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Parties light-years apart on finance
30 Sep 2009
Mind the gap?! That looks like the understatement of the year. While the deplorable lack of funding for climate change adaptation is clearly being felt right now by the millions of residents of Metro Manila, and many more poor communities are suffering from monsoon disruption and related crop failure in South Asia, developed countries seem […]
Adaptation is Additional by Definition
30 Sep 2009
As negotiators continue to wrangle over procedural issues in the adaptation contact group, Parties should be preparing for a possibly contentious debate on an issue that is nonetheless essential – the additionality of climate finance. ECO has overheard very few developed countries in the corridors who are ready to provide climate finance in addition to […]
Playing the Convention Against the Plan
30 Sep 2009
The “response measures” discussion – which OPEC countries seem to want included in absolutely every negotiating context, regardless of what Parties have previously agreed – drags on in the most inappropriate places. Why compensation for potential loss of oil revenues should be considered in the same breath as supporting adaptation for the world’s most vulnerable […]
No sliding back, New Zealand!
30 Aug 2009
Speaking to Point Carbon, New Zealand’s climate change ambassador said that “if our conditions are not met we reserve the right to drop (our target) below 10%.” So now you know, New Zealand’s 10% to 20% is actually “do nothing” to 20%. The truly off-key note in the interview was New Zealand’s excuse for not […]
Bonn III: Creative Accountants for Rent
14 Aug 2009
As regular readers will know, ECO prides itself on seeking out the most shocking, least noble attempts by parties to avoid their responsibilities for tackling climate change, no matter how well hidden. And after thirty years of fearless reporting, there aren’t many tricks of the climate negotiating trade that haven’t been exposed on these pages. […]
Bonn III: Anyone Remember Environmental Integrity?
14 Aug 2009
From where ECO sits, Annex I nations seem increasingly committed to wiping countries off the face of the map. Their obstinate refusal to reduce emissions in line with a finite global emissions budget threatens the very survival of a number of countries, through sea level rise, or through impacts that will make them uninhabitable. The […]