Kyoto's expiration could spell doom for some green projects

So far, international negotiations for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol have been stagnant at best, even after leaders from 177 countries met in Bangkok last week to discuss a new climate change agreement.

The problem is that the interests of developed countries (such as the United States and most of Europe) and less developed nations (such as China, India, and Brazil) are conflicting. The developed nations want the less developed nations to commit to cutting a percentage of their emissions, but those countries say that the developed nations are the ones responsible for climate change and also have the money to make the cuts, so they should have to do most of the work. In a way, both groups have a good point and are right in a lot of respects.

However, debate over how the new agreement should be structured and what it should contain aside, if leaders fails to agree on a new climate change treaty, many green projects around the world are in danger of being shut down after 2012. Obviously, this would be a travesty, as much of the progress those projects have made would be lost. For more info on what is at stake during the global climate change discussions, check out this story from The Washington Post.