Cop 18 planned for Doha, Quatar

The Media influence in the U.S.

You’ll have your fight, but it won’t be with the human opposition you’re looking for, it’ll be with droughts and forest fires, heavy rainfall and damaging winds, crop damage and dead livestock. Your battle will then shift towards the insurance industry, who are watching these events with a keen eye, ledgers at the ready. I’d offer you a “Good Luck”, but you’ll need more than that, and you won’t find any help, anywhere, as the insurance industry is poised to make a killing on climate change issues. In America, they’re already quietly raising rates and changing policies on the east coast, as sea-level rise and storm-surge are taking their toll. You and your denier-troll buddies better enjoy the good times now, so party on. The next decade is going to be a helluva ride down the rabbit hole…

"Venezuela Demands Attention at COP17.MP4"

lost the video feed Venezuela Demands Attention at COP17.MP4 Venezuelan Ambassador Claudia Salerno stands on table at COP17 to demand attention before telling the world that she had received two threats in the corridors of COP17. One:

"Dennis Bevington NDP MP Northwest Territories, Canada."

Dennis Bevington NDP MP Northwest Territories, Canada. Dennis talking about the Tarsands & the Harper government @ COP 17 Durban South Africa.

"Inhofe to UN Climate Conference in Durban: Kyoto Process is Dead"

Inhofe to UN Climate Conference in Durban: Kyoto Process is Dead

"New negotiation text in Durban full of dangers" by Nele Marien

Part 1: mitigation again disregarded

Posted on 6 December 2011 by Nele Marien

Last saturday a new negotiation text was published in the Climate Change Negotiations in Durban.
The text presents a few interesting points, many of which come from the People Agreement of Cochabamba. See the article on those interesting points here. The problem is, it is quite probable that those proposals don’t get into the final COP decisions.
On the contrary, there is a big push to get all the bad ideas in the decisions. It is impossible to be exhaustive, but I will be reflecting on some of the major problems.

No real mitigation being projected

What the whole climate change negotiations should be looking for in the very first place, is for the necessary mitigation commitments by developed countries (responsible of 75% of all historical emissions, and still today responsible of 46% of the emissions, with per capita emissions of 4 times more than the avarage in developing countries). Let’s see if the problem is attended.
What does the chapter of mitigation realy talk about? It has three main sections:
1) Matters relating to paragraphs 36-38 of the Cancun Agreements
2) Biennial reporting guidelines for developed country Parties
3) Modalities and procedures for international assessment and review (IAR)
Let’s be clear: nor reporting, nor international assessment and review do really attend the climate problem. Leaving aside the injustice that what is demanded in this sections is almost less stringent then what is demanded to developing countries in the correspondent sections, those issues may be important to follow up the damage we are doing to Mother Earth, but do not define mitigation commitments nor mitigation actions.
So the real issues are suposed to be attended in section 1, on ‘matters relating to

Meanwhile Civil Society has been very busy...

Meanwhile, on top of a hill overlooking the city of Durban, thousands of civil society activists have overtaken the campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (students are on summer break). Hundreds of conferences and seminars deal with the plethora of issues at stake : land grabs and privatization of wind and sun by corporate energy giants; threats to farmers and fisherfolk, including with mono-crops and industrial farming; the threats from big oil, big coal, big nuke, etc. Africa’s Rural Women have a six –day summit of their own, replete with spontaneous outbursts of resistance songs and dances and seminars for mobilization and activism.

The labour movement has eight days of trainings and seminars, with the mornings dedicated to local area shop stewards, explaining the basics of climate change, the dynamics of the UN negotiations and discussions on implications for specific sectors. PSI hosted Public Services Day on 2 December, with many shop stewards, as well as speakers from Korea, South Africa, Nicaragua, and the Philippines. Although we touched on a range of issues for public service workers, we focused most heavily on the implications of impending climate disasters for health, municipal, water and energy workers.

from " Public Services International at COP17"
www.world-psi.org/en/public-services-international--cop17