November 8, 2012 New Climate Equity, Not Fossil Fuel Subsidies
By David Ciplet and Timmons Roberts
It’s absurd — the countries least responsible for causing climate change are suffering worst and first from its impacts, including droughts, floods and famines. Meanwhile, wealthy countries continue to feed the problem by directing hundreds of billions of dollars to subsidize fossil fuel industries every year. In fact, the support they’ve offered those hit hardest is less than one percent what they give the polluters most driving climate change.
In 2009, these countries promised to end fossil fuel welfare once and for all. It is time that they met this promise. Redirecting this money to the Least Developed Countries and other vulnerable nations would help them to adapt to this new climate reality and level the playing level playing field for clean energy, spurring a transition to a sustainable economy.
In three weeks, representatives of the world’s nations will meet for talks on the United Nations’ climate change treaty. President Obama led the initial charge against handouts to Big Oil, but lost the political will to make it a reality. Hot off his reelection, Obama has a huge chance to be bold and start moving money from the problem to its solution. Sign the petition here – Avaaz.org will deliver the petition to wealthy countries at the climate talks when we reach a critical mass!
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- Posted under Adaptation, Climate Finance, Uncategorized, UNFCCC, UNFCCC Negotiations Topics
November 8, 2012 CDL and the ‘climate paradox’ featured in The Guardian
By David Ciplet and Timmons Roberts
Do you know about the climate paradox? The countries hardest hit by climate change are also the least responsible for causing the problem. Learn more by checking out our video and research covered today in The Guardian at this link.
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- Posted under Uncategorized
June 23, 2012 Ecological Debt and Climate Justice After Durban: Time for Some Practical Politics
By Timmons Roberts*
Photo Cred: Orin Langelle/GJEP
Written December 21, 2011, posted March 21, 2012
In the utilitarian lecture-hall of the University of KwaZulu Natal in Durban, South Africa, some of the world’s top scholars and activists on the “ecological debt” spoke to a half-full hall. Impassioned speeches outlined the big idea: that rather than owing a huge economic debt to private and World Bank lenders and governments of the wealthier nations, the world’s poorer nations are actually owed an “ecological debt” due to the plundering of their natural resources by colonists and neo-colonizing corporations alike.
Who owes by this reckoning? The global North. The bill? By one scholarly estimate: US$1.8 trillion. Others argue that it is impossible to calculate the value of complex ecological systems, but the first level estimation is that the financial debt of poor nations is tiny in comparison and should be forgiven.
The microphone is passed around the audience in the risers, and finally finds its way to the hands of a Durban labor union leader.
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- Posted under Civil Society, Durban: COP 17
May 29, 2012 Got transparency? Leaders and laggards in climate finance reporting
By David Ciplet
The need for transparency in climate finance is plain: unless developing countries know how much money to expect, when and for what, they cannot effectively plan their efforts to address and respond to climate change. But what has been the track record of wealthy countries on this crucial issue?
A new scorecar Continue reading this article ›
d, released by the organization the International Institute for Environment and Development, reveals that we have a long way to go in making climate finance transparent. Two of the authors, David Ciplet and Timmons Roberts, are from Brown University’s Climate and Development Lab. The scorecard evaluates the extent to which these countries meet a set of 25 common-sense transparency criteria in their climate finance reports to the UN. The scorecard can be found at: http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/17100IIED.pdf
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- Posted under Climate Finance
April 18, 2012 Shaping the Durban Platform: Latin America and the Caribbean in a future High Ambition Deal
By José Alberto Garibaldi, Monica Araya, and Guy Edwards
After the longest session on record, governments at the COP17 in Durban in December 2011 agreed to negotiate by 2015 a climate deal to enter into force in 2020. The Durban Platform for Enhanced Action defied predictions that the meeting in South Africa would lead to a collapse of the UN climate talks. Many parties from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have worked many years to make possible the political compromise achieved in the final hours and included in the Durban Platform. Today, the challenge is to make this platform ambitious enough to avoid dangerous climate change.
In this new CDKN and Energeia Policy Brief we discuss the outcomes of the COP17, the contribution Latin America and the Caribbean made and the implications of the Durban Platform for the region. The Brief finishes by offering a set of recommendations:
1. Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) countries supporting high ambition at the international climate negotiations need to continue to shape a more ambitious climate narrative by acting together, domestically and internationally, and strengthening existing work with experts on bold action both within and outside the COPs.
2. Informal exchanges inside and outside of the UNFCCC process to jointly define key milestones for the Durban Platform and identify areas of convergence and divergence must take place within LAC countries and with Africa and Asia between now and 2015.
3. Both at home and abroad, the LAC region needs to improve how it communicates its successes on low carbon, climate resilient strategies to keep building confidence and generating a stronger impact at the international climate negotiations.
4. LAC countries need to continue to explore how best to advance national conversations linking climate change issues such as mitigation and resilience plans to national interests and potential losses in food security, infrastructure and trade.
To read the Policy Brief click here.
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- Posted under Latin America, UNFCCC
April 7, 2012 IPCC Releases full SREX report
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the full version of its Special Report on Extreme Events and Disasters (SREX). Check out this powerful video for details on the study and its implications.
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January 24, 2012 Latin American governments and civil society combine forces at COP17
By Guy Edwards
The COP17 was a watershed moment for Latin American civil society participation in the UNFCCC negotiations. Civil society organizations (CSOs) actively engaged with governments at the talks and, in turn, governments made efforts to reach out to civil society. This increased level of exchange can be observed on two levels.
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- Posted under Civil Society, Durban: COP 17, Latin America
