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- Feb 28, 2011
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Climate forum offers a chance for Qatar
Gulf Times ? Qatar?s top-selling English daily newspaper - Opinion
Gulf Times ? Qatar?s top-selling English daily newspaper - Opinion
Qatar is offered an opportunity when it hosts the UN forum on climate change in December, say veteran watchers of the process.
Qatars population of less than 2mn pumps out some 53.5 tonnes per person of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per year, according to UN statistics.
This is 20 tonnes more than the closest runner-up (the United Arab Emirates), three times more than the US, 10 times more than China - and a massive 36 times more than the average Indian.
But five months ago, in a surprise move, Qatar was chosen to host the next meeting of ministers under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Qatar faces political and logistical hurdles in this latest bid to boost its profile, according to some delegates attending intermediate climate talks this week in Bonn.
But the delegates also saw a chance for Qatar to hammer home the problems of climate change in a region where the issue is dormant or dismissed.
We see it as an opportunity, because now Qatar and the whole region need to show leadership, to give a signal to the international community that they are serious about climate change, Wael Hmaidan, director of activist group Climate Action Network, told AFP. (rest at link above)