A Week with Cocoa Farmers in Ghana’s Eastern Region

By Jenna Farineau It’s unusually hot for this time of year. It reaches almost 40 degrees Celsius every day and the rains are few. Now, it’s not unusual for Ghana to have such intense heat or lack of constant rains, but this is something concerning. The end of February/beginning of March generally marks the start of the rainy season here, and it is welcomed with deep appreciation from farmers....

A Long Term Goal in the Paris Agreement: A Failure Without Differentiation & Equity

By Paige Nygaard We are getting closer and closer to the end of COP21. Anticipation is growing to seeing what disaster will unfold within the text. Will it be slightly bad? Absolutely terrible? How much will the United States be able to shift the burden of climate change to other countries while also blaming them for any bad deal in Paris? As every draft text gets released, it favors the...

Synthetic Biology in the CBD-COP12

by Michelle Pazmiño // The “new and emerging issue” of Synthetic Biology is said to be misunderstood by many stakeholders of the Convention on Biological Diversity. It is defined by the Convention as: “the use of computer-assisted, biological engineering to design and construct new synthetic biological parts, devices and systems that do not exist in nature and the redesign of existing...

Youth intervention on Synthetic Biology. CBD-COP12

by Michelle Pazmiño // The following intervention was prepared by Kabir Arora (India) and Michelle Pazmiño (Ecuador) on the subject item number 24 of the Draft Decisions text for the CBD-COP12:   GYBN Intervention on Synthetic Biology Pyeongchang, South Korea, October 8th 2014   Madam Chair, thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to share our position in regard to this...