Activism and the Online Mediation Opportunity Structure: Attempts to Impact Global Climate Change Policies?

The annual United Nations (UN) summit on climate change took place on 2–15 December in Madrid, Spain. The meeting venue changed from Santiago to Madrid a month earlier due to unfolding social unrest in Chile. The summit, also referred to as Chile/Madrid Climate Change Conference, included the twenty-fifth Conference of the Parties (COP-25) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); the fifteenth Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP-15); the second Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA-2); and meetings of their subsidiary bodies.

‘A whole new world’: using new technologies to develop women's leadership in Kyrgyzstan by Joanna Hoare In the areas of both new technology and leadership, women everywhere tend to be under-represented. In this piece, we hear about an innovative programme in Bishkek, capital of the central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan, which combined these fields, developing women's skills, and enhancing community development in the process. To help Haiti, upend aid habits, and focus on its women by Elaine Zuckerman On 12 January 2010, a devastating earthquake struck the Caribbean nation of Haiti, killing tens of thousands of people. Those who survived are now struggling to rebuild their lives and their country. In this blog piece, originally posted in February 2010 on the website of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Elaine Zuckerman argues that it is imperative for Haiti that its women are directly involved in the reconstruction process. The 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference and beyond: an interview with Celeste McKay December 2009 saw the holding of the long-awaited United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen – officially, the fifteenth session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – where government delegates sought to reach agreement on new measures to combat climate change post-2012, building on the Kyoto Protocol. G&D wanted to know about how strongly the issue of gender featured in the talks, so we asked Canadian environmental activist and campaigner Celeste McKay, who attended the Climate Change Conference, to give us her impressions, and to tell us more about her work with the Native Women's Association of Canada. Where is the money for women's rights? 2009 research highlights and reflections by Sarah Rosenhek and Cindy Clark Without adequate funding, effective work on women's rights becomes impossible. Over the past few years, The Association for Women's Rights in Development has been conducting research into the funding environment in which women's rights organisations are currently operating, and here, they share their findings with us.

Barriers to limiting fossil fuel supply in UNFCCC negotiations: insights from Bangladesh

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to critically investigate the Ethiopia’s climate change adaptation and mitigation regulatory frameworks and their congruency with the guiding principles under the United Nations (UN) Climate Convention, to show the alignment of the regulatory frameworks with the UN Climate Change rules. Rising temperatures, erratic rainfall distribution, recurrent droughts and floods require robust climate change mitigation and adaptation policies and effective implementation in the country.Design/methodology/approachThrough the doctrinal legal research method, the author has used a detailed analysis of primary sources, both national and international legislative enactments. Besides, the research has benefitted from secondary sources like research reports, online publications, scientific journals, international reports, books and journal articles.FindingsThe findings reveal that in Ethiopia, there is no national climate change-specific policy and legislation. Although there are scattered sectoral climate-related policies and strategies, they are not consistent with the principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).Originality/valueThis study argues that having comprehensive specific climate change policy and legislative frameworks consistent with UNFCCC guiding principles could help to mitigate and adapt to the adverse effects of climate change in the country.

T past two decades have seen a growing worldwide awareness of environmental problems such as loss and degradation of ecological habitats. Nations have responded by adopting multilateral agreements—the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change, for example—and many governments have strengthened environmental policies. Moreover, a growing number of companies are changing their business practices to more explicitly address social and environmental responsibility. Indeed, people everywhere have come to recognize that the environment is one of the pillars of sustainable development. This is reflected in the the UN General Assembly’s adoption of the Millennium Development Goals, one of which is a commitment to ensure environmental sustainability. Yet despite this growing awareness, the gap between science and environmental policy remains large. More needs to be done to ensure that knowledge generated by the scientific community is brought to bear on policy decisions. At the same time, the scientific community must address the key issues that modern society faces. There have been a number of attempts to strengthen the scientific basis of environmental policies, including a wide range of assessments of current environmental knowledge and its relevance for decisionmaking. Perhaps the best known is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which has produced three reports through a process that involves hundreds of scientists worldwide (IPCC 2002). These reports have informed policy decisions adopted in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. A similar process was used to conduct the Global Biodiversity Assessment (Heywood and Watson 1995). Efforts to perform a global international water assessment are ongoing, and a global assessment of agriculture is proposed. These efforts to provide a comprehensive synthesis of the scientific knowledge in these areas have, however, had a limited influence on international policy. I believe this is to a large extent because decisionmakers were not given adequate ownership in some of these processes. It is also a consequence of the limitations to scientists’ understanding of complex environmental problems. One area of particular importance involves the linkages between climate change, biodiversity, agriculture, pollution, and other aspects of the environment (Ayensu et al. 2000). The critical nature of this nexus was identified several years ago, leading to the establishment of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), a process that involves a wide range of stakeholders and several hundred scientists worldwide (see www.millenniumassessment.org). The goals of MA are to provide a global assessment of ecosystems, the services they provide, and their importance for The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development

