On remote Greek islands, grandmothers have sung terrified little babies to sleep, while teachers, pensioners and students have spent months offering food, shelter, clothing and comfort to refugees who have risked their lives to flee war and terror.
On remote Greek islands, grandmothers have sung terrified little babies to sleep, while teachers, pensioners and students have spent months offering food, shelter, clothing and comfort to refugees who have risked their lives to flee war and terror.
We are six months out from Copenhagen and further talks in Bonn, where the UNFCCC is headquartered, have just concluded. The release from the UNFCCC says the recent talks made “progress on fleshing out specifics” for a global climate change regime. There were 5,500 participants, including government delegates from over 180 countries, and reps from […]
So now it’s four months after the meetings in Copenhagen. I’m in the group who thinks that more was accomplished than meets the eye and that it was an important way station to achieving more international agreement on stemming the tide of greenhouse gases we confront and adapting to the massive impacts they’ve already caused […]
There was, of course, a lot of coverage from me, and much of the rest of the world it seems, on the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) in Copenhagen in December – before, during and since. One of the critical agreements to come out of the conference was on finance. Pledges were made by […]
I had a very busy end of the week and now I’m out of town, so I haven’t been reporting. Here, however, are two pretty interesting reads for you, from two of my favorite writers. The first is from Fiona Harvey, indefatigable environmental correspondent for the FT. She has some unkind words for some of […]
If you know me or have been reading this blog with any regularity, you know I’m a skeptic. Not about climate change but about China. I made an analysis several years back that, in retrospect, seems mistaken. I perceived that the economic and political pressures of the liberal democracies would push and pull China toward […]
There is a blockbuster piece at Salon.com that looks at Five common mistakes in the coverage of the Copenhagen Accord. It punctures some of the fallacies that have abounded in some quarters such as that there could have been a better Accord voted on by the delegates, that the smaller developing nations rejected the Accord, […]
The impact of the global financial crisis creates an illusion that there are real prospects for effective co-operation to reach long-term global goals. Despite China’s immaculate hosting of the Olympic Games and its inevitable rise to the global negotiation tables as a key decision-maker, reality forces her to come to terms with her own pressing […]
Everyone seems shocked and discouraged by the outcome in Copenhagen. They shouldn’t be. We must control emissions. So why wasn’t there a deal that made everyone happy? Because that’s the nature of multilateral negotiations, with scores of parties with scores of interests. They are always, always like this, as anyone who has studied them knows: […]
This is the document that has taken many years and much blood, sweat, tears and toil from thousands of people to produce. Yvo de Boer, head of the UNFCCC, described the accord as “politically important.” It provides an “architecture for a response to climate change.” The “LA Times” had this story this morning: Climate summit ends […]
AP had this late tonight. The deal “…requires industrial countries to list their individual targets and developing countries to list the actions they will take to cut global warming pollution by specific amounts. Obama called that an ‘unprecedented breakthrough.’” AP further reported “German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a leading proponent of strong action to confront global […]
President Lula made his case for greenhouse gas emissions reductions at the UNFCCC fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP15) at Copenhagen. In an open letter published in the Christian Science Monitor, Lula admonished, “It is beyond doubt that both the benefits of economic development as well as the costs of environmental degradation over the past […]
We’re in overtime in Copenhagen. ABC – that’s Australian Broadcasting Corp. for those Americans who might think otherwise – reports “US President Barack Obama has launched intense after-hours diplomacy with China, hoping to salvage a new world climate pact after warning that an imperfect deal would be better than no pact at all.” (See this.) […]
US aid offer boosts deal at UN climate talks is the headline from the AP tonight. “Large pieces of a climate deal fell into place Thursday with new offers from the U.S. and China, but other tough issues remained before President Barack Obama and other leaders can sign off on a political accord to contain […]
“I would say hold tight and mind the doors–the cable car is moving again,” said Yvo de Boer earlier today. The “WSJ” reports here that de Boer is encouraged. “Forbes” has some other notable quotes from today, among them Hillary Clinton’s commitment to help raise $100 billion in annual funding for adaptation and mitigation in […]