Climate change blogs

Finding the plot at COP15

Arriving at any big event in midflow is always disorienting: the play has begun and you’ve come in right after the interval.

Climate refugees of the future

Bangladesh is calling for the rights of environmental refugees to be recognised as the country battles rising sea levels and chronic poverty

Keeping the forests we've got

The conservation of forests in countries like Suriname with high forest cover and low deforestation rates is not a priority for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Yet forest people suffer enormously from the effects of climate change.

Just the beginning

Yvo de Boer, who runs the UNFCCC secretariat, laid out clearly where we are with agreement on the text in his inimitable laconic style: ‘We are near to the end of putting things in and near to the beginning of taking things out.’

Thank you for the days...

Amid the debates swirling round this conference with cyclonic intensity is one very big question: how can the world’s most vulnerable countries adapt to climate change with such a serious shortfall in targeted funding? Oxfam estimates the task as demanding US$50 billion a year — some US$49 billion more than what’s actually available.

The world-changing power of serendipity

Lobbying — the pre- and post-negotiation discussions where much of the real action at global conventions happens — is a key activity for NGOs at the talks.

Ideas matter but time is short

Under a bright blue sky, we spent the day perched on lecture hall benches in Poznan’s University. A one-day immersion on everything you need to know and more about forests and climate change.

In the belly of the articulated beast

So far, the Poznan COP is panning out nicely for memory stick collectors.

First impressions

Long before dawn broke over London, I took an early train out to the airport and flight to Poznań. Chill mist was still rising off the fields as we landed, and temperatures below freezing...

Knowing your team mates

You wouldn’t expect a football team that had never practiced together to play particularly well, would you?

Exchanging experiences

How does  IIED engage with, and learn from, participants at major conferences? Vanessa McLeod-Kourie explains

Welcome to Poznan

if you can get here….. We have all looked forward to this year’s UNFCCC event and hopeful of productive outcomes especially our friends and colleagues from developing countries.

Fingers up for Climate Action

I saw two people arguing today about whether biofuels could help save humanity from itself in a carbon-constrained world.

Of course, they were both right, both wrong but neither knew it.