10 Numbers that Contrast Cancún with Copenhagen
<p>After one week, it's clear that this is a very different atmosphere than the cold, riotous and much-hyped COP15 summit last winter. Here are the top 10 numbers that sum up a week of negotiations at the Mexican holiday resort.</p>
It's a very different atmosphere here at Cancun relative to last year's cold, riotous and hyped U.N. climate change summit in Copenhagen. And it's not just the scenic setting and the weather. Here are the top 10 numbers that sum up a week of international climate change negotiations at the Mexican holiday resort.
24 degrees: Today's daytime temperature in degrees Celsius in Cancun. (That's 75.2 degrees Fahrenheit.)
168 hours: The maximum amount of time remaining for negotiations to take place at the Cancun conference as of Sunday morning.
20: The number of heads of state other than Mexican President Felipe Calderon expected to attend COP16. Some 120 heads of government or state attended COP15 in Copenhagen.
2 sides: The divide between developed and developing nations regarding the future climate change framework was widened once more after Japan's declaration early in the week that it had no intention of supporting an extension of the Kyoto Protocol and Bolivia's threat to halt negotiations if the Protocol was not extended to a second commitment period.
5: The number of areas of possible agreement at COP16. The U.N.FCCC secretary general stated at the opening of the conference she is hopeful that agreements can be reached on plans for a climate adaptation framework for poor nations; a system to help transfer green technology from rich countries to poor; and a test phase for avoiding deforestation. During the week it has emerged that two more areas of progress are looking good: amending Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism to include CCS projects and agreeing on a monitoring, reporting and verification framework.
387.18 ppm: The latest data regarding the concentration of greenhouse gases in parts per million of CO2 equivalents according to the U.S. NOAA on November 5th 2010. That's 87ppm higher than what some environmental groups argue is necessary to prevent acidification of oceans and the death of coral reefs, and just 63ppm below the IPCC's recommended target of 450 ppm, the concentration level required to limit global warming to 2 degrees.
2010: According to the World Meteorological Organization, 2010 is on track to be one of the three warmest years since the beginning of instrumental climate records in 1850, and the 2001-2010 decade the warmest 10-year period on record.
28 billion: The total amount, in U.S. dollars, of fast-start finance for climate change adaptation pledged by developed countries in 2010.
1: The number of environmental activist demonstrations outside the COP16 conference centre in Cancun.
13,765.72 kilometers: The distance as the crow flies between Cancun, Mexico and Durban, South Africa, host city of the U.N.FCCC's COP17 summit in 2011.
Photo CC-licensed by the UNFCCC.
