APN: The adverse effects of climate change and natural climate variability pose a significant threat to humanity, with the poorest communities being the most vulnerable. Scientific understanding of our climate is advancing at a significant rate, with new information emerging about the likely impacts of climate change, the options to adapt to these changes, and [...]

EurekaAlert: Modest advances for agriculture in Durban signal need for scientific input While last month’s climate negotiations in Durban made incremental progress toward helping farmers adapt to climate change and reduce agriculture’s climate footprint, a group of international agriculture experts, writing in the January 20 issue of Science magazine, urges scientists to lay the groundwork [...]

RECOFTC: At Durban’s Forest Day 5, the resounding message was that REDD+ will not work if people are hungry. How can we expect the poor to conserve forest resources if their food security – their very survival – rests on the use or consumption of those resources? Part of the problem is a perceived trade-off [...]

DowntoEarth: IPRs are blocking access to mitigation and adaptation technologies. India offers a way out. Debate on the rights and wrongs of intellectual property rights (IPRs) always gets stuck on a fundamental question. Would there be any incentive to invent and create without the incentive of IPRs such as patents and copyright? The conventional view [...]

Canberratimes: Canada’s announcement before Christmas that it will formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol could not have been better timed to puncture the sense of progress generated by the UN climate change conference in Durban just two days earlier. There, delegates had celebrated a dramatic and unexpected conclusion that saw all 194 countries (including Canada) [...]

Economic Times: The Durban conference in December 2011 marked a breakthrough in international efforts to combat climate change. The EU and India played a key role in final negotiations that unlocked the pact on the last morning of the conference. Together, we found the compromise that provided the basis to launch negotiations on a new [...]

IIED: Of all the baffling goings-on at the recent climate change conference in Durban, what bewildered me most was the position of India. As traditional alliances appeared to fade and new emerge, India appeared allied to the blockers rather than the movers. During the weeks preceding Durban, it was clear that Brazil, South Africa, India [...]

Guardian: Efforts by developed countries to redistribute promised funds to help poorer parts of the world avoid environmental disasters have been described as “dismal” by the foreign minister of Bangladesh. Dipu Moni said wealthier nations must begin immediately delivering the billions of pounds’ worth of aid they have earmarked for climate change projects. “Our achievements [...]

Sudhirendar Sharma: By strange coincidence two unrelated developments had surfaced at the time when environment ministers from several countries were mulling over reams of text to resolve the climate conundrum at the port city of Durban in early December  - one, that the branded chocolates were getting costly and two, diapers sales were plummeting across [...]

Huffingtonpost: And not by eastern windows only,When daylight comes, comes in the light,In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,But westward, look, the land is bright.  –Arthur Hugh Clough You might be surprised to learn that I think climate protection may have posted its best quarterly results ever in the last three months of 2011. [...]

Business Green: Earlier this month, the world’s heads of state, government, industry and NGOs met in Durban, South Africa, to discuss our common future. These climate negotiations were more successful than many people had feared. A new international climate agreement will enter into force in 2020. This agreement makes life more predictable for industry and [...]

Climate Ethics: I. Introduction: What Is Missing In Reporting About The Durban Outcome? It has now been two weeks since negotiations at the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP-17) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) were completed in the early morning of Sunday, December 11, 2011 in Durban, South Africa. We [...]

It’s the end of another year, a time to look back and take stock, maybe even make a resolution or two for the future. And there’s no bigger future to contend with than that of the planet. Unfortunately, after two weeks of intense negotiations at the 17th United Nations conference on climate change earlier this [...]

IndepthNews: Somebody must be mistaken: leaders of rich, industrialised countries congratulate themselves on reaching an agreement to tackle climate change, but civil society calls the ‘Durban Package’ a disaster for the planet and the world’s poor. After two weeks of intense negotiations over the future of the climate regime, who was right? What do we [...]

IDSA: Was the 17th Meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP 17) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) a success or a failure? Shorn of rhetoric, there was no urgent action to ensure that the global mean temperature does not rise beyond the critical 2 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels. There was [...]

