The United Nations climate talks in Doha, Qatar, continued into their second week, Wednesday, as delegates from nearly 200 countries struggle to craft a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, the global agreement on climate change that expires at the end of this month.
The negotiations are deadlocked （陷入僵局）over demands by poorer nations for financial help in coping with climate change.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on delegates at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change to speed up their work on an agreement to address a warming planet.
“Let us be under no illusion（幻想）, this is a crisis, a threat to us all, our economies, our security and the well-being of our children and those who will come after," he said. "No one is immune to climate change, rich or poor.”
Delegates from nearly 200 countries --- rich and poor --- are in Doha to extend the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 global climate change agreement that expires （到期）at the end of this month, and to begin to forge a new agreement to replace it.
Two issues block the way forward. Developing countries are demanding that industrialized nations fulfill their pledges(保证)under Kyoto to reduce their climate-changing industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and to put new, larger emission curbs on the table.
The developing nations, led by China, are also insisting that rich nations provide more aid to poorer countries to help them cope with the effects of climate change, including rising sea levels and more violent storms.
In Doha Wednesday, Tim Gore, a climate change policy advisor for Oxfam International, a confederation of groups working on social justice issues, applauded efforts by England, Germany and Sweden to increase their climate aid and expects other nations to follow.
“Those announcements are truly welcome. And they shine a spotlight on those that have remained silent: the U.S., Canada, Japan, even Australia," Gore said. "But we need to be very clear as well that those types of announcements made in press conferences can be no substitute for clear commitments in the text that poor countries have come here to negotiate.”
小题1:What’s the main idea of the passage?
A．China plays an important role in The United Nations climate talks in Doha, Qatar.
B．The United Nations climate talks in Doha, Qatar, continued into their second week, Wednesday.
C．Developing countries want rich nations to pay for climate change.
D．Ban Ki-moon called on delegates at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change to speed up their work on an agreement to address a warming planet.小题2:What did United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in Paragraph 4 mean?
A．Climate change will do harm to all the countries in the world.
B．There is no hope to deal with the problem.
C．Illusion（幻想）is a crisis, a threat to us all.
D．Ban Ki-moon called on delegates to cope with a warming planet.小题3:What does the underlined word in Paragraph Five forge mean?
A．put aside
B．deal with
C．call off
D．work out小题4:Which of the following is Not true?
A．Climate change includes rising sea levels and more violent storms.
B．All the industrialized nations will carry out their promises under Kyoto to reduce their climate-changing industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and to put new, larger emission curbs on the table.
C．Tim Gore thought highly of the efforts by England, Germany and Sweden to increase their climate aid and expects other nations to follow.
D．The U.S., Canada, Japan, even Australia didn’t make announcements to be responsible for the climate changes.
