Protests at Durban have delivered neither the cacophony of Copenhagen nor the resort-inspired civility of Cancun. Instead, they have been a mix of anger and despair, with talk of occupation and the slightest glimmer of hope. [...]

“Unless the G8 sign up to cut emissions by at least 40% by 2020, developing countries will not commit to emissions targets” – that’s the major point of discussion between developed and developing nations, which has (as was to be expected) paralysed the outcome of the Major Economies Forum (MEF). Following yesterday’s G8 declaration, the [...]

This week WWF-Allianz released their annual scorecard in advance of the G8 negotiations in L’Aquila. Canada came 8th, under-performing both Russia and perhaps more embarrassingly, the US. The report cited increased efforts by the US such as Obama placing high priority on stopping climate change, and Russia’s recent moves to come to the negotiating table [...]

191 countries. Wildly differing priorities. Scientific uncertainty. Limited budgets. Short timescales. It’s no wonder that reaching agreements at international climate negotiations is difficult. But depressingly, making agreements is actually the easy bit: keeping to them can be much, much harder. Take this week’s report by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), a research organisation [...]

Already a whole quarter has passed since the frenzy of negotiations that led up to the 20/20/20 Package agreement at the European Council meeting last December. The series of ministerial meetings that occurred back then are being repeated this month. Environment Ministers met last Monday; Economic Ministers will meet on Tuesday 10 March; and European [...]

The good news As reported in this blog last week, new rules governing the distribution of foreign donor aid under the REDD scheme had been delayed. It was however announced earlier this week that the new rules, as well as the new climate change fund, would be ready before the Bonn climate change talks in [...]

Some commentators think that one of the few things we me see progress on at Poznan is the “Adaptation Fund” (AF). Unlike the LDCF (see my previous post), it was established to finance concrete adaptation projects and programmes in developing countries. It is operated by the Adaptation Fund Board, but the GEF runs the secretariat [...]

Not precluding the results Poznan will have, there are warning signs that the global economic crisis has reduced the scope for the ambitious action that is needed to tackle Climate Change. A case in point is German policy these days, where the disjuncture between rhetoric and actions taken becomes harder to ignore. With a declaration [...]