copenhagen posts, articles, and infographics

Durban - How Big a Deal?

December 12, 2011 by Elliot Diringer
with 151 views

Only time will tell whether the Durban climate talks produced an historic breakthrough. It’s possible. What’s clear for now is that the Durban deal keeps the global climate effort intact and moving – however incrementally – in the right direction. [read more]

Do Countries at COP17 Have a Mandate to Negotiate a Climate Agreement?

December 5, 2011 by Jake Schmidt
with 189 views

For the last two global warming negotiations – in Copenhagen and Cancun – there were serious efforts by countries to get a “mandate” to negotiate a new legal agreement that would strengthen international efforts to address global warming. Before this meeting this issue – “where we are headed” – was shaping up to be the key political decision at this year Ministerial meeting in Durban, South Africa. [read more]

Message to Durban: It's The Economy

November 30, 2011 by Geoffrey Styles
with 178 views

What if they held a UN climate conference and no one came? That's certainly not the case at this year's COP-17 (Conference of the Parties) meeting now underway in Durban, South Africa, but with expectations for dramatic progress low, and a breakthrough on the scale needed to salvage the expiring Kyoto Protocol nearly unimaginable, it could be where the UN-led process is headed. If Durban fails to deliver the goods, it won't be because the participants were any less concerned about climate change than those at past sessions. Nor will it be because of the latest release of Climategate emails, as embarrassing as some of them should be for the scientists involved. The reason is much simpler, and it's the same one that helped Bill Clinton unseat George H.W. Bush in 1992: "It's the economy, stupid." The solution to climate change is unlikely to be found in Durban or any future COP site until the leaders in Brussels, Washington and other capitals come to grips with the massive economic challenges they face and create the framework for a return to robust growth. [read more]

Green Growth or Green Confusion?

October 17, 2011 by David Hone
with 258 views

I have just been at the inaugural Global Green Growth Forum (3GF) in Copenhagen. This was a high level event, opened by the Crown Prince of Denmark and the new Danish Prime Minister, then following the initial panel discussion there was an introductory keynote by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon – in person. At its root, the green growth agenda feels like a growing worry that the market structure we have created over the last two centuries isn’t sufficiently robust to take us forward and that somehow market fundamentals like supply, demand and ultimately price won’t work. [read more]

What If It Is All A Big Hoax?

August 23, 2011 by Gernot Wagner
with 1,096 views

This cartoon has been makings its rounds since Copenhagen. Sadly, it’s as apt as ever.By Joel Pett originally ran in the Lexington-Herald. [read more]

More Voices Advance a New Climate Paradigm Abroad

June 9, 2011 by Breakthrough Institute
with 143 views

After 20 years of dominance, the pollution paradigm--the idea that we could solve climate change similar to the way we've addressed conventional pollution problems--irretrievably failed in 2010. At the end of 2009, the collapse in Copenhagen spelled the end of efforts to enact legally binding emissions caps at the international level. In... [read more]

Cancun: Spending the money

January 12, 2011 by David Hone
with 864 views

What started in Copenhagen as an aspiration for $30 billion in fast-start financing and up to $100 billion per annum by 2020 in North-South financing flow has been translated into the Cancun agreements as the beginnings of long term arrangements for specific funding purposes. Although the intention is to provide the necessary funding, the reality of doing so through a Green Climate Fund to facilitate the delivery of the 2020 pledges is very challenging. [read more]

Cancun: A reason for optimism?

December 17, 2010 by David Hone
with 738 views

Looking at a set of newspaper headlines earlier this week one might get the impression that nobody was quite sure whether progress had been made in Cancun or if it was another UN standoff. Certainly the various texts that were adopted, thanks to the diplomacy skill of the Mexican hosts, have moved the debate forward and opened up a number of new work streams. The next twelve months could see proposals for new market mechanisms, the design of a future structure to support technology transfer and the creation of a measurement, reporting and verification framework for emission reduction activities. But all of this is peripheral to the core issue of emission reduction targets, timetables and responsibility. In that regard the various texts are non specific and the issue has been largely deferred. So should we just be pessimistic about what is to come? [read more]

How are the Cancun Agreements different than the Copenhagen Accord: Q&A

December 15, 2010 by nrdc switchboard
with 505 views

Following from the Cancun climate negotiation session you might be asking: “how is this agreement different than the one agreed in Copenhagen just one year before”. Besides the quick answer—length of pages—there are some important differences in terms of substance and process. Each of these gives the Cancun agreements more... [read more]

It’s The Real Thing: The Power of Koch

September 8, 2010 by David Levy
with 2,459 views

We are at a critical juncture, as a backlash appears to be derailing action on climate change. If progressive groups want to address this threat, we need to understand the interests, strategies, and cultural politics at play. Brian Flannery, chief climate strategist for ExxonMobil, recently circulated his rather depressing report from... [read more]

Climate Movement at the Crossroads

September 7, 2010 by Teryn Norris
with 544 views

Published by National Journal at the Energy & Environment Expert Blog When future scholars document the history of global warming, one of the watershed years will almost surely be 2010. For over a decade, the primary goal of U.S. climate policy advocates has been to establish a strong carbon pollution cap and a binding global... [read more]

Logistics for Cancun Climate Negotiations: Another Copenhagen?

May 15, 2010 by Hugh Bartling
with 489 views

Moon Palace Resort, Cancun, photo: Thomas J. Hartnett Last year’s climate negotiations in Copenhagen left much to be desired. Instead of a comprehensive global deal with a legally-binding treaty, we saw a voluntary political agreement with weak mitigation targets. For those who attended the negotiations, simply... [read more]

A New Approach on Global Climate Policy

May 13, 2010 by Breakthrough Institute
with 547 views

By Michael Shellenberger Global climate policy should be radically overhauled in the wake of the failure of the United Nations process, an international group of 14 climate policy experts and scientists argue in a new paper. The Kyoto-Copenhagen focus on national emissions targets and timetables was bound to fail because it proposed a... [read more]

South Africa’s Minister of Tourism tipped for UNFCCC top job

May 12, 2010 by Climatico Analysis
with 209 views

.South Africa’s Minister of Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, and former Minister of Environmental Affairs has emerged as one of the frontrunners to replace Yvo de Boer as chief of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change UNFCCC. In the follow up to de Boer’s resignation, candidates from Indonesia, India, Costa Rica... [read more]

Prospects for a Global Climate Deal in 2010 Not Looking Good

May 10, 2010 by Hugh Bartling
with 414 views

Photo of Jairam Ramesh by Matthew McDermott The Chinese government hosted the “International Cooperative Conference on Green Economy and Climate Change” this weekend in Beijing. It brought together environment ministers and climate negotiators to discuss the way forward in global climate policy. The press accounts suggest very little... [read more]