Tag: Climate change adaptation policy

Dumping iron into the sea can bury carbon dioxide for centuries, potentially helping reduce the impact of climate change, according to a major new study. The work shows for the first time that much of the algae that blooms when iron filings are added dies and falls into the deep ocean.

EU member states must look to microfinance institutions (MFIs) as successful channels for reaching the most vulnerable or they risk marginalising those most in need, writes Christoph Pausch, executive secretary of the European Microfinance Platform, in an exclusive commentary for EurActiv. 

China hit back on Saturday (9 September) at US claims it was shirking in the fight against climate change, likening the criticisms to a mythic pig preening itself.

Members of the European Parliamen's agriculture committee agreed yesterday (27 January) that EU farm policy can help slow climate change, and that the post-2013 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) should be used to make the transition to sustainable farming by creating more synergy between EU agriculture and environmental policies.

A new global climate treaty would provide an opportunity to create social cohesion by sharing low-carbon technologies between rich and poor countries, Jacqueline McGlade, executive director of the European Environment Agency (EEA), told EurActiv in an interview.

As world diplomats struggle to hammer out a climate agreement in Copenhagen, former senior EU negotiator on the Kyoto Protocol Jørgen Knud Henningsen told EurActiv in an interview that the debate on targets is ill-fated. He said leaders would be better off concentrating on the 1992 UN convention ratified by the US and devising policies to achieve the long-term goal of cutting C02 emissions by 80% before 2050. 

Civil unrest will grow in the coming years unless heads of state and government show political leadership to stop climate change, said Mary Robinson, a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and former Irish president, in an interview with EurActiv.

While EU leaders are expected to agree on immediate action to provide financial support for developing countries in Brussels today (11 December), in Copenhagen billionaire investor George Soros has unveiled a plan to provide up to 150 billion dollars for poor countries to access clean technologies.

After the last round of climate talks before the UN conference in Copenhagen ended with a sense of pessimism and impending defeat, the Danish ambassador to the EU, Poul Skytte Christoffersen, warns against the danger of postponing a deal until next year.

China hit out at rich nations at international climate talks in Bangkok yesterday (6 October), saying failure to honour past climate commitments was undermining UN-led efforts to try to seal a broader pact in December to fight global warming.

Global temperatures may rise by up to four degrees Celsius by the mid-2050s if current greenhouse gas emission trends continue, triggering castastrophic climate change, according to a study published today (28 September) as 190 countries gather in Bangkok to continue negotiations on a new post-Kyoto deal.

At the World Water Week conference, held last week (16-22 August) in Sweden, political leaders and experts called for water to be a key part of the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December.

While governments haggle over the amounts needed to finance climate adaptation in developing countries in order to close a global agreement later this year, concerns are being raised that the demand side of adaptation has been ignored.

Despite the need to come up with a global climate deal by the end of the year in Copenhagen, diplomats involved in the negotiations are not making enough progress, India's special envoy on climate change, Shyam Saran, told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.

European Union environment ministers said they would offer the United States and other developed nations "co-leadership" in the fight against global warming if they were to match the EU's ambitious emissions reduction goals later this year. EurActiv Czech Republic reports from Prague.

The US must not do less than the EU to cut greenhouse gas emissions, said in an exclusive interview with EurActiv Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which received the Nobel peace prize in 2007 together with former US vice-president Al Gore.

Protecting water resources should rank among the top priorities of a global deal to mitigate climate change as it will "secure the basis for food, energy, health and economic development, thereby ensuring a nation's ability to thrive," write Dr. Mark Smith, head of the Water Programme IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) and Dr. Ger Bergkamp, director general of the World Water Council, in a March paper.

China and India must play their full part in fighting climate change and accept that programmes financed by the West to modernise their industries will only come in return for making genuine efforts at home, warns the EU's chief climate negotiator in an interview with EurActiv.

The European Commission yesterday (23 February) adopted a package of proposals to improve knowledge of both natural and man-made disasters and forge common external and internal strategies for tackling risk with Community funding.

The European Commission yesterday (28 January) presented proposals for a global agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, urging rapidly developing countries such as China and India to take on their fair share of responsibility in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite great expectations, UN climate talks in Poznań have failed to deliver a coherent plan for action, with activists and environmentalists voicing disappointment that much of the "heavy lifting" negotiations had been postponed until next year. Delegates will seek to strike a deal on a new international climate change agreement in Copenhagen next December.

After a week of intensive talks, ministers have not yet made a breakthrough in negotiations for a post-Kyoto climate change deal currently taking place in Poland, despite some progress on tackling deforestation.

Parliamentarians, business and civil society representatives have called for a "human dimension" based on justice and dignity to be taken into account during upcoming climate change negotiations in Poznań this December.

Faced with the prospect of rising sea levels and increasing drought and precipitation, as well as species loss and higher risk of disease, European countries need to step up their efforts to adapt to the impact of climate change, according to a new report by the European Environment Agency (EEA).