by global warming from greenhouse gas emissions as it only covers developed nations whose combined share of the emissions is less than 15% and has not been ratified by the US, the largest polluter of developed nations.
Currently China is the largest greenhouse polluter, with the US in second, followed by the combined nations of the European Union according to United Nations estimates.