Green Conduct: The last COP in Durban ended in a success for the UNFCCC process, but has more nebulous implications for the climate itself, with Kyoto put on artificial respirator and a more comprehensive agreement being pushed back to a later date. The most significant progress at Durban for climate change adaptation came in the [...]

GIZ: As we prepare the last edition of the newsletter for this year, COP 17 in Durban and its protracted finale are still very fresh in our minds. All of us who witnessed the summit were quite relieved when it did – two days after the scheduled end – finally yield the agreement of a [...]

Industrialized countries are still against the idea of bearing their share of burden in tackling climate change. The 17th Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was convened in Durban when the membership of this multilateral body faced two exceptional challenges. First, a critical component of the convention, [...]

Dawn: There is now near consensus in the international climate community that Asia will be the most severely affected continent because of the changes associated with global warming. And Bangladesh, the Maldives, parts of India and almost all of Pakistan are likely to suffer the most. Bangladesh and the Maldives will be hurt because of [...]

The Glob and Mail: So what that Canada withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol. Kyoto died long ago. Most of the countries that ratified Kyoto, starting with Canada, failed to meet their greenhouse-gas reduction targets. Big polluters – the U.S., China and India – didn’t accept targets. At the Durban climate-change conference, Canada got paddled by [...]

NDTV: At the recently concluded UN climate change talk in Durban, the world agreed to a new global climate change regime by 2020 to bring down emissions to save the planet. But cutting carbon emissions will be a tough task for India in the years to come as the country needs to balance its development [...]

Bhutan Times: The formation of a group of mountain countries, as proposed by Ecuador, would have helped the group easily represent a common interest at the negotiation of the Convention of Parties (CoP) 17 meeting at Durban, South Africa, but it has left numerous such countries in a lurch following back off by some member [...]

Go-Green: The series of agreements reached on Sunday by nearly 200 countries in Durban lays a foundation for the global community to tackle climate change.   Governments meeting at the annual climate conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) decided to adopt a universal legal agreement on climate change as soon [...]

IISD Reporting: The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, was held from 28 November – 11 December 2011. The conference involved a series of events, including the seventeenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 17) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the seventh meeting of the [...]

Business Green: Support for $100bn Green Climate Fund will help overhaul the UN’s carbon market and financing for forestry projects While reactions have been mixed as to the overall success of the Durban climate summit, some progress has been made in terms of agreeing a fund to help poor countries combat climate change, reform of [...]

SciDevNet: The UN Climate Change Conference (COP 17) in Durban, South Africa, ended yesterday (11 December) with an agreement that all major polluting countries would work towards legally binding targets for reducing carbon emissions. But the bitter showdowns and high drama which preceded the last-minute agreement sidelined two key issues for developing countries — the [...]

Guardian: The Durban climate conference may have agreed a deal – or at least a deal to agree a deal – but the scale of the work that still needs to be done became plain today. Although talks are supposed to start immediately, America’s special envoy for climate change, Todd Stern, infuriated the EU by [...]

Huffingtonpost: The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP-17) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adjourned on Sunday, a day and a half after its scheduled close, and in the process once again pulled a rabbit out of the hat by saving the talks from complete collapse (which appeared possible just a [...]

New York Times: Canada said on Monday that it would withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Under that accord, major industrialized nations agreed to meet targets for reducing emissions, but mandates were not imposed on developing countries like Brazil, China, India and South Africa. The United States never [...]

Reuters: Countries from around the globe agreed on Sunday to forge a new deal forcing all the biggest polluters for the first time to limit greenhouse gas emissions, but critics said the plan was too timid to slow global warming. A package of accords agreed after marathon U.N. talks in South Africa extended the 1997 [...]

Washington Post: Even as representatives from nearly 200 countries celebrated the last-minute compromise they fashioned at U.N. climate talks Sunday in Durban, South Africa, it became clear that its real-world outcome will be largely determined in Asia, rather than in Africa or the West. Broad in scope but short on details, the Durban Platform aims [...]

