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“Informing a more just and effective global climate change policy”

Category Archives: Regions

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.

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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January 24, 2012 Why the UNFCCC needs more countries like Mexico

By Guy Edwards


During the COP17 I caught up with Dr. Fernando Tudela Abad, one of Mexico’s foremost climate change experts and a high ranking official of the Mexican delegation. Dr. Tudela is Under Secretary of Environmental Policy and Planning at the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resource and also chairs the expert group of the OECD on climate change.

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December 22, 2011 Running from Climate Change: The Obama Administration’s Changing Rhetoric

President Obama at COP15, AFP Photo

 

By Graciela Kincaid

At both President Obama’s “job speech” to the Joint Session of Congress and his speech at the Clinton Global Initiative last September, one issue was shockingly absent from the agenda: climate change. The term was scarcely mentioned in either speech, and more surprisingly, the administration also failed to deliver on the more popular message of clean energy. For all the talk of job creation and economic growth, the role of green jobs and a potential transition to a green economy were missing from the dialogue. In fact, lately the green jobs issue has taken a serious hit because green innovation has not been proven to create enough immediate “boots, jeans and helmets” jobs.

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December 8, 2011 It Takes Two Hands to Clap

By Linlang He

Will China break the impasse in the negotiations?

Yesterday morning’s High-Level Forum on Climate Change at China Pavilion clearly lifted the spirits of its participants. Head Delegate of the China Delegation Mr. Xie Zhenhua, together with leaders from the World Bank, the UK and the EU, summarized China’s current achievements in energy efficiency and renewable energy development, reaffirmed the need for a greener growth and urged developed countries to “play from their hearts”.

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December 3, 2011 Latin American civil society builds bridges at the COP17 in Durban

By Guy Edwards and Mónica López-Baltodano*

Today, at the COP17, a group of Latin American platforms, networks and fora organized by the Building Bridges initiative met with delegations from Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Panama to discuss the primary issues under negotiation including the longevity of the Kyoto Protocol, designing the Green Climate Fund and adaptation.

The Ecuadorian commented on her satisfaction at seeing so many young people participating in this important event, and that with Rio+20 around the corner, the outcomes from Durban will have an impact on the event to be held in Brazil, 20 years after the Earth Summit that gave rise to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

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November 30, 2011 Jonathan Pershing Frames the US Stance in Durban

By Graciela Kincaid

On November 29th, Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change Jonathan Pershing swept into the US Delegation Offices and jumped into a 45-minute session regarding the US position at the negotiations. He held the invited American students enraptured, deftly framing the key issues for the American delegation and responding to questions. He provided an essential context through which to assess US action this week and next in Durban.

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November 27, 2011 US Players: Days Before Durban

By Kelly Rogers

On Monday, delegates from around the world will convene in Durban, South Africa for a two-week Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Delegates will pick up where last year’s Cancun negotiations left off, particularly concerning the contentious Green Climate Fund. At home in the US, spectators are watching our delegation’s position on the Fund–chiefly as it relates to public vs. private sector involvement. Recent reports about the lack of Congressional representation in the US delegation have observers worried about the domestic political viability of US promises made in Durban.

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November 23, 2011 Youth Activism: Hope of a Better Climate?

By Linlang He

“This world demands the qualities of youth- not a time of life but a state of mind: a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease”

– Robert F. Kennedy, “Day of Affirmation”
Cape Town, South Africa, 6 June 1966

The International Youth Climate Movement (IYCM) was first developed during COP11 at Montreal in 2005, referring to “an international network of youth organizations that collectively aims to inspire, empower and mobilize a generational movement of young people to take positive action on climate change”. Over the years, IYCM has offered its membership to coalitions and networks in over 100 countries. Each coalition or network within IYCM has had the opportunity to send a delegation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Indeed, China Youth Climate Action Network (CYCAN) became known to the world by attending the COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009 as a member of IYCM.

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November 22, 2011 Caribbean Paves the Way for Insurance-Based Climate Adaptation

By Adam Kotin

In its influential Third Assessment Report (2001), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) jumpstarted action on climate change adaptation by stating that a certain level of climate change was inevitable, and that the world should get to work preparing for it.

Last year in Cancun, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) took the next logical step—it officially acknowledged that climate change will cause devastating losses despite the very best adaptation measures, and that the Convention has a role to play in mitigating that damage.

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