Word: summits
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...bring apocalyptic foreboding to the climate-change debate quite like Al Gore. Speaking on the last day of the two-week-long U.N. climate-change summit in Poznan, Poland, which concluded on Dec. 12, the Nobel laureate warned delegates from over 190 countries that the time for idle talk on global warming was over. "We now face a crisis that makes it abundantly clear that increased CO2 emissions anywhere are a threat to the integrity of this planet's climate balance everywhere," he said. "As a result the old divide between the North and South, between developed and developing countries...
...Gore received warm applause from the crowd, but it's not clear his message really got through. Though expectations for the annual summit weren't high, thanks in part to a leadership vacuum in the U.S. and the nagging distraction of a worldwide financial meltdown, neither were its accomplishments. More optimistic observers pointed to pledges from individual developing nations to cut their carbon emissions; under the Kyoto Protocol, those countries aren't actually required to take any concrete action on climate change. Mexico should take a bow - America's significantly poorer neighbor promised to cut carbon emissions 50% below...
...between rich and poor nations, tropical deforestation, sharing clean technology with developing countries - was effectively kicked to Copenhagen. (One exception were adaption funds - money to help poor countries counter the future impacts of climate change - with millions set to be released by the U.N. in the months following the summit.) "The lack of progress at Poznan merits outrage," said Barry Coates, senior executive of charity group Oxfam International."They have left themselves with a huge amount to do to secure a deal at Copenhagen next year...
...There is one exception for presidential campaign managers: since 1972, Harvard University's Institute of Politics has held a postelection summit where wine is served, the tables have white linen, and the strategic minds behind politics are invited to share their tales from the trenches. The summit is almost entirely off the record. Reporters must sign legal-looking documents swearing to describe no part of it for months, until the university gets around to publishing an edited transcript of the proceedings in book form. (See TIME's top 10 political lines...
...There is, however, one event during the two-day summit that is on the record. That took place on Thursday night, when several hundred students, scholars and scribblers burst into applause as the minds behind the John McCain and Barack Obama campaigns took the stage for a conversation provocatively titled "War Stories: Inside Campaign 2008." (See behind-the-scenes pictures from Super Tuesday...