The Economic Times: The UN climate change talks in Durban Sunday arrived at a four-pronged Durban Package to save the planet by controlling emission of greenhouse gases. The main outcome of the Durban talks: To extend the Kyoto Protocol: To extend for another five years the Kyoto Protocol – the only regime to combat climate [...]

The Independent: 194 nations talk into the small hours – but pressure on the planet continues to grow. Some sort of binding deal on climate change looked set to emerge from the Durban climate conference amid signs in the early hours of this morning that a new agreement could be reached by the 194 countries [...]

Wall Street Journal: Major industrial and emerging economies set a course to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade and beyond, even as poorer nations warned it wasn’t enough to shield them from the worst potential impacts of climate change. Following marathon negotiations that stretched past dawn on Sunday, two days after the conference’s [...]

Guardian: Green groups warn of risk to planet, claiming the legally binding agreement to cut greenhouse gases is not enough. Scientists and environmental groups warned that urgent action was still needed to rescue the world from climate change, despite the deal sealed on Sunday morning in Durban after two weeks of talks. Andy Atkins, executive [...]

Times of India: DURBAN: Union environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan of India got a surprise resounding standing ovation in a meeting of 195 countries when they got into a negotiating huddle at the middle of the night. They applauded her for her stirring speech defending the Indian and BASIC countries’ position on climate change. The applause [...]

The UK Climate Change Secretary says UN climate talks are at a crunch point. On the final morning of talks in Durban, Chris Huhne said countries must decide whether they want a treaty that can really curb global warming. The EU has made an ad-hoc alliance with some of the world’s poorest nations to push [...]

Spiegel Online: Climate change will affect young people the most, but they are grossly under-represented at UN climate negotiations in Durban. A group of students from China and the US, however, is trying to challenge this with a shared vision for the future. The youngest person who tried to have her say at the United Nations [...]

Guardian: Old rifts healed at Durban, but new fault lines emerge. Kyoto agreement under threat without UN deal. China, India, Africa and the EU were at loggerheads on Friday night, pushing UN climate talks into extra time on Saturday as 194 countries attempted to reach a global deal to prevent dangerous global warming. There were [...]

K N Vajpai: This UN conference on climate change (COP) remained a place where the people from around the world discuss, debate and come to a conclusion on various confronting issues our communities  face around the world on climate change. In this note I am  trying to discuss three important aspects of this conference on [...]

Scientific American: The latest research shows that climate talks must lead to more aggressive action to avoid the catastrophic effects of global warming. By 2020, human activity could produce some 55 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases per year, up from roughly 36 billion metric tons currently. All the accumulating gas is enough to raise [...]

Himalayan Times: In the main plenary meet of the UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa, Nepal has urged countries to let go of narrow short term interests to work towards a broader vision to save the planet from the perils of climate change by agreeing on second period commitments of the Kyoto Protocol. Nepal’s [...]

In what is perceived as a moral victory, a new negotiating draft for conference of 195 countries at the port city on Wednesday had India’s concerns on equity and unilateral carbon tax. But, it fails to find mention of intellectual property right issues related to transfer of clean technologies. India had faced a stumbling block [...]

The conversation: One of the topics under discussion at Durban is the role carbon farming and other forestry measures could have in reducing emissions. With the possibility that negotiations will not bring about an agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, delegates are working on measures that could take place outside a climate agreement. The Conversation [...]

Zee News: (Durban) The US today shocked observers at the climate change conference here by saying that the 2 degree Celsius limit for increase in the Earth’s temperature is not like a “national target” but only a “guidance”. The 2 degree limit to global temperature rise was agreed in previous climate talks in Bali in [...]

Health 24: Greener vehicles won’t make us healthier. They’ll have no effect on the human misery from accidents, pollution and physical sloth linked to car culture, say health experts. Transport policy changes recommended by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) focus too much on better fuel and engine performance, and not enough on health [...]

