In December, delegates from 193 countries took part in the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen in an attempt to form an agreement on how to combat global warming beyond 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires.
Due to a division among industrialized countries, emerging economic powers like China and India and developing countries, the only result was the nonbinding Copenhagen Accord. It outlines actions both developed and developing nations will take to keep the average global temperature rise at or below 2 C, and was signed by nearly 120 countries.
Passion among countries to push the fight against global appears to have waned. On April 9-11, delegates from 175 countries gathered near Bonn to help lay the groundwork for the next U.N. meeting on climate change, COP16, to be held in Cancun, Mexico, from late November to early December. The meeting was followed by an informal meeting also near Bonn on May 2-4, which was attended by environment ministers from more than 40 countries. Both meetings failed to produce any tangible agreements.