21 August 2010

Climate change: COP15 Put to bed: COP16 wide awake and doing push ups

Governments made progress in Bonn: No big expectations Cancun: Mexico seeks support: threequarters of UK companies drag their feet: transport dragging the chain: World in ecological debt sooner

Briefing the press on the final day of the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres said governments have this week made progress towards deciding the shape of a successful result at Cancún.

She stressed that to achieve the desired outcomes at Cancún, governments must radically narrow down the choices now on the table.

Said Figueras "This week, governments have made progress towards deciding the shape of a successful result in CancuÃŒ'¡n. I guess everyone understands that it iÃŒ~s hard to cook a meal without a pot. Governments are much closer now to actually making the pot."

"This means countries could agree to take accountable action to manage and deploy finance, boost technology transfer, build skills and capacity and deal with adaptation, especially in the poorest and most vulnerable countries."

"This would also include a mandate to take the process inexorably forward towards an encompassing agreement with legally binding status ... which would take more time."

"A key goal in the Kyoto Protocol text is to avoid a gap in industrialized country commitments to cut emissions once the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires at the end of 2012."
"However, governments also have to decide what exactly to cook in the pot. To achieve the desired outcomes at Cancun, they must radically narrow down the choices now on the table."

Mexico seeks India's support for 'ambitious outcome' at Cancun
Ahead of the global climate change summit in Cancun in December, Mexico sought India's support to help towards an ambitious outcome of the meet within the framework of the Kyoto Protcol. Source: Hindustan Times

Mexico wants Copenhagen outsiders in Cancun talks: envoy
Mexico is striving to bring countries which felt excluded from the Copenhagen climate talks into the negotiations at this year's UN climate summit in Cancun, its climate ambassador said on Thursday.   Source: AFP

UN climate panel head expects no climate deal at Cancun
The head of the UN's climate science panel said Wednesday there was little prospect of a breakthrough in efforts to forge a global agreement on climate change at a world meeting in December.   Source: AFP

Three-Fourths of U.K. Companies Haven't Yet Measured Carbon Footprints
Almost three-quarters of U.K. companies have yet to measure their carbon footprints, the government’s Carbon Trust said.   Source: Bloomberg

Transport dragging the chain on green initiatives
Analysts who surveyed 291 of the largest transport companies in the world said only 36 per cent of them had set carbon and energy targets, compared to 51 per cent of the "Global 500 Index" of companies across all sectors.   Source: Air Cargo

World Goes into ecological debt a month earlier than last year
The day that marks when humanity starts living beyond its ecologically means falls earlier than ever this year, on 21 August 2010. The jump almost a month ahead of 2009's date is partly due to the availability of new data, meaning that previous Ecological Debt Day dates were almost certainly too conservative.