First some good news: The G8 has agreed for the first time agreed that it must limit worldwide temperature rises to no more than 2C, the minimum rise to prevent irreversible climate change. The richest industrialised countries also agreed for the first time that they should collectively cut emissions by 80% by 2050, and that … Read More
Copenhagen Conference
Gore Invokes Spirit of Churchill to Fight Climate Change
Many people working on climate change have long dismayed at the apathy on the issue expressed by leading politicians. They talk action but do nothing. With just months to go to the critical UN climate conference in December, Al Gore came to the UK yesterday and implored the world’s politicians to invoke the spirit of … Read More
Carbon Offsetting is “Fundamentally Flawed”
As the pressure for an international deal grows in Copenhagen, one of the corner-stones of any solution will be carbon offsetting, where rich, polluting countries supposedly offset their rising emissions by investing in “clean” projects in developing countries. Off-setting will be high on the agenda at the next round of climate talks in Bonn this … Read More
Climate Summit Inc.
Probably the most important climate meeting in the run up to the main December Copenhagen conference is happening this weekend. No its not a scientific get-together, but its big business being given unprecedented access to the UN climate negotiations, in cohorts with the hosts of the December meeting, the Danish government.
199 Days to Stop Climate Disaster
With less than 200 days to go until the Copenhagen Climate talks, progress is said to be “steadily and slowly” being made. “There is a constructive atmosphere in the negotiations and I’m very encouraged,” Yvo de Boer, the head of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change said last week. But the “slow and steady” … Read More
Bonn, not London, is the Important Meeting
As the world watches and waits to see what happens at the G20 today, but if you are worried about climate, you are looking at the wrong place. You should be looking to see what happens at Bonn instead. Anything meaningful on climate will happen in Bonn not London. This is where a 10-day UN … Read More
Stern: “High carbon growth kills itself”
Lord Stern, the economist who is now a leading voice on climate change, is interviewed at length in The Guardian today. The paper exaggerates and simplifies Stern’s importance when they say he is “The man in charge of saving the world”. But Stern will be an influential voice in the climate negotiations this year and … Read More
Obama “May Delay” Copenhagen Climate Deal
There is growing evidence that President Obama will be forced to delay signing up to any new agreement on climate change in Copenhagen due to the scale of opposition in the US Congress. Senior figures in Obama’s administration have warned their political counterparts in London that Obama may need another six months to win domestic … Read More
UN Accuses EU of “Shifting the Goalposts” on Climate
Politicians would not be politicians if they did not wriggle out over promises they have made in the past. Ask them a straight question and you never get a straight answer. If they give a firm commitment, often they renegade on it. So should we really be surprised that the UN’s chief negotiator on climate … Read More
Scientists Warn of Catastrophic Cost of Political Failure
When the world’s leaders finally meet in Copenhagen in December and try and come up with an historic agreement on climate change, they will not be able to use lack of knowledge as an excuse for inaction. In what can only be described as a watershed moment, the 2,500 leading scientists meeting in Copenhagen this … Read More