The Obama administration will soon announce its five-year plan for managing offshore oil and gas (OCS oil + gas leasing) from 2017 to 2022. Because of potential impacts on tourism and the environment, in its March draft version of the plan the President already scrapped an auction of Atlantic drilling rights in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.
US Secretary of State John Kerry gave one of the most important speeches this morning during the Major Economies Forum of the UN’s climate change conference (COP22) in Marrakesh, Morocco. Kerry drew attention to melting glaciers, stronger storms, and record-breaking droughts as incontrovertible evidence of climate change. “At some point, even the strongest skeptic has to acknowledge that something disturbing is happening,” Kerry said.
The UNFCCC’s Standing Committee on Finance presented its second Biennial Assessment of climate finance flows* to COP22 on Monday afternoon, November 7. The finance flows assessment found that in 2013/14, an average of $41 billion per year in public finance was reported flowing from developed to developing countries.
Climate finance is likely the most important issue the delegates of COP22 are working on. The term refers to the local, national, or transnational loans, grants, and other financing put forward to meet climate change goals. Finance may come from public, private, and/or alternative sources. The table below presents current sources of climate finance data.
Yesterday (Monday, November 7, 2016), the 2016 climate summit (22nd Conference of the Parties–or COP22–to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) officially opened in Marrakesh at 10am Morocco time. With 197 Parties, the UNFCCC has near-universal membership of the world’s countries and is the parent treaty of the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement.
Get ready for the first world summit following the Paris Agreement of December 2015 to assess progress on climate change. COP22, the annual conference of parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, begins on Monday, November 7, 2016 (the day before the US presidential elections) in Marrakesh, Morocco. You can watch the COP22 proceedings online here.
The Paris Agreement on climate change — a critical worldwide milestone along the road to containing climate change and implementing resilient low-carbon energy — became international law on Friday, November 4, 2016, after about 20 years of global wrangling. Exactly 30 days ago, it crossed both national and emissions thresholds needed to enter into force.
Energy and environmental issues matter to US voters much more than many candidates and party officials are aware — or than they let on, or than the mainstream press is reporting. American voters voice strong support for raising the priority of renewables on the White House agenda and expect it of the next president.
You might conclude from its title that The Madhouse Effect, one of the fall’s best book offerings, takes on the US presidential election. You’d be close — the subject does come up repeatedly in the technical and policy discussions — but not quite right. I enjoyed discussing it with the author recently.
Meeting in Canada the first week of this month at the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization meeting, world governments adopted an International Aviation Climate Change Agreement. The agreement is a global market-based measure limiting the net carbon dioxide emissions of aircraft. The aviation industry produces 2% of global greenhouse emissions. ClimateNexus reports that … [continued]
