Following the spectacular milestone of 3,000 projects registered into the world’s largest carbon offset mechanism, this month marked a time for reflection for those involved in the United Nations’ Clean Development Mechanism. With over one-third of the registered projects now issuing Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs – the currency of the CDM, each equal to one [...]

The value of an EEZ is on clear display in the South China Sea dispute and in the Pacific small island states battling the climate change threat. Despite their differences – one carries the weight of changing geopolitics and possible military force; the other, the disappearance of states altogether from the world map – both [...]

Guest Editorial by: Matt Williams, UK Youth Climate Coalition The UNFCCC process has been mired in something of a quandary since the high hopes around Copenhagen in 2009 were quickly dashed when countries failed to come up with a second global, legally binding agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol (due to expire in 2012). But [...]

Since the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster in Japan, things have continued to get worse for nuclear world-wide. In the past months, Germany and Switzerland decided to phase-out their nuclear power infrastructure by 2022.  Just this past week, Italy passed a referendum outlawing the return of nuclear power.  Yet, France continues to hold strong [...]

Questions of statehood and statelessness are generally laden with controversy and emotion, yet with Pacific islands such as the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) at risk of becoming gradually uninhabitable and entirely submerged under rising seas, along with losing their sovereignty and lucrative marine rights, there is an urgent need for legal solutions. Solutions [...]

As more people worldwide experience increased storm severity, floods and other climate change impacts, policymakers are growing increasingly concerned about climate displacement and searching for legal mechanisms to assist those uprooted from their homes. Two recent conferences examined the issue of climate displacement and debated possible solutions. The first, the UN Refugee Agency’s Nansen Conference [...]

Coauthored by Paige Andrews and Marie Karaisl. In a drastic reversal of policy, Germany has announced that it will shut down all of its nuclear reactors by 2022 in the wake of the Fukushima plant disaster in Japan. After the initial announcement, the government last week discussed the detailed drafts for the laws with the heads [...]

My previous article mentioned that it is now very difficult to pursue the current Japan’s energy strategies highly depending on nuclear energy because its ‘safety myth’ collapsed as a result of Chernobyl-level radioactive leak from the Fukushima nuclear plant. Further, reducing GHG emissions by 25% by 2020 seems infeasible because its global warming strategies are [...]

On June 6th, according to Jiji press, Japan is likely to abandon its mid-term GHG reduction target. On March 12th, the earthquake and Tsunami attacked the Fukushima nuclear power plant and serious radioactive leak has been taking place since then in Japan. Both electric power companies and the Japanese Government eloquently insisted on the ‘perfect [...]

The UN Climate Change Conference kicks off this week in Bonn, Germany as governments continue framework discussions in preparation for the Seventeenth Conference of Parties (COP17) to be held in Durban, South Africa, at the end of the year. Over three thousand participants representing 183 countries are attending the conference in Bonn from June 6-17, [...]