Rethinking zero deforestation beyond 2020 to more equitably and effectively conserve tropical forests

Many countries pledged to take necessary measures and limit the global temperature rise to 2&#x2009;&#x00B0;C, or better yet, 1.5&#x2009;&#x00B0;C, at the United Nations (UN) climate summit in Paris. However, according to a survey from <i>Nature</i>, many scientists think global temperatures may reach a disastrous 3&#x2009;&#x00B0;C above preindustrial levels, and around 60&#x0025; of experts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) expect average global temperatures to reach that point by the end of the century if governments do not markedly slow the pace of global warming <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1">[1]</xref>. That dynamic played out again during the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), in Glasgow, United Kingdom, in November 2021. The prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, declared that 2&#x2009;&#x00B0;C of temperature rise would be a &#x201C;death sentence&#x201D; for island countries. On 13 November 2021, COP26 concluded with nearly 200 countries agreeing to the Glasgow Climate Pact, which aims to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5&#x2009;&#x00B0;C and finalize the outstanding elements of the Paris Agreement.

While negotiations continue for a United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) by December 2015 to take effect in 2020, a parallel effort to achieve fast climate mitigation is needed under the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (Montreal Protocol) to slow current impacts and reduce risks of passing tipping points that trigger self-amplifying feedback mechanisms that accelerate warming. Fast reductions of short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs), including black carbon (BC), methane (CH4), tropospheric ozone (TO3), and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), can cut the rate of climate change in half by mid-century and by two thirds in the Arctic. The Montreal Protocol can be used to quickly phase down production and consumption of high global warming potential (GWP) HFCs, which can avoid 0.1 °C of warming by 2050, and 0.5 °C by 2100, while catalyzing improvements in appliance energy efficiency, which will provide further climate change mitigation by reducing energy use and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, particularly in fast-growing economies like India and China. The simultaneous global deployment of existing technologies can reduce emissions of BC, CH4, and TO3 by enough to avoid an additional 0.5 °C of warming by 2050, while providing immediate benefits for human health, agriculture, and sustainable development. Fast action to reduce the four SLCPs will reduce the risk of setting off irreversible feedback mechanisms and provide urgent optimism and momentum for a successful UN climate treaty in 2015.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Paris Agreement, and a number of important agreements call on the United Nations (UN) to strengthen a relationship with the private sector to develop and transfer climate technology in global action on climate change. The Technology Mechanism (TM) is anchored in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change as a key enabler for the attainment of the Goals of the Paris Agreement. The growing interest for collaboration with the private sector sets new ambitions for the UN Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN). The active engagement of the private sector is critical for successful technology transfer and successful innovation. This paper reviews and analyses the role of the private sector in facilitating technology transfer in CTCN’s Technical Assistance. Furthermore, the shared interest for partnership between the CTCN and the private sector was evaluated by analysing in-depths interviews with major CTCN stakeholders. Based upon this analysis, several recommendations are made on how to enhance public–private partnerships in order to strengthen private sector participation in climate technology transfer activities with a special focus on technology–push and market–pull innovation.