Durban Post by Dr.C. S. Silori*: This note is on the major happening during COP 17 at Durban in South Africa during UN Climate Change Conference on December 4-5, and how the ‘equity’ issues has emerged as major challenge for the world leaders in context to future development and climate change.  December 4, Sunday, was [...]

IPS News: DURBAN- The United States has become the major stumbling block to progress at the mid point of negotiations over a new international climate regime say civil society and many of the 193 nations attending the United Nations climate change conference here in Durban.“The U.S. position leads us to three or four degrees Celsius [...]

Business Live Zambia: Negative perceptions of business strategies toward climate change have hurt the potential for profit, said UNFCCC boss Christiana Figueres. A panel of business leaders and investors echoed this sentiment at the World Climate Summit (WCS), an industry-focused side event at COP17. “Over the years we’ve boxed ourselves in to a very difficult [...]

The rich countries caused the problem, but it is the world’s poor who suffer. The Durban climate talks must right this wrong. Before the Copenhagen climate change summit two years ago, the two of us sat together in Cape Town to listen to five African farmers from different countries – four of whom were women [...]

IPS (Durban): Negotiators at the 17th Conference of Parties owe it to the world’s more than seven billion people to deliver a deal with a work plan for agriculture, a sector that is expected to be the worst affected by climate change. Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, CEO of Food Agriculture Natural Resources Policy Advocacy Network told [...]

NDTV: Durban- India today kicks off its high-level political negotiations as Environment Minister, Jayanthi Natrajan, takes control of the talks with other nations at the high level United Nations talks at Durban, South Africa on climate change. India has criticised the Developed Nations, especially the United States of America, for not making firm commitments to [...]

Aljazeera: Carbon trading is supposed to cap the amount of emissions made by companies, but is it a waste of money? As environment experts meet at a UN summit on climate change in Durban to come up with the elusive ‘binding agreement’ on reducing carbon emissions, Counting the Cost looks at the real costs of climate change: How much [...]

WRI Reporting: Three years ago, I attended a performance of Athol Fugard’s powerful play “My Children! My Africa!” Set in South Africa at the end of apartheid, the play deals with a conflict over the most effective means to address a great injustice. Throughout the play, there are signs of progress but it’s slow and [...]

Guardian: UN climate talks back on track after China and Brazil say they will consider the ‘right’ legally-binding treaty on emission cuts. EU plans for a global treaty to legally bind all countries to slash greenhouse emissions by 2020 appear to be – just – on track after China and Brazil, two of the biggest [...]

Guardian: EU plan to preserve Kyoto protocol and establish new parallel treaty finds support among some developing countries. A European plan to unblock UN climate talks with a new global treaty is being held up by India and some developing countries who feared it would take too long to negotiate and lead to weaker pledges [...]

December 4, 2011 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — “Bolivia came out swinging at its first press conference of the climate change conference” on December 1, reported the Durban Mercury’s Yusuf Omar on December 2. Head of the Bolivian delegation Rene Orellana criticised the Green Climate Fund “– which is meant to help [...]

Himalayan Times: Thousands of protesters descended near the venue of climate change negotiations in the South African city of Durban demanding Prompt action from the developed countries to save the Earth from the perils of climate change. The International Convention Centre environs bustled with demonstrators as they moved around the tightly-guarded negotiation venue carrying placards [...]

Tribune Pak: Pakistan won the ‘Robin Hood’ award at the UN climate talks for proposing financial transaction tax (FTT) as an innovative source of financing the Green Climate Fund (GCF), on Saturday. The award was given to Pakistan by the youth constituency of the UNFCCC, known as YOUNGO. “The Green Climate Fund is very important [...]

BBC News: As ministers begin arriving at the UN climate talks in South Africa, new science is showing the challenges they face in trying to curb global warming. Using a new methodology, a Swiss team has calculated that about three-quarters of the warming seen since 1950 is down to human influences. A second report says [...]