REPORT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS

A key deadline for countries to submit emission reduction goals to the United Nations as part of the recently negotiated Copenhagen Accord passed recently. The U.N. received commitments from 55 nations, but 139 countries remain unsupportive of the political statement, leading the international body to push back the commitment deadline indefinitely. The Accord, a non-binding political statement introduced at the 11th hour of the Copenhagen summit, has been praised by some for garnering stronger commitments from major developing nations, which could in turn deliver a binding global climate treaty.

The United States, Brazil, South Africa, India and China formulated the Accord with the understanding that the text would later be adopted by all 194 nations. But many participants considered this outcome to be undemocratic .

Among other elements, it states that 2 degrees centigrade is the target above which global temperatures must not rise; it proposes the mobilization of $30 billion by 2012 and $100 billion by 2020 for developing countries to address climate change; and it calls on developed and developing countries to submit their national actions on climate change to the U.N. by January 31, a deadline that has now been postponed "indefinitely."