Follow the UN Climate Change Conference online through Facebook, YouTube and twitter

The third round of the United Nations Climate Change Negotiations held in Bon Germany 2-6 August can be followed online through social networking sites twitter and Facebook amongst others. Videos and live webcasts are also available to watch online.

 

The third round of United Nations Climate Change Negotiations started on August 2 in Bonn, Germany. Representatives from 178 governments are attending the event organized by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The conference in Bonn runs until August 6, and is designed to prepare and lay the foundations for the outcome of the UN Climate Change Conference which will be held in Cancun in November and December.  

In a press release from the UNFCCC, executive secretary Christiana Figueres outlined the responsibilities of the attending governmental representatives stating that ‘Governments have a responsibility this year to take the next essential step in the battle against climate change' and ‘In Cancun the job of governments is to turn the politically possible into the politically irreversible'.

Though many countries have taken positive steps to ensure they meet the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets they pledged at the Copenhagen accord, some environmentalists feel not enough is being done.

A group of senior academics warned, on the opening of the UNFCCC conference,  that the current pledges and gas emission reduction targets put forward by countries involved in climate change negotiations fall short of what is required to prevent temperatures rising more than the 2 Celsius. Scientists generally agree that if the world's temperature was to rise more than 2 Celsius irreversible environmental damage would occur.

The conference is available to follow through a variety of online social media sites including twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The UNFCCC Facebook page which has over 4,000 fans also contains links to images on photo sharing site Flickr. The twitter feed is updated with news on the conference as well as wider news regarding issues related to global warming and climate change.

A series of live webcasts and on demand webcasts are available to view on the website of the UNFCCC, these include press briefings by environmental group Friend's of the Earth and a workshop on the scale of emissions reductions organized by the UNFCCC.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/unfccc/63044235866

http://twitter.com/unepandyou

http://www.youtube.com/climateconference

http://unfccc.int/2860.php