Copenhagen posturing

The last round of negotiations prior to the Copenhagen Summit in Barcelona fizzled to a message of decreased expectations.  This has set the table for rapid political posturing from the US.  On Tuesday the Wall Street Journal quoted several key Senators, including climate bill sponsor Sen. Kerry, with various statements postponing the possibility of US [...]

Manure to Electricity

There is concrete evidence that climate change is mainly due to anthropogenic actions. We are emerging into a world where consumers are becoming more concerned on where their food is coming from and the impacts that food production has on the environment.  Recently, cattle farmers are targeted in terms of rearing practices and amount of [...]

Report on Food Security and Agricultural Mitigation in Developing Countries

At the Barcelona Climate Change Talks The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) releases the Report on Food Security and Agricultural Mitigation in Developing Countries. The report  highlights the mitigation potential from agriculture of improvements in cropland and grazing land management and soil restoration. It explores potential synergies between food security, adaptation and climate change mitigation [...]

The U.S. and China on Climate Change: Who Has the Better Hand?

As President Obama gears up to make his first presidential trip to China later this month, environmental groups and other research organizations are becoming increasingly more vocal regarding the need for greater cooperation between China and the United States on the issue of climate change. Three prominent American organizations, the Asia Society, the Center for American [...]

Africa Makes a Stand

African nations boycotted the UN climate talks in Barcelona, Spain because they accused the rich nations of having inadequate promises to combat climate change.  Although these nations agreed to resume work on the UN climate talks, this has showed that African nations are united and are willing to stand their ground—protecting their citizens, where these [...]

Looking ahead to Copenhagen, seeing REDD

Here at ecociety we are paying close attention to developments in the run up to COP 15. One of the most important areas of negotiation involves the issue of deforestation. The UN established the Program on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing countries (REDD) to encourage developing nations to reduce deforestation through [...]

Barcelona Climate Change Talks.

The Climate Change Talks are being held from 2-6 November 2009, in Barcelona, Spain. UNFCCC Executive Secretary, Yvo de Boer opened the Barcelona Climate Change and highlighted the significant advances in the negotiations on adaptation, technology transfer, capacity-building and reducing emissions from deforestation (REDD) The Barcelona meeting is unlikely to resolve the big issues on finance [...]

In the European Union, Consensus is Lacking on Climate Change

The European Union (EU) has been meeting regularly to come up with a consistent position on climate change going into Copenhagen in December. The big ticket item in all of these meetings is how to fund global climate change in terms of adaptation and mitigation. So far, the EU has failed to find common ground. [...]

Obama Sets Energy Innovation as International Competition

I had the very good fortune to attend President Obama’s clean energy speech at MIT yesterday.  I was extremely excited to be in the room, yet left disappointed in the lack of new commitments and jingoistic tone set by President Obama. The theme of the speech was innovation, geared toward the research oriented host, MIT.  [...]

“There is no difference between India and China”

The New Delhi Accord, reached today, between India and China aligns the two traditional rivals in a unified stance on climate change negotiations.  This move in the lead up to Copenhagen will have meaningful impacts on the type of agreement that can possibly be accomplished there.  The accord insists that neither China nor India will [...]