Conference of the Parties (COP) 17

Saleemul Huq, IIED’s Senior Fellow in the Climate Change group, reports from Durban on "theatre from the Canadians".

In his second video update Saleemul Huq, IIED’s Senior Fellow in the Climate Change group, comments on the UN climate change opening ceremony with President Jacob Zuma and on hopes that South African political leadership “can bring [together] what seemingly look like very different points of view”.

The first video update from the UN Climate negotiations, IIED’s Senior Fellow in the Climate Change group, Saleemul Huq, outlines the two major issues to be discussed at the COP17.

The UN climate conference has officially opened and the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) is here in Durban, out in force. We’re not in prominent negotiating positions, but we play an important role behind the scenes helping support least developed country negotiators and southern partners engage with the process.

As policymakers prepare to discuss REDD+ at UN climate talks in Durban, they should heed the lessons learned from years of experience in participatory forest management across the developing world.

Slow progress at global climate talks is belied by the plethora of actions in many smaller and more at-risk developing nations.

Millions of people around the world, including climate change negotiators, follow the domestic political scene in the US, and most of them have by now realized the current Administration’s predicament of facing an antagonistic Congress that will essentially block everything they try to do, domestically, and certainly internationally.