While the emissions reductions that were agreed upon at a recent global climate conference are a good first step, governments need to make a bigger commitment to curbing the creation of greenhouse gases in order to stave off global warming, a top United Nations climate official said on Monday.
Christiana Figueres, head of the U.N. climate change secretariat, noted that the agreements that were reached in Cancun, Mexico earlier this month don't go far enough, and that industrialized countries need lead the charge toward a greener planet, according to the Washington Post.
As part of the Mexico talks, first world and developing countries provided the U.N. with emissions-curbing targets for the next decade. As an example, Japan pledged that it would reduce its emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, according to Reuters (News 
- Alert). Meanwhile, the U.S. vowed to cut emissions by 3-4 percent below 1990 levels during the same timeframe.
Furthermore, the Cancun conference helped to create a Green Climate Fund that will provide developing countries with $100 billion in aid to work on their own climate initiatives, among other things.
Still, Figueres said it is not enough.
"Cancun was a big step, bigger than many imagined would be possible," she noted in a statement. "Governments renewed their trust in each other, but to succeed fully they need to press boldly ahead with what they have agreed."
Figueres said that the greenhouse gas emissions pledges that were made 10 days ago only account for 60 percent of the cuts that are needed to keep global temperatures away from dangerous levels.
However, Todd Stern, the chief U.S. delegate who attended the conference, said on Sunday that the world is in much better shape now that these agreements have been reached.
He also noted that reaching a legally binding climate change accord could be very difficult in the coming years, so nations will need to push each other.
"The day will come when things are ripe for a legal agreement. And we'll be there when that's the case. But we just shouldn't hang ourselves up until that day comes," he said in an interview with the television program EnergyNOW.
Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Tammy Wolf
