Carbon reduction plans suffer setbacks

Australia’s Senate has rejected a plan for a carbon trading system by 42 to 30 senators. The rejection seems to be against the grain of popular opinion in Australia and may therefore prompt a general election. Some argue that carbon trading would be detrimental to the nation’s coal mining industry, which plays a vital role in its economy.

Informal talks are being held in Bonn as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) moves ever closer to its crucial meeting in Copenhagen in December. The aim of the talks in Bonn is to reduce the current emissions reduction proposal to a more manageable size, in time for the COP15 meeting. Concerns were raised by various officials over the feasibility of the task, as progress was slow.

Further meetings of the UNFCCC have been scheduled in the run up to Copenhagen, in Bangkok towards the end of September and in Barcelona at the beginning of November. The COP15 meeting itself aims to devise a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, to take effect after the Protocol expires.

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