U.N. Plea to Climate Conference

Dried dung provides winter fuel for some in Mongolia.

But even one of the world's most environmentally friendly countries is trying to do more.

Some nomads are attaching solar panels to the roofs of their yurts.

The UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change would be impressed with their efforts.

Its executive secretary, Yvo de Boer, is warning delegates at this week's climate conference in Copenhagen real progress must be made.

[Yvo de Boer, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change]:
"The scientific community has told us that we have a 5-10 year window of opportunity to turn the upward emission trend into a downward emission trend. That is why we have to act now."

It's hoped the conference will agree a pact to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

de Boer wants to see 30 billion dollars pledged over the next three years.

[Yvo de Boer, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change]:
"The money that is tabled here needs to be real, it needs to be significant and it needs to be immediate and it needs to be additional. What I want to see at the end of this conference is a list of rich country targets that are ambitious, clarity on what major developing countries will do to limit the growth of their emissions and a list of financial pledges that will make it possible for the much broader developing nation community both to change the direction of their economic growth and adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change."

But many fear disputes between rich and poor nations about who should pay may make a binding declaration difficult.

Nations like Mongolia can only make small changes.

The UN may be urging the conference to have simple goals but sometimes just getting the ball in the net is pretty tricky.

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