Despite the pledges of various nations to cut or limit their greenhouse emissions, the world still falls far short of what it needs to prevent the climb in average global temperatures.
This warning is a gloomy prelude to an environmental conference in Cancun, Mexico, which is a follow-up meeting to the unsuccessful Copenhagen conference last year. At Copenhagen, nations failed to come to a legally binding agreement on cutting their emissions of carbon dioxide.
Approximately 80 countries, including the United States and China, have made their own pledges since the Copenhagen conference, but the United Nation Environment Program calculates that even if these promises are kept, there will still be a large gap between the efforts being made and what is actually needed to affect change.
Environmental groups hope the conference in Cancun could successfully get nations to increase their current pledges.
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