Smoke from an oil refinery in Commerce City, Colorado, USA
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UCAR
A New Plan to Help Earth’s Changing Climate
Leaders from the countries of the world are heading to Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2009 to decide how the world will deal with climate change.
They will make decisions about how to send less greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which are causing our planet to warm. They are also figuring out how people around the world can adapt as climate warms.
Not all countries agree about how greenhouse gases should be reduced, which countries should make changes, and who will pay for the changes.
For almost two decades world leaders have been thinking about how to slow the amount of global warming caused by humans. In 1992 they agreed that they world work together to make agreements to help slow global warming. They decided that they would meet each year to decide what to do about climate change and greenhouse gases.
During their yearly meetings, the world leaders developed a plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions called the Kyoto Protocol. Of the 192 United Nations countries, 187 signed the Kyoto Protocol by 2005. The United States did not sign.
The new global climate treaty that is being created in December 2009 will replace the Kyoto Protocol.
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