In early November, 170 countries finally achieved consensus on how to cut global carbon dioxide emissions produced by humankind to 5% below their 1990 levels. The plan is part of the ongoing negotiations for implementing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to slow down global warming. Nearly 4500 delegates gathered in Marrakech, Morocco, for the seventh session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP7). Negotiations on how to implement the cuts had, until this point, frequently collapsed (see Physics Today, Physics Today 0031-9228 53 11 2000 43 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1333285 November 2000, page 43 ). So far, only 44 countries have ratified the Kyoto Protocol. Romania is the only industrialized country to have done so.
COP7 covered the right to buy and sell carbon emissions between countries, methodologies for reporting and monitoring emissions, the transfer of energy technology, and mechanisms for enforcing compliance with targets...
