Protecting the environment with intelligence
Durban was hot and steamy yesterday – it’s getting on for high summer in the Southern Hemisphere – and I spent the best part of the afternoon in a glorified prefab (aka the “EU Pavilion”). COP17 has been mercifully light on air conditioning, a huge relief after the two weeks spent shivering in Cancún last [...]
Last Sunday night, flash floods killed eight people in and around the city of Durban and left thousands homeless. Just one in a series of recent extreme weather events here in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal Province, it probably wouldn’t have crossed most people’s radar screen were it not for the fact that thousands of foreign delegates [...]
UNFCCC CDM approves further payments to HFC producers DURBAN: As United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiators meet in Durban, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) is calling on all Parties to reject HFC-23 carbon credits following widespread evidence and acknowledgement that most of the credits do not represent real emission reductions. Last [...]
DENPASAR, BALI: Despite a call from 108 countries for the Montreal Protocol to pursue a phase-out of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), political manoeuvring in advance of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) climate negotiations have prevented any action or formal discussion on how the potent class of greenhouse gases (GHG) could be eliminated. India, [...]
As a campaigner working on climate change policy, it’s easy to get lost in a world of abstract figures. A few million tonnes of carbon here, a billion dollars there – it can all seem very academic and unreal. At the other extreme, there are those stories that bring you back to earth with a [...]
A report to the 23rd Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol, November 21-25, 2011 in Bali, Indonesia