| | Words in the News |
INTRO | | The British deputy prime minister, John Prescott, warned of the need to take action against global warming. He was speaking at the World Climate Change Conference in The Hague. Tim Hirsch of the BBC's environment staff reported. |
IN FULL | |  | Listen to the report in full |
 |  | 23rd November 2000 World Climate Conference warning
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NEWS 1 | | | Listen to the first part of the report |
| | | Mr. Prescott's speech comes as ministers from around the world struggle to overcome complex arguments about how the Kyoto agreement on cutting greenhouse gas emissions should work. He said the devastating floods in recent weeks had provided a wake-up call in Britain -- people knew that something was wrong, he said, and that climate change was now affecting them. Things would get much worse, said Mr. Prescott, if the world failed to act. |
| | | | Listen to the words |
WORDS | | Kyoto agreement: the decision reached by countries in the Japanese city of Kyoto greenhouse gas emissions: the release of gases such as carbon dioxide which trap the heat from the sun and cause the earth’s temperature to rise wake-up call: literally , a shout that someone asleep should wake up. Here, a warning that something must be done climate change: changes in the climate that may be caused by global warming and may cause flooding or drough |
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| NEWS 2 | | | Listen to the second part of the report |
| | | Unless governments joined together in agreement at The Hague, he said they would be throwing away the opportunity of a lifetime. He added that behind the scenes there were positive signs of movement towards a deal. Politicians would not be forgiven, he said, if they failed to settle their differences at this conference. |
| | | | Listen to the words |
| WORDS | | the opportunity of a lifetime: an opportunity is a situation – here, one that is extremely rare - in which it is possible for governments to do something that they want to do behind the scenes: if something is done behind the scenes, it is done so the general public does not know about it movement: here, movement refers to a change in the views of some of those taking part to settle their differences: to end the disagreements that they had previously had |
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| | | Read about the background and the language in BBC News Online |
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