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The Copenhagen Accord[1] is a document that delegates at the 15th session of the Conference of Parties (COP 15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed to "take note of" at the final plenary on 18 December 2009. The Accord, drafted by, on the one hand, the United States and on the other, in a united position as the BASIC countries, China, India, South Africa and Brazil, is not legally binding and does not commit countries to agree to a binding successor to the Kyoto Protocol, whose present round ends in 2012.[2] The BBC immediately reported that the status and legal implications of the Copenhagen Accord were unclear.[3] Tony Tujan of the IBON Foundation suggests the failure of Copenhagen may prove useful, if it allows us to unravel some of the underlying misconceptions and work towards a new, more holistic view of things.[4] This could help gain the support of developing countries. Lumumba Stansilaus Di-Aping, UN Ambassador from Sudan, has indicated that, in its current form, the Accord "is not sufficient to move forward on", and that a new architecture is needed which is just and equitable. [5]

The incident began when someone accessed a server used by the Climatic Research Unit and copied 160 MB of data[2] containing more than 1,000 emails and 3,000 other documents.[16] The University of East Anglia stated that the server from which the data were taken was not one that could easily have been accessed and the data could not have been released inadvertently.[17]

The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC), aimed at fighting global warming. The UNFCCC is an international environmental treaty with the goal of achieving "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system."[1] The Protocol was initially adopted on 11 December 1997 in Kyoto, Japan and entered into force on 16 February 2005. As of November 2009, 187 states have signed and ratified the protocol.[2]

Today is the 39th observance of Earth Day in the northern hemisphere. Earth day is celebrated in Autumn on November 30 in the southern hemisphere. Senator Gaylord Nelson initiated the first Earth Day in April 1970 in the United States, and it is now celebrated by over 1 billion people in over 170 countries worldwide. Earth Day is the biggest environmental event which addresses issues and educates people on environmental awareness on a global scale.

Edward O. Wilson and Peter H. Raven predicted dire consequences for the planet's biodiversity and habitability unless current trends in consumption and environmental degradation are reversed.