Tag: climate change

"Lack of political will" on the part of developed nations has hindered any substantial progress towards a new climate treaty in the ongoing United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) talks in Bonn, according to the acting chief of the Chinese delegation to the second round of the global climate talks.

Managing carbon losses from ecosystems must feature in a new global climate policy framework if the world is to reduce global warming to a sustainable level, a new United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report argues.

The newly-elected European Parliament faces a busy climate policy agenda, as Europe attempts to claw its way out of the recession by developing greener policies and convincing the world to agree on an ambitious climate deal.

Following a weekend of debate ahead of the EU elections, over 350 citizens participating in the second pan-European deliberative poll have voiced growing support for the Greens, eroding the leadership of the two big European Parliament political groups, the centre-right EPP-ED and the Socialists.

Meeting in Bonn for a second round of talks, rich and poor countries yesterday (1 June) criticised the initial negotiating text of a new United Nations climate treaty, but grudgingly accepted it as the basis for six months of arduous negotiations.

More than 500 industry leaders gathering in Copenhagen this week are calling on heads of state and government to strike a strong deal to reduce carbon emissions, stressing that long-term policy clarity is required as well as financial backing.

China upped pressure on industrialised nations to cut emissions 40% below their 1990 levels by 2020 and dedicate part of their GDP to help developing as part of a new global climate pact to be agreed in Copenhagen later this year.

Emissions offsets will play an important role in any future global climate deal, but it will be necessary to scale up the climate efforts and move from projects to programmes, Joëlle Chassard, who manages the World Bank's carbon finance unit, told EurActiv in an interview.

Ahead of the next round of talks on a post-Kyoto climate agreement, the United Nations has released the first draft of a negotiating text stuffed with options for rich and poor countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which scientists blame for warming the planet.

Russia's new climate doctrine hints at Moscow's growing willingness to engage with the international community in fighting climate change, but EU observers are not pinning their hopes on ambitious commitments from their Eastern neighbour to aid the passage of a post-Kyoto climate treaty.

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.

Over 30 national proposals submitted to the UN in recent weeks have revealed that a significant divide must still be bridged between rich and poor countries if a new global climate agreement is to be concluded in December.

A new US commitment to tackle global warming outlined by President Barack Obama will be the focus of attention today (22 April) at a meeting of international environment ministers in Sicily.

A very important priority of China's relations with the EU is to vigorously promote co-operation in energy saving, emission reduction, environmental protection and new energy sources, writes Ambassador Song Zhe, head of the Mission of the People's Republic of China to the EU, in an essay published on the mission's webpage on 18 April.

The European Union is playing "tricks on the atmosphere" when it claims it will reduce its emissions by 20% by 2020, argues Stefan Singer, director for global energy policy at the WWF. Speaking to EurActiv in an interview, he explained how he had calculated that the EU’s own domestic emissions will in fact only amount to "4 to 5%".

Cutting greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture could further help mitigate the impact of climate change, policy experts are arguing, calling for the sector to be put at the centre of ongoing UN climate talks. 

The world cannot afford to lock itself into a bad climate agreement for the next ten years, argues Anders Wijkman, a Swedish centre-right member of the European Parliament. Speaking to EurActiv in an interview, he said the UNFCCC should postpone agreeing a successor to the Kyoto Protocol should the preconditions for a good agreement not be met.

The EU's Council of Ministers yesterday (6 April) adopted the final legal texts of the energy and climate change package of legislation negotiated by member states in December last year.

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.

As hundreds of delegates gathered in Bonn on Sunday (29 March) for the first official round of UN talks in view of preparing the ground for a post-Kyoto climate deal in December, most experts concurred that a detailed agreement is unlikely to emerge by the end of the year.

Stavros Dimas, the EU's environment commissioner, says Europe is looking forward to seeing the details of US climate change legislation in order to assess whether it meets the "comparability test" with the EU. He spoke to EurActiv on the sidelines of this week's European Business Summit in Brussels.

Business leaders attending this week's World Water Forum called on the international community to acknowledge the link between water, energy and climate change, encouraging them to take these up in global climate negotiations that are expected to be concluded this December in Copenhagen.

An effective US climate policy is only feasible if the interests of coal-intensive Midwestern states are taken into account, US energy experts said in Brussels yesterday (17 March).

A high-level scientific climate conference concluding in Copenhagen yesterday (12 March) delivered a tough message on the social and economic costs of failing to address climate change to world leaders expected to hammer a post-Kyoto global deal in December.