An appeal to sanity

by nathan thanki Yesterday, a large group of civil society--mostly youth--took the voice and anger of the street into the halls of the UN. While it could never have been a true #occupy--COP is inherently segregated into those with badges and those without; those with pink badges and those with yellow--the idea was still to say: enough is enough. You have had 20 years to negotiate a fair,...

China Syndrome

by Nathan Thanki With the dirty details of week one out of the way, COP17 is changing gears into the high-level segment. Heads of State are coming to town, security is ramped up (execpt at our hostel) and the drone of talks about an outcome  becomes louder and more persistent. A lot off that buzz is around a Durban deal, the so called "Durban Mandate." Most of the noise is around whether or not...

The Tragedy of the Least Developed Countries

by Graham Reeder and Nathan Thanki While there are more controversial and contentious issues regarding financing for adaptation (the report on the GCF today in COP plenary, or the report from the Adaptation Fund Board to CMP plenary), there are some interesting discussions going on elsewhere. For example, in yesterday’s continued opening plenary of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation,...