Tag Archives: kyoto

The participants at the U.N. sponsored COP17 climate change talks in Durban, South Africa, managed to come to an agreement on a package of measures that will eventually force all the world’s polluters to take legally binding action. One of the most significant elements of the deal concerns a replacement for the soon to expire Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto protocol is the only global warming …

Despite conspicuous resistance from the U.S., governments around the world are putting a price on carbon. Emissions trading has increased dramatically in the last five years and over the next five years the trading of carbon emissions is expected to become the world’s largest commodity market. The provisions for international emissions trading were introduced with the establishment of the Kyoto Protocol. The establishment of carbon …

Intransigence prevails over fate of Kyoto Protocol As the final days of the climate talks in Cancun come to pass, so do the obligatory all-night negotiating sessions in an attempt to pull out some progress at the COP16 climate conference – or perhaps just keep the Kyoto Protocol alive for further debate. In a process that demands compromise across a wide gulf of competing …

Is CCS, or carbon capture and storage, a promising technology to help the world deal with carbon emissions from coal-fired power plant, or a dangerous and unproven boondoggle offering false hope?

The Europeans seem confident they’re at a competitive advantage in the current climate and economic crisis because they’ve been playing by the (environmental) book for the past decade. Brussels has just adopted an Energy and Climate Package (pdf) that insiders boast will set the scene for a “new global industrial revolution”.  Those are the very words the European Energy commissioner used to describe the …

By setting procedural boundaries for the upcoming climate summit in Copenhagen this December, it is hoped that the ongoing "pre-talks" in Bonn, Germany will bear fruit for meaningful change.

The UN FAO is urging climate negotiators to incorporate agriculture into the post-Kyoto climate pact currently being negotiated, an effort that if successful could address the interlinked challenges of climate change mitigation adaptation, food security, poverty alleviation and environmental degradation in an integrated manner.