A team of researchers from Stanford University have determined that failure to meet climate mitigation goals set out in the Paris Climate Agreement could cost the planet trillions over the next century, highlighting less the climate and environmental benefits of achieving these targets but more the economic risks attendant with ignoring these targets.
Originally published on FGI Publishing. By Dr. Timothy Cadman The good news about the Clean Development Mechanism was overshadowed by two early events as the Paris climate talks got under way. After the terrorist attacks, the French government banned the ‘Marche Climat’, which, it was predicted, would have over one … [continued]
Laurent Fabius, COP21 president and France’s foreign minister, has just released version 1 of a draft text on COP21 agenda item 4 (b)—the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (decision 1/CP.17) at 3:00PM GMT. Read the text here. Fabius characterized the current situation thus: “We’ve made progress but still a lot … [continued]
Picking up where we left off yesterday, the nations that were actually expected to meet this week’s INDC deadline all fall into the “developed” category. I use quotation marks to indicate the fuzzy nature of that concept. A more appropriate term might be “industrialized,” since the world’s concept of what’s developed and … [continued]
The UN’s Lima COP20 conference stands up very well in its final days against those who doubt or scorn international efforts to reduce climate impacts. It’s not just a lot of hot air. The congruence of international climate experts and decisionmakers is allowing organizations public and private, worldwide, to focus … [continued]
Cautious optimism from recent world progress (the US-China agreements, Green Climate Fund pledges, other international commitments) marked the first week of the UN’s COP20 climate change meetings in Peru. Lots of information changed hands as new data and solutions came forth from both governments and nongovernmental institutions. Of course, moments … [continued]
If you’ve been following the news, you probably know that the UN’s annual mega-conference to address climate change—officially, the 20th Conference of the Parties (COP20) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change—started in Lima, Peru, yesterday morning, 1 December 2014. (For more information on the runup to the … [continued]
Almost everyone in the media has taken a stab at summarizing, if not snap-judging, the results of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s one-day UN climate summit last week. The meeting had a real name, but Robert N. Stavins in his New York Times runup to the conference was the only writer I … [continued]
The United Nations has published a very instructive manual for a civilization hurtling towards the increasingly expensive catastrophes looming right ahead of us, and projected to cost world governments, and their taxpayers, an expected $185 billion every year by the end of century. Jam-packed with data and conclusions, the UN … [continued]
