Protected: UN Climate Negotiation History 101

by Katie O'Brien As Earth in Brackets prepares its delegation for Warsaw we have been reviewing and learning more about the history of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). So I thought it’d be good to share our notes and knowledge with our audience so maybe you can better understand what we’re talking about in COP19. 1992 The Rio Earth Summit happens – you may have seen...

USA scores own goal by moving the goal posts

by nathan thanki There was quite a stink created this week when US Special Envoy for Climate Change (the big-shot who shows up late to the UN climate talks and gets interrupted by his constituents for not truly speaking for them) made a "remark" to his old College, Dartmouth. There was widespread condemnation of the apparent u-turn on US climate policy, which had previously agreed...

Equity matters

~by Graham Reeder Today’s negotiations have almost exclusively been dedicated to the subject of equity. The Ad hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action, after spending most of yesterday squabbling over its agenda, got straight into holding their all-day workshop on equitable access to sustainable development. The word equity in the context of the negotiations decisions has its...

Bonn Intersessionals Kick off

~by Joe Perullo and Graham Reeder The sun is shining in the old capital of western Germany as the 36th session of the Subsidiary Bodies (Implementation and Scientific and Technical Advise) kick off on day 1 of the Bonn intersessionals. Intersessionals are smaller meetings than COPs, they are charged with getting the work done that the annual COPs agree to and preparing for the following year's...

The Curious Case of the New Zealand Delegation

By Lara Shirley The New Zealand delegation started the informal-informal negotiations off with a bang on Monday morning, agreeing with the G77 on a variety of issues. They first did this regarding the title – Japan proposed changing the title of the document to “Rio Commitment towards Green Economy”, the G77 stated that they would prefer “The Future We Want” and New Zealand promptly...