Day 5 Policy Updates: Taking Stock, Talking Lots

by Nathan Thanki The informals continue. Today saw the ADP convene meetings on adaptation and technology which got fairly heated. The big sticking points are the issue of intellectual property rights (IPRs), which has been reintroduced by the G77 but is causing the developed countries much anguish. Yesterday developed countries began referring to IPRs as "the thing which must not be named" in...

On Irretrievability

by Trudi Zundel The last few nights at COP are characteristically grim. Ministers have arrived and Parties have been in closed sessions for two straight days. Negotiations have been in a deadlock for a week and a half—North and South are fundamentally opposed on most major issues. This is the time when the powerful players begin to throw their weight and influence over the process in...

From Crevice to Chasm

By Julian Velez Developed countries are trying to undermine the relevance of the Bali Road Map as a whole, as well as the Durban Package laid out last year. These include a 2nd commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (KP), and comparable mitigation actions by developed countries for non-KP parties under the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long Term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) and Nationally Appropriate...