United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

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.

With the dusk of the International Year of Forests fast approaching, reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, sustainable forest management, conservation and enhancement of carbon stocks (REDD+) has the potential to bring positive changes to the lives of people who are dependent on forests for their livelihoods. But this can only happen if REDD+ is implemented in a way that ensures their participation in the process.

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.

I have been attending a meeting of around forty Archbishops and Bishops from all over Asia for several days now at Assumption University on the outskirts of Bangkok, Thailand surrounded by flood waters approaching the country’s low-lying capital city.