Tag: climate negotiations
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Inside Out COPs: Turning Climate Negotiations Upside Down
By now it is known that COP25, the latest UNFCCC conference of the parties (COP) and the longest in history, could not achieve its intended outcomes, as negotiators failed to agree on the core issues, thus pushing further away the implementation of the Paris Agreement. COPs that overrun, since it is now a standard practice…
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The intractability of loss and damage issues in climate negotiations
The impacts of human-induced climate change are manifested through losses and damages incurred due to the increasing frequency and intensity of climatic disasters all over the world. Low-income countries who have contributed the least in causing climate change, and have low financial capability, are the worst victims of this. However, since the inception of the…
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CLIMATE NEGOTIATIONS UNDER UNFCCC An effective platform for branding Bangladesh
The 25th Conference of Parties (COP25) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) ended just days ago. Already, many reviews, mostly negative, have come out globally including in this newspaper. I called the COPs often a process of “active inaction” in my first book on climate politics published by Routledge in 2014. The…
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GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
“Swimming against the tide”The Bangladeshi scholar Saleemul Huq has been observing international climate negotiations from the start. In our interview, he assessed the EU’s role. In what sense is the EU important in climate talks? It is extremely important because it is a block of rich nations which are still willing to be ambitious. By contrast, the USA…
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UN energy envoy urges investors to consider 1.5C warming limit
(Originally published here) Investors should consider how an aspirational 1.5C limit on global warming affects their portfolios, a top UN envoy said on Monday. Shareholders are already pressing fossil fuel majors to recognise the risk greenhouse gas emissions curbs could dampen demand for their products. To date, most analysis has focused on a 2C threshold. Rachel Kyte, CEO…
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An opportunity for LDC leadership
(Originally published here) In Paris, the least developed country group was a key player in delivering this agreement — pushing relentlessly for a legally binding and effective agreement with universal participation, inclusion of the 1.5 degree target, loss and damage, and for the much-needed finance. Who will be the next executive secretary of the UN…
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From Paris to Marrakech: The next stage of global climate change policymaking
(Originally published here) The 21st Conference of Parties (COP21), which was successfully concluded in December 2015 with the adoption of the Paris Agreement, has set in train global actions by all countries to tackle climate change through both mitigation to reduce emission of greenhouse gases as well as adaptation to the adverse impacts of climate…
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Could an African become the new U.N. climate chief?
(Originally published here) The next head of the U.N. process to tackle climate change should come from one of the world’s poorest countries, which led an ambitious drive to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in the new Paris deal, a leading expert has proposed. With Christiana Figueres stepping down as executive secretary of…
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Helping tomorrow’s climate refugees by engaging today: A dispatch from Bangladesh
(Originally published here) I spent the past week in Bangladesh, visiting the countryside on a fascinating and heartening trip from the country’s massive capital, Dhaka, to the south, a region being hammered by climate change. I came to give some speeches and took the opportunity to see for myself how foreign aid and local sweat…
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Not Fully Lost and Damaged: How Loss and Damage Fared in the Paris Agreement
(Originally published here) The Paris Agreement coming out of the Conference of Parties (COP) 21 negotiations gave breakthrough recognition to loss and damage, sorting through thorny discussions and politically charged negotiating positions. These positions revolved around liability and compensation, which developing countries called for but developed countries were unwilling to have included in the Agreement.…
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COP21: Why the Paris talks must tackle climate-forced migration
With the crisis of refugees arriving in to Europe from Syria and other countries in Asia and Africa the topic of climate change, displacement and migration assumes a high level of attention. Much of the debate is characterised by prejudice rather than evidence. We should accept the obvious truism that humans have been moving for…
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The Climate Vulnerable Forum Has Come of Age
(Originally published on The Daily Star here) The Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) just held its high officials’ meeting in Manila under the chairmanship of the government of the Philippines where they prepared the Manila Paris Declaration to be formally adopted at a heads of government meeting of the CVF countries in Paris on November 30.…