"A record rise in global greenhouse emissions and ever tighter economic constraints make it crucial for United Nations climate talks in South Africa in November to overcome years of deadlock and deliver a solution, the U.N.'s climate chief told Reuters."

"Nearly two decades of U.N. climate change negotiations have so far failed to find a new binding approach to curbing the release of climate-warming gases.

The world's biggest emitters, the United States and China, have never formally signed up to mandatory emissions caps and the previous head of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) stepped down after 2009 talks collapsed."

Nina Chestney reports for Reuters August 31, 2011. [2]