Nightly News   |  December 11, 2011

190 nations agree to climate change goal

Leaders agreed to a road map on how to reach a legally binding pact to reduce carbon dioxide emissions that would take effect by 2020. NBC's Anne Thompson reports.

Share This:

This content comes from a Full-Text Transcript of the program.

LESTER HOLT, anchor: Now to a significant development in the effort to combat global climate change . Tonight, there's news from South Africa of an agreement by more than 190 nations, and our chief environmental affairs correspondent Anne Thompson

is here with details tonight. Anne: Good evening, Lester . There is an agreement tonight on what would be required to reach a legally binding pact to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Following this new blueprint, cutting emissions would no longer just be the responsibility of a developed country. Any new pact would require all countries, including emerging powers like China and India , to reduce their output of the gases that fuel climate change . That is something the United States desperately wanted. The pact would be hammered out by 2015 and take effect by 2020 . But environmentalists and nations already dealing with rising sea levels, hotter temperatures, and drought say this is too little much too late. They argue CO2 emissions must be reduced now if the world is to avoid the worst impacts of climate change . Lester :

ANNE THOMPSON reporting: Anne , thank you.

HOLT: