Copenhagen: Day 1&2

Day 2 of the United Nations climate talks in Copehagen is underway. The UK continues to push for a global agreement that's ambitious, effective and fair. Thanks for backing the bid and helping us secure the 2 degree deal.
Yesterday, Gordon Brown urged the world to see the transition to low carbon as an opportunity, adding 'our children won't forgive us if we fail'. In a press conference with Danish Foreign Minister, Per Stig Møller in Brussels, Foreign Secretary David Miliband reitterated the EU's commitment to shift to an a 30% reduction in emissions if an ambitious global deal could be reached at Copenhagen.
Keep up with events throughout the day at www.actoncopenhagen.gov.uk.

On day 2 at COP 15:

US announcement
The US Government has declared carbon dioxide a ‘toxic’ gas that endangers public health in a judgement that gives the Obama administration a legal basis for capping harmful emissions.
The ruling will allow the agency to regulate planet-warming gases even without legislation in Congress. Under existing laws the agency could begin to make rules as soon as next year to regulate emissions from vehicle exhausts, power utilities and heavy industry.

Ed's Copenhagen send-off
Ed Miliband is taking part in a public meeting today in Manchester, jointly organised with Manchester Friends of the Earth. This will be Ed’s last public event before he travels to Copenhagen.
Coinciding with the launch of Manchester’s climate change action plan, the event will include speakers such as The Guardian’s John Harris and Friends of the Earth’s Campaigns director Mike Childs.
Yesterday
The much anticipated United Nations Climate Change negotiations began yesterday in the Danish capital of Copenhagen. It's crunch time as 192 countries convene to agree a global deal on climate change. The Bella Centre was a hive of activity as the formal sessions began yesterday morning, with an opening plenary at 10am. Outside the negotiations hall, demonstrators and NGOs gathered to press the urgency of a global deal.
7 December - South African targets for reducing growth in carbon emissions
South Africa has become the latest emerging economy to set out targets for reducing growth in its carbon emissions. President Jacob Zuma said that South Africa will take action to reduce current emissions by around 34% by 2020 and around 42% by 2025. In a statement on the presidency's website, the government said that this offer would enable South Africa's emissions to peak between 2020 and 2025, plateau for approximately a decade and decline in absolute terms thereafter.
7 December - Foreign Ministers from around the world call for global action at Copenhagen
The EU Council meetings held in Brussels coincided with the first day of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference and David Miliband took part in a climate change focused press conference with Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Møller. The EU7 Foreign Ministers have engaged personally to ensure that climate change and the challenges it poses is a matter of the highest priority on the international agenda, and are committed to the common goal that the global community honours its responsibility to support those countries which will be hardest hit by the effects of a changing climate.
Just before the start of the UN Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen, the Foreign Ministers of Cape Verde, Costa Rica, Iceland, Singapore, Slovenia, and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to strengthen their commitments and call for renewed global action to address climate change.
7 December - World only a 'few billion tonnes' short of climate target
The offers that countries have already made to reduce their carbon emissions are only a 'few billion tonnes' short of the total cuts needed to hit the target of capping the rise in global temperatures, Lord Stern said in Copenhagen as the climate change conference got underway.
Lord Stern, the economist and climate change expert, wrote an analysis of national proposals for annual emissions reductions for the United National Environment Programme (UNEP).
The research estimates that in order to have a 50/50 chance of avoiding a rise in global temperature of more than 2˚C – the level scientists believe will trigger environmental catastrophe - annual emissions of greenhouse gases must be no more than 44 billion tonnes by 2020.