9 November 2009
The Maldives and Britain are united in the face of environment crisis – and we take inspiration from underwater politics Be in no doubt. Climate change is not tomorrow's future menace. It is today's growing catastrophe. In Copenhagen next month a meaningful deal must be secured if we are to have any hope of avoiding catastrophe. This very human crisis is already being felt in parts of the world. This year, entire communities in Bangladesh are being forced to leave their homes due to rising sea levels; women in drought-ridden parts of Ethiopia have to walk five miles a day to collect water; and natural disasters are occurring with increasing frequency and ever more devastating results. Climate change threatens us all. If we fail to bring it under control in the next decade we may move past the point of no return. This is a defining political test of our generation. Less than one degree of global warming since the industrial revolution has caused dangerous changes to our world. Last month, the government of the Maldives held a cabinet meeting underwater to illustrate the stark reality facing the nation. The meeting caused a media sensation internationally. It was a lighthearted event with a deadly serious message: if climate change is not addressed, these beautiful islands will slowly slip into the Indian Ocean. This week, the Maldives is hosting a conference of climate-vulnerable developing countries . The conference aims to thrash out a common position among the most vulnerable nations ahead of the Copenhagen meeting in December. Britain stands shoulder to shoulder with the Maldives and all vulnerable countries. We are working to ensure the voices of the people who will be hit first and hardest by climate change are heard around the negotiating table. Copenhagen must secure a deal that sees rich countries shouldering their fair share of the burden of controlling climate change. This means tough targets on their own emissions but also an agreement on funding ... [more...]
9 November 2009
Oxfam launches landmark online interactive documentary that captures the shocking moment when cyclone Aila swept over Bangladesh in May [more...]
9 November 2009
Bureaucratic detail should be the last thing that prevents an agreement to save the planet from climate change. After all, the outline of the issue is simple: every government in the world now accepts that the amount of carbon dioxide being emitted from human sources will lead to a disastrous overheating of the atmosphere, if it is not checked. [more...]
7 November 2009
Chancellor Alistair Darling today urged the world's most powerful finance ministers to treat climate change with the same urgency they gave to the world economic turmoil. [more...]
7 November 2009
Rich countries bullying poorer ones, mud-slinging and back-stabbing - environmental summits can be vicious At 8am on Wednesday 7 October, a smartly dressed fiftysomething Filipino woman took the escalator to the first floor of the UN building in Bangkok and merged into a throng of diplomats, civil servants and environmentalists arriving for the eighth day of the ninth session of the global climate talks. She was met with a few respectful nods. Bernarditas de Castro Muller – "Ditas" to her chums – chatted to a journalist and a colleague, and then went to work in conference room 1. She spread her papers in front of her, stood up and began to belch fire, tearing the flesh off three Americans and chewing two Europeans. After swallowing them whole, she sat back down. She didn't, of course, but such is Bernarditas's reputation as a "dragon woman" in the epic UN climate talks which should conclude next month in Copenhagen that if she had, no one (least of all the US and British governments who seem to fear and loathe her) would have been too surprised. In the outwardly polite yet vicious world of UN climate change diplomacy, where negotiators use every trick to further national interests and where battles rage over commas, colons and semi-colons, Bernarditas is seen by most poor countries as a heroic defender of their rights. But most rich countries paint her as a machiavellian, Soviet-style hardliner holding back an agreement to save the world. Bernarditas is officially an environment adviser to the Filipino government, and lead negotiator and co-ordinator of the 130 developing countries in the umbrella group known as the G77 plus China. She negotiates in what is called "the ad hoc working group on long-term co-operative action (AWG-LCA) process under the Bali action plan". In short, she represents the interests of nearly two-thirds of the poorest people of the world in the climate talks. It's her job – along with a few other G77 negotiators – to keep together the trad... [more...]
6 November 2009
Yvo de Boer says US target is essential as poor countries threaten walk-out at Copenhagen The last formal negotiations before the global summit on climate change in Copenhagen concluded in acrimony today, with developing countries threatening to walk out of the December conference unless rich countries commit themselves to far greater cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. While the countries remain officially optimistic that a strong global warming treaty can be struck, they are privately braced for a weak outcome which heads of state will sign, but the public and scientists will condemn as much too little to prevent catastrophic global warming. In addition, the US and Europe put themselves on a collision course with the world's poorest countries by repeating demands that the existing Kyoto treaty be scrapped in favour of a single new international treaty . It was announced by the UN that more than 40 heads of state have agreed to go to Copenhagen, including Gordon Brown and others from Europe, Africa and South America, and many more are expected. It is recognition that the only way a legally binding deal will be concluded is with the highest level political involvement . Ironically, the involvement of the heads of state will give negotiators much less time to bridge what appears to be nearly insurmountable gaps between positions, thereby forcing the talks to continue well into 2010. Earlier this week, the US, EU and UK accepted that an enforceable deal would take at least six months to finalise. "Little progress was made [this week] on the key issues of emission targets and finance that would allow developing countries to limit their emissions and adapt to climate change," said Yvo de Boer, the UN director of the talks. "Without these two pieces of the puzzle in place we will not have a deal. Leadership at the highest level is now required to unlock the pieces". The 130 developing countries represented by the G77 group said today they would walk out of Copenha... [more...]
6 November 2009
British Government officials believe there is no hope of signing a legally binding climate change treaty in Copenhagen next month. [more...]
5 November 2009
One of Earth's worst-ever mass extinctions may have been caused by carbon dioxide released by exploding mixtures of magma and coal [more...]
3 November 2009
The giant cash deal to save the planet – proposed by Europe for the forthcoming Copenhagen climate conference – will not be enough, the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, said today. [more...]
3 November 2009
The balance of probability, if the recent downbeat pronouncements from the UN are to be believed, is that the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen next month will end, like a Spike Milligan sketch, with the actors shuffling offstage, staring into the half-distance, mumbling "What are we going to do now? What are we going to do now?" [more...]
3 November 2009
Ecuador's offer to refrain from drilling for oil in the Amazon rainforest in exchange for money could be a novel way of combatting climate change [more...]
3 November 2009
The snows of Mount Kilimanjaro – the highest mountain in Africa – may soon be falling on bare ground following a study showing that its ice cap is destined to disappear entirely within 20 years, due largely to climate change. [more...]
2 November 2009
You think it's about greenhouse gases. You think it's about carbon emissions. And it is. But the Copenhagen agreement on climate change that the world community will attempt to sign in December is just as much about money – enormous, mind-boggling amounts of money. [more...]
2 November 2009
The proposed Copenhagen climate treaty has plenty of jargon – "mitigation" and "adaptation" are two examples already given. But the key word may yet turn out to be "additionality". [more...]
1 November 2009
Climate change emissions from meat production are far higher than currently estimated, according to a controversial new study that will fuel the debate on whether people should eat fewer animal products to help the environment. [more...]
