Billed in the run-up as the largest water event of all time, the fifth World Water Forum drew to a close in Istanbul on 22 March 2009. Altogether more than 25,000 people from 150 countries took part in the huge week-long event. By no means did it live up to its grandiose slogan
The protection of tropical forests will be one of the main pillars of the new climate agreement. For deforestation currently accounts for one-fifth of global CO2 emissions. There is disagreement over how forest conservation should be funded, however. The industrialised countries want to include it in the international emissions trade.
Today's world trade volume is 27 times that of 1950. Trade liberalisation has made no small contribution to global warming due to spectacular growth in the transportation industry. Today, when they need to negotiate the climate regime to replace the Kyoto Protocol after 2012, industrial and developing countries bicker over what would constitute more climate-friendly trade rules.
