Bali climate change conference opens amid tight security
3/12/2007 17:04
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference
(UNFCCC) opened today in Bali, a resort island of Indonesia, amid tight
security.
Participants to the meeting and journalists for covering the
event have to go through tight security checks before entering the Bali
International Convention Center, the venue of the two-week conference.
Indonesia reportedly deploys around 10,000 policemen and 2,000 soldiers
for security arrangement for the meeting as Bali, well-known as" the Goddess
Island", which is the country's largest tourist destination, was hit by suicide
attacks in 2002 and 2005, which killed together 220 people.
The streets
of Bali have been decorated with flags or "umbul-umbul which are symbols of
celebrations. The flags, with big characters" UN Climate Change Conference
Bali", are waving in the wind.
More than 10,000 delegates from over 180
countries, including 130 environment ministers, will attend the meeting from
Dec. 3 to 14, which focuses on measures to be implemented on global greenhouse
gas emissions reduction after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
Measures to be discussed at the Bali conference will also range from
carbon taxes to expanded cap-and-trade schemes and stimuli for investment in
renewable resources in the pursuit of revolutionary change.
The
conference is tasked with drawing up a "roadmap" for negotiations on a new
international agreement before the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
At
the opening ceremony of the U.N. climate change conference, Yvo de Boer,
executive secretary of UNFCCC, said the outcome of this conference will, to a
degree, determine whether Bali and other vulnerable places are destined to
become a lost paradise or not.
The Bali meeting offers a great
opportunity for global communities to remind each other that they must wait no
more to combat global warming, whose impacts are evident and potential outcomes
are predictably disastrous.
Xinhua
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