(Originally published here) With many “climate-vulnerable” nations calling on the Paris climate summit (COP21) to adopt a global warming limit of 1.5℃ rather than 2℃, will these concerns be acted upon? And if not, how much help will they get to cope with the consequences? Matt McDonald: Your research has examined developing countries in the context of climate change – …

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 millennia for a variety of …

(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. They also agreed on a …

(Originally posted on the IIED website here) With a month to go until the start of COP21, Saleemul Huq provides an insight into the perspectives of the Least Developed Countries ahead of the Paris climate talks, as part of a new series of video interviews for IIED.   Least Developed Countries must use their “strength of numbers” if they are to …

(This article originally published here) Earlier this month in Bonn, Germany, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held its last round of talks to prepare the text for the Climate Change Summit to be held in December in Paris, France to finalise a new Paris Agreement at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21).  The draft of the …

(Article originally published here) Having attended all twenty conferences of parties (COPs) of the UN’s climate body over the years and now planning to be in Paris for the twenty-first in December, I am feeling ambivalent about the entire enterprise. Everything I hear about in the build-up seems to be a mixture of good news and bad news. On the one …

(Article originally published on The Daily Star here) The recent award of Champion of the Earth conferred upon Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is a fitting recognition of her personal achievements, as well as that of the government and people of Bangladesh, in being a pioneer among nations in tackling climate change in particular. …

(This article was originally published here) How is the fossil fuel industry responding to growing pressure to address future emissions in the run-up to the Paris summit?   It is just under four months until COP21 gets underway in Paris, and momentum for a deal is building. Consequently, business attention should be starting to evolve from mulling the chances of …

(This article has been originally published here) Governments must no longer depend on or wait for global policies to act upon climate change. They have a legal duty of care to protect the citizens and international human rights The Hague District Court, in a recent historic landmark decision, decided that the Dutch government is knowingly putting its current and future …

(This article was originally published here) The Government of France is going to host the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Paris from November 30 to December 11, where it is expected that a new climate change agreement will be signed. It is hoped that the agreement will be ambitious and …