Tag: Kyoto Protocol

Poor countries have won historic recognition of the plight they face from the ravages of climate change, wringing a pledge from rich nations that they will receive funds to repair the "loss and damage" incurred.

All nations will suffer the effects of a warmer world, but the world's poorest countries will suffer most from food shortages, rising sea levels, cyclones and drought, the World Bank’s new report on climate change says.

EU environment ministers abandoned plans on Friday (26 October) to limit excess supply of Kyoto-era carbon credits on the world’s markets after seven eastern European states backed Poland’s opposition to the measure.

Where the EU has otherwise been a trendsetter in international negotiations, it is most unfortunate that even California seems to have outpaced the EU on the balanced and equal integration of developing world forests into the carbon trading framework, argue David Ellison, Hans Petersson and Mattias Lundblad.

A high–level UN panel has proposed a hard-hitting package to reform the centrepiece of the carbon market established by the Kyoto Protocol, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

While the EU is discussing the further steps to Europe’s 'greener economy' as a way to emerge from the financial crisis, its energy dependency on 'dirty fuels' has failed to be addressed, writes Elena Gerebizza of the Campaign for the Reform of the World Bank.

An EU scheme that charges airlines for carbon emissions is "a deal-breaker" for global climate change talks, India's environment minister said, hardening her stance on a scheme that has drawn fierce opposition from non-EU governments.

Friday’s meeting of EU environment ministers is being pushed to the brink of crisis by a Polish rejection of any mention of the EU's Low Carbon Roadmap for 2050, which foresees up to 95% emissions cuts by mid-century.

An increase in the EU’s carbon emissions reduction target to 30% on 1990 levels within eight years is ‘very fundamental’ to the developing world’s interests, said the European chair of the G77 group of developing nations.

Leaders of some of Europe’s biggest energy companies have written to European Commission President José Manuel Barroso demanding urgent action to stop a complete collapse of the carbon price.

Canada became the first country to announce it would withdraw from the Kyoto protocol on climate change, dealing a symbolic blow to the already troubled global treaty.

Climate negotiators agreed a pact on Sunday (11 December) that would for the first time force all the biggest polluters to take action on greenhouse gas emissions, but critics said the action plan was not aggressive enough to slow the pace of global warming.

Carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels have soared in the last 20 years, giving the world much less chance of avoiding dangerous climate change, new data show.

A 2020 roadmap to a second Kyoto-style climate pact will need to be based on a timeline led by science, and on action to cut CO2 emissions long before then, the EU’s chief climate negotiator, Artur Runge-Metzger, has told EurActiv in an exclusive interview. 

EU finance ministers pledged yesterday (8 November) to add €7.2 billion in short term funds to help poor countries deal with the effects of climate change.

Environment ministers of the European Union – responsible for only 11% of global carbon emissions – said they would commit to a new phase of the Kyoto climate change pact, on the condition that nations blamed for the rest join up too.

As part of the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations developed a market-based mechanism called Joint Implementation (JI) which allows rich nations to obtain credits for carbon reduction projects in "transition" economies such as Russia, Ukraine and the EU's former communist states. But the system is complex to manage and has yielded little results so far, raising questions about its continuation after Kyoto expires.

President Barack Obama's chief climate change negotiator has issued a warning over the future of the Kyoto Protocol, casting doubt on a key plank of international climate talks this December in South Africa.

European chemical manufacturers are covertly venting huge quantities of the powerful 'super greenhouse gas' HFC-23, according to a study by the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA).

EU transport officials say that a global deal to cut maritime carbon emissions is currently unachievable and are instead talking up an initiative by the Bahamas to regulate the world's shipping fleets as an alternative.

A new paradigm shift for sustainable and equitable clean growth is needed, according to Achim Steiner, the head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and governments can start by intervening to end fossil fuel subsidies.

EU Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard has warmly praised a British government decision to halve its 1990 greenhouse gas emission level within 14 years – if the EU takes similar action. 

The European Commission has called for the private sector to provide much of the $100 billion a year Green Climate Fund that was pledged at the climate summit in Cancún in December 2010.

The European Commission is preparing tighter regulation for the European carbon market in a bid to clamp down on insider dealing, fraud and manipulation within the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).