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 and will continue to cause.
Jennifer Morgan, Director of the Climate and Energy Program at the World Resources Institute, has this most useful overview of where we stand. She takes a look at the UN process, the key meetings and consultations by other entities, and the critical issues of finance, forests, adaptation and technology transfer. She perceives as I do that we’re moving along.
I wrote in February about the high level group that the UNSG had appointed to deal with matters of finance, particularly the raising and disbursement of the $100 billion a year promised by the developed nations by 2020. Well the first meeting of this group of worthies took place recently in London. Here is the announcement from the host, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, including a video of his press conference.
The first official UN meetings after Copenhagen are taking place this weekend in Bonn. There are, as you know, two tracks to the negotiations: Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol and Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention. The good folks from the International Institute for Sustainable Development are providing coverage on the meetings.
I have also talked about another track, outside the UN process – the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate. Most of the governments that contribute 80% of the total GHG emissions have been engaged in serious and extensive discussions for a year. The US State Department announced this week that the MEF will meet in Washington April 18-19.
Yes, there’s progress.