Climate talks held as ice melts in Arctic

BERLIN: Diplomats and climate experts gathered in Germany for UN-hosted talks on climate change amid growing public pressure for governments to act faster against global warming.

Officials meeting in the western city of Bonn for the June 17-27 talks are focusing on resolving issues that couldn’t be agreed upon at last December’s climate summit in Poland . This includes the rules governing the international trade in carbon certificates, which allow countries or companies to offset greenhouse gas emissions by paying for projects in poor nations.

The talks are taking place against a backdrop of mounting concerns about global warming that have been heightened by extreme weather events and other signs that man-made climate change may already be leaving its mark on the planet.

Over the weekend, a picture taken by Danish climate researchers showing sled dogs on the ice in northwest Greenland with their paws in melted ice water was widely shared on social media. Greenland’s ice melting season normally runs from June to August but the Danish Meteorological Institute said this year’s melting started on April 30, the second-earliest time on record going back to 1980.

Students in Europe and beyond have staged street protests demanding leaders do more to meet the 2015 Paris accord’s goal of keeping average temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, compared to pre-industrial times.