Negotiations have started on a new United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on International Tax – a development that could shift the balance of power in international tax. This area has long been dominated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and G20 – the Convention could provide the UN with a more central role in shaping global tax policies. This process was set in motion in December 2022 by UN resolution 77/244, ‘Promotion of inclusive and effective international tax cooperation at the United Nations’. An Ad Hoc Committee was formed to develop the terms of reference (ToR) for drafting the Convention – this approved draft ToR in August 2024. The African Group at the UN are driving this effort, with support from much of the global South. The global North remains sceptical. The push for a new framework comes amidst a backdrop of increasing complexity in international tax standards, and a perceived imbalance in allocation of taxing rights between countries. A significant concern is that there is no political body to oversee the work of technical institutions like the Inclusive Framework. This has resulted in a disconnect between technical negotiations and political decision-making in some global South countries. This research analyses discussions that took place in 2024. It distils the most important lines of conflict around negotiating the UN Framework Convention, and articulates the main scenarios for a way forward. Summary of Working Paper 218.

Climate change is a security problem in as much as the kinds of environmental changes that may result pose risks to peace and development. However, responsibilities for the causes of climate change, vulnerability to its effects, and capacity to solve the problem, are not equally distributed between countries, classes and cultures. There is no uniformity in the geopolitics of climate change, and this impedes solutions.

The policy significance of climate change was realised by the international community in the 1980s. As some of the countries most affected by climate change, Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have influenced the United Nations (UN) climate negotiations from the very beginning. This chapter analyses the climate foreign policy purposes of SIDS and their early impacts on the UN climate governance system. It is argued that, despite their weak material capabilities to shape international affairs, SIDS have made a notable and disproportionate impact on the UN climate negotiations to address their special case. Using constructivist approach to foreign policy analysis, this chapter explains how the ideas about common but differentiated responsibilities promoted in international climate negotiations have shaped SIDS’ climate agenda during pre-and post-UNFCCC negotiations in driving climate governance for them. It is argued that an understanding of this disproportionate impact helps to better understand present and future trends in SIDS climate politics.

Climate change, biodiversity loss and human-generated pollution pose an urgent, existential threat to all living things. UnitedNations (UN) scientific reports, and several others, confirm humanity’s destructive impact on the earth’s atmosphere,land and water. They also confirm that climate change creates new problems and exacerbates existing social and economicproblems across all the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in the UN’s Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development. Yet,in their design, the 17 SDGs and their 169 targets make very few explicit links between climate change, specifically, and theother ecological and socio-economic goals. And, on the few key indicators tracked by the Sustainable Development IndexDashboard under SDG 13 on climate change, the developed countries lag well behind developing ones, while progress onmany SDGs has reversed since 2019. The Group of 20 (G20) developed and emerging economies, all systemically significant,comply with their own climate change goals at an average of just 69%. Given its membership profile and vast resources,the G20 has great potential to reinforce progress toward the SDGs. By improving its own performance on climate change, theG20 can help the UN and its members spur progress on SDG 13 on climate change, and thus on other closely related SDGs.The G20 leaders at their summits should therefore make far more ambitious commitments on climate change, explicitly linkthem to sustainable development, SDG 13, other socio-economic SDGs, and the UN’s climate conference. They shouldalso foster more synergies between the UN’s SDG high level meetings, UN climate summits, and special climate summits,and recognize in their G20 communiqués the climate-related, shock-activated vulnerabilities of, and their socio-economicimpacts on, countries in and beyond the G20.

Much was at stake at the 2010 United Nations climate change conference in Cancún, Mexico. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was being challenged by the world's two largest greenhouse gas emitters, China and the United States, after these countries reached a tenuous backroom deal one year earlier in Copenhagen. Meanwhile, scientific studies were warning of serious and severe climate change. This article analyzes newspaper articles and television segments from the US media that appeared during the timeframe of the Cancún conference, focusing on two key facets of coverage that continue to be important as negotiations proceed: the economic impacts and opportunities that climate change creates and the role that China plays in negotiations. I also examine which sources were allowed through the news gates and which ones were marginalized. I find that the US media discussed economic opportunities more frequently than economic impacts and that the media treated China in an even-handed way. Established political actors dominated coverage, followed by representatives of nongovernmental organizations and the business community. Meanwhile, grassroots activists and indigenous voices were marginalized.

Ocean negative carbon emissions: A new UN Decade program