Barely a month after the end of the Pozna? conference, the European Commission has attempted to set the agenda for the next COP/MOP, which will be held in Copenhagen in December 2009. The move came in the form of a Communication issued last week that sets out the Commission’s views on a wide range of [...]

When asked to think about the relationship between climate change and Indonesia, the most likely answers would revolve around rainforests, deforestation, orangutans and loss of livelihoods. Missing from this picture is any appreciation of the role played by the oceans of Indonesia. This is especially surprising given that Indonesia’s: the world’s largest archipelago; 17,000 islands [...]

At Poznan a number of developing countries – China, Mexico and Brazil – took the opportunity to announce new climate change initiatives. Indonesia’s initiative, one of the world’s top 20 greenhouse gas emitters, was conspicuous by its absence and, given recent disagreements over budgetary control, we shouldn’t expect anything soon. The body expected to take [...]

As Poznan, COP 14, an intermediate negotiations phase draws to a close and delegates from all over the world disperse, it is clear that there was very limited progress made on reforming the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in the short-term. The CDM is one of the three mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol that enables developed [...]

Brazilian Minister for the Environment Carlos Minc launched the country’s national strategy to address climate change, signed by President Lola on 1st December 2008. Whilst the developing country previously held a defensive position, the launch of this strategy represents a shift to a more leadership position, with which they hope to influence the G77 and [...]

Nobel Prize winning Al Gore addressed a jam-packed plenary today, to reinforce the urgency of the global climate change crisis we face. “The road to Copenhagen is clear…” Gore stressed that the ‘optimism and hope’  we see today are great enough to help us to reach an agreement in Copenhagen, in spite of the obstacles [...]

The UK’s Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Milliband, addressed  the UN Conference of Parties (COP) here in Poznan today, delivering the UK’s ministerial statement on climate change. Echoing sentiments of Gordon Brown and other EU member states over the last week in Brussels, he stressed that the UK must overcome the [...]

If one had been hoping for clear signs of progress a week-and-a-half into Poznan and on the eve of a European Council meeting, where an ambitious EU climate agenda should have been finalised, this has not been the best week. German enthusiasm for action on Climate Changed has not only waned with the onset of [...]

90% of 12-18 year olds in China, Brazil , Africa, Russia and many other countries believed that world leaders should do everything they can to address climate change in a recent UNEP survey. Yvo de Boer stressed our global responsibility and commitment to finding a climate change solution yesterday in his address to The Climate [...]

Discussions focussed around sustainability in the built environment yesterday, at the Econcern Sustainable Energy Event running parallel to COP14 here in Poznan. Peter Head, Director and Global Planning leader at Arup, presented the company’s vision for the transition we need to make to move to an ‘ecological civilisation’ – a term coined by President Hu [...]