Empty rhetoric at G8 on climate: Going in circles
By Richard Black, BBC News There is acknowledgement that the poorest countries are going to need help to adapt to climate impacts. At first sight, the G8 agreement on climate change promises much. Leaders are "committed to avoiding the most serious consequences of climate change,' and determined to stabilise greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at levels that would avoid "dangerous climate change.' In fact, this is exactly what leaders of nearly 200 countries signed up to in the original UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), agreed at the 1992 Earth Summit.