Category: Climate Change

By Vicente Paolo Yu III*
IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

BRUSELS (IDN) – Developing countries have long been at the frontlines of climate change and bearing the brunt of its impacts on sustainable development prospects and even, in many cases, physical survival and territorial integrity. The impacts of Hurricane Sandy in the Caribbean, the droughts that are afflicting Africa, the cyclones and typhoons that lash South and South East Asia and the Pacific islands, are all harbingers of what could become worse if no action is taken quickly and effectively by the global community with respect to climate change.

By R. Nastranis | IDN-InDepth NewsReport

GENEVA (IDN) – If governments around the world pay heed to some major stakeholders spanning the globe, the UN climate change conference in the Qatari capital Doha will endorse decisive actions leading toward a world all sensible human beings want for themselves and generations to come. Viewed from that perspective, December 7, the last day of the conference, will be a historic day.

By Jaya Ramachandran | IDN-InDepth NewsReport

BERLIN (IDN) – The 27-nation European Union should target 30 percent, instead of the agreed 20 percent, lower emissions by 2020, in order to send an important signal to the global climate change conference from November 26 to December 7, 2012 in the Qatari capital Doha, according to experts.

By Ian Dunlop*
IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

SYDNEY (IDN) – The latest evidence on climate change demands a radical reappraisal of our approach. The Arctic has been warming 2-3 times faster than the rest of the world, reducing the area and volume to levels never previously experienced.

Some 80% of the summer sea-ice has been lost since 1979; on current trends the Arctic will be ice-free in summer by 2015, and ice-free all year by 2030, events which were not expected to occur for another 100 years. More concerning, the Greenland ice sheet this year has seen unprecedented melting and glacial ice calving, adding to a trend which will substantially increase sea level rise.

By Julio Godoy
IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

BERLIN (IDN) – Back in 1779, the Spanish artist Francisco de Goya painted a scene that obviously was already common at the time in that retrograde country of his: An old man – or it can be an old lady – is beating a child on the bottom in front of numerous other children in a classroom. Some of the children are crying, for they just suffered the teacher’s barbarous pedagogical methods. Goya titled his masterpiece “La letra con sangre entra” – freely translated, “spare the rod, spoil the child.”

By Jaya Ramachandran
IDN-InDepth NewsReport

BONN (IDN) – The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat has forged a first-of-its-kind partnership to assist development of emission-reduction projects under the Kyoto Protocol in countries that would appear to have been ignored until now.

By Martin Khor*
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

GENEVA (IDN) – The latest round of weeklong UNFCCC climate negotiations in Bangkok in September has revealed a major problem. The Bali Road Map launched in December 2007 had two tracks. The Kyoto Protocol track seems to be ending in a very weakened outcome, while the Bali Action Plan track is in danger of being killed without a proper closure or a transfer of its unsettled issues.

By Jaya Ramachandran
IDN-InDepth NewsReport

BERLIN (IDN) – While there are hardly any signs of substantive and forward-looking agreements being reached at the United Nations climate change conference from November 26 to December 7, 2012 in Doha, latest research cautions that impact of climate change on future food prices is being underestimated.