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Category Archives: Durban: COP 17

June 23, 2012 Ecological Debt and Climate Justice After Durban: Time for Some Practical Politics

By Timmons Roberts*

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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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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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December 9, 2011 Occupy COP17

By Adam Kotin and Cecilia Pineda

 

As negotiators determine the fate of the Kyoto Protocol on the last day of COP17, youth from all over the world, NGO members, and a few distinguished negotiators stormed the hallways of the International Convention Centre demanding climate justice.

Protesters began the march toward the opening plenary for the 7th meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP) singing a mix of the South African miner’s song “Shosholoza” and chants for climate justice. Borrowing the human microphone from the U.S. Occupy Wall Street movement, they voiced their demands for the negotiators to come up with an ambitious, legally-binding treaty to reduce emissions.

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December 9, 2011 Is anyone listening to the new leaders on climate?

By Cecilia Pineda

In the months prior to the COP15 in Copenhagen, President of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed convened the first meeting of the Climate Vulnerable Forum and urged leaders to make active carbon neutral pledges to arm their convictions that their survival depends on all countries pursuing low-carbon economies.

Nasheed believed that a bloc of carbon-neutral developing countries could move the outcome of Copenhagen.

To Nasheed’s disappointment, not all of the countries jumped on the carbon-neutral bandwagon and it is unlikely whether these countries could have prevented the train-wreck of Copenhagen which sacrificed 189 voices for the sake of 5. Nonetheless, out of the ashes of the COP15 we have begun to see the rise of new leaders and alliances, which rally under the progressive banner and promote low-carbon growth at home and abroad.

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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 7, 2011 El Salvador stresses adaptation to keep its head above water

By Adam Kotin

When devastating floods hit El Salvador in October 2011, 40% of the country’s crops were wiped out. Agricultural Minister José Guillermo López Suárez was forced to import the nation’s signature kidney beans all the way from China.

But sadly, this wasn’t a new experience for the fast-developing Central American nation. At a COP17 panel presentation, El Salvadoran Minister of the Environment Herman Rosa Chávez discussed the slew of extreme weather events his country has endured over the last several years.

For El Salvador, severe climate-related losses have almost become an annual rite.

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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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December 2, 2011 Just add cash for climate adaptation

By Spencer Fields

In this 2006 file photo, a woman walks past a building in Brikama, Gambia. Source: REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly

It’s really quite simple. For the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), “funding is paramount,” to use the succinct summary provided by Pa Ousman Jarju, the Gambian chair of the LDC Group.

The Least Developed Countries have already written their National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs), comprehensive reports on their projects focused on adaptation to and mitigation of climate change.

They have already prioritized the projects in order to address first those that require urgent and immediate attention. There even already exists a funding mechanism – the UN-created and Global Environment Facility-managed LDC Fund (LDCF) – to provide them with the financial resources they need to implement the projects.

As Jarju pointed out this week at the UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa, all they need now is cash.

Seems straightforward, right?

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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 30, 2011 Innovative Finance: Time for a “Hail Mary” for the Climate

By J. Timmons Roberts, Brown University Center for Environmental Studies/Adaptation Watch

So it’s come down to this, a “Hail Mary pass for the climate.”

At the end of an American football game, the losing team, down by three or four scores with virtually no possibility of winning, often resorts to a “Hail Mary Pass,” in which they line up a few guys to protect the quarterback, send everyone else down into the opposing team’s end zone, and then heave the ball up in the hopes one of their teammates will catch it.

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