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      "id": 349699,
      "date": "2008-05-30",
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      "title": "Climate Change: The Kyoto Protocol, Bali \u201cAction Plan,\u201d and International Actions",
      "summary": "Concerns over climate change, often termed \u201cglobal warming,\u201d have emerged both in the United States and internationally as major policy issues. Reports in 2007 by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provided scientific underpinnings for these concerns, and the number of proposals and international meetings devoted to these issues has grown, as discussed in this report. In December 2007, the meeting of parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) convened in Bali, Indonesia, and agreed on the \u201cBali Action Plan\u201d to guide negotiations over the next two years, with the goal of formulating by 2009 a decision that would identify the next round of commitments by the nations of the world to address climate change. Several \u201cWorking Group\u201d meetings are scheduled to work on these issues during 2008, beginning with a meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, in April that formulated a work plan for negotiations.\nThe first treaty to address climate change, the UNFCCC was completed and opened for signature in 1992. It includes voluntary commitments to establish national action plans for measures that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The United States was one of the first nations to sign and ratify this treaty, and it entered into force in 1994. However, it was soon concluded by parties to the treaty that mandatory reductions in emissions of the six major greenhouse gases (of which carbon dioxide, mainly from burning of fossil fuels, is the most prevalent) would be required. The resulting Kyoto Protocol, which was completed in 1997 and entered into force in February 2005, committed industrialized nations that ratify it to specified, legally binding reductions in emissions of the six major greenhouse gases. The United States has not ratified the Protocol, and thus is not bound by its provisions. In March 2001, the Bush Administration rejected the Kyoto Protocol, and subsequently announced a U.S. policy for climate change that relies on voluntary actions to reduce the \u201cgreenhouse gas intensity\u201d (ratio of emissions to economic output) of the U.S. economy by 18% over the next 10 years.\nUnder the Kyoto Protocol, the collective commitments of the industrialized nations are to reduce the Parties\u2019 emissions by at least 5% below their 1990 levels, averaged over the \u201ccommitment period\u201d 2008 to 2012. Over the past year, several high-level meetings have focused on the need to deal with climate change, including the G-8 meeting in June 2007 and meetings at the United Nations. President Bush announced on May 31, 2007, that the United States would convene a meeting of major economies to begin a series of meetings in Washington, D.C. through 2008 to find a voluntary framework for dealing with energy security and climate change.\nAs of November 2007, the UNFCCC Secretariat listed 174 nations and the European Union as parties to the Kyoto Protocol. Australia announced its ratification at the December meeting in Bali. Annual meetings of the parties are to continue, using the Bali \u201croadmap\u201d agreed on in December 2007. Major challenges involve finding agreement on the nature of legally binding commitments, if any, that would prove acceptable to all major players: current parties, developing countries that are major emitters, and the United States.",
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      "id": "RL33826_2007Aug22",
      "date": "2007-08-22",
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      "id": "RL33826_2007Jun08",
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      "retrieved": "2016-03-19T13:57:26",
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