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Fred: A Generous Guy or a Dickhead? It’s All About Context
5 Dec 2018
If Fred told you that he was paying $500 towards helping Ginger with re-pairs to her home, you may tend to think that Fred was a really generous guy. But, if you found out that Fred had run his truck into Ginger’s house, you might be slightly less convinced of Fred’s generosity. If you then […]
KP2: the Good, the Bad, and the Paradoxical
5 Dec 2018
ECO has a full meal waiting for you just here: we have some good news, some bad news, and to finish, a paradox. The good news is that our host, Poland, has finally ratified the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol. Together with the Cook Islands, Guinea-Bissau, St. Lucia, Togo, Tonga, and Uruguay, the other […]
L&D: Voices From the Front Lines
5 Dec 2018
Hospitals in dusty small towns. Young children lying on beds next to their mothers displaying familiar signs of severe malnutrition. Some survive, others don’t. Niger is one of the poorest countries on Earth with one of the highest rates of child mortality. This is a result of many factors, among them, endemic poverty, high population […]
Fossil of the Day
5 Dec 2018
Cough, cough …. Did anyone else notice that strange haze in the air? … cough, cough … I suppose there issomething to be said for the way light reflects off the “clouds,” but really? Why are we at COP in a coalregion? Polish President Andrzej Duda said yesterday during his speech delivered at COP 24 […]
Sychronized Swimming
5 Dec 2018
Have you ever watched synchronized swimming? Combining swimming, dancing and gymnastics; it’s considered one of the most complicated dances in the world. It can be done solo, duo, trio or in groups and it’s harder than most sports because it’s also under water. For quite some time, negotiations around Article 9.5 of the Paris Agreement […]
Loss and Damage as a Separate Workstream of the GST
4 Dec 2018
The renewed, upward march of global carbon emissions is worrying and a big step backwards in the fight against climate change. Here at the COP, ECO is all too aware that the more we exceed 1°C of warming above pre-industrial levels the greater the impacts on poor people and ecosystems. It’s not that long ago […]
12 Years Left
4 Dec 2018
Today, Parties will get to hear both the urgency of the crisis as well as the feasibility of achieving a 1.5C pathway straight from the horse’s (or in this case scientist’s) mouth at the SBSTA-IPCC special event on the SR1.5. While ECO does not want to steal the IPCC’s thunder, ECO did want to highlight […]
A Step in the Right Direction
4 Dec 2018
On Monday, the World Bank released news of its post-2020 climate action, to cover 2021-2025. The announced USD$200 billion is good news. Quite a lot of zero-carbon resilient-infrastructure building good news, in fact, and the Bank has doubled its existing climate finance commitment. The World Bank (minus the IFC) has also committed to 50% for […]
Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire in Paradise
4 Dec 2018
Oh crap €“ that’s smoke. We ventured outside and were choked back inside by the acrid burn smell of fresh fire. Where was it? Nearby? In our neighbourhood? Fear took hold as the sky closed in. The news spread fast; early that morning a fire had started near a town called Paradise, California. The fire […]
Go For It Pedro!
4 Dec 2018
As Spanish President Pedro Sánchez spoke in the High Level Segment, ECO heard in his words the difficulties facing several world leaders. He felt unable to offer new commitments, and played it safe; only mentioning a part of his government’s ambition programme. Uncertainties of all kinds (intensified in Spain by the alarming rise of the […]