With 2 billion tonnes of carbon entering the atmosphere each year due to forest loss, accounting for 25 per cent of all man-made emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2), the United Nations climate change conference in Montreal today heard urgent pleas for financial incentives and other strategies to curb deforestation.

Citing evidence of climate change “all around us,” from declining Arctic ice to increasingly frequent extreme weather, with looming threats ranging from species extinction to human health hazards, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, Louise Fréchette today called for “bold, creative” global action in response.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference today voted to finalize the 'rule book' of the Kyoto Protocol, putting into concrete form the 1997 landmark treaty designed to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that have been determined to cause global warming.

Calls for action to protect the earth's vulnerable climate led off the first ever meeting of the 157 countries that have signed onto the United Nations-backed Kyoto Protocol, which aims to reduce the so-called "greenhouse gasses" that have been determined to cause global warming.