As part of our project with Latvian NGO homo ecos:, Kathryn Wright, Bunyod Holmatov, and I are keeping an eye on topics here at COP18 that are important to Latvia. Aviation and maritime transport (shipping) are vital to the Latvian economy, which relies heavily on the sector to maintain connections to other nations in the EU and around the world. The UNFCCC has expressed interest in taking action to limit emissions from this sector, as it is both carbon-intensive and global in nature. Parties agree that regulation of aviation and shipping should occur through the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and International Maritime Organization (IMO), but disagree over what “signal” the UNFCCC should send to the ICAO and IMO…
The COP18 UN climate negotiations have kicked off without too much fanfare. Host country Qatar is hosting its largest ever conference, with an expected 17,000 participants, including 1,500 media (although I heard only about half of these anticipated media actually got accredited). So far, expectations are quite muted for the conference, with Doha meant to be mainly an "implementation" Conference of Parties (COP) meeting that will not end in the high drama and pressure of its predecessors, Durban, Cancun, and Copenhagen.
This post originally appeared on The Huffington Post and The Metric, the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy's blog.
Expectations for the global climate negotiations taking place over the next two weeks in Doha, Qatar, are dismally low, and major political transitions in China and the United States – the world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gases – further temper hope for any kind of game-changing proposal. So what are the more than 7,000 civil society members and 1,500 journalists(myself included) in attendance going to do to make their opinions count and to hold their governments accountable for accomplishing something in Doha?
Well, there’s an app for that, and it’s called DecisionMakr.
Having attended many of these negotiations in the past, I question the value of emitting carbon…
The next round of United Nations climate negotiations is gearing up to take place starting next week in Doha Qatar, where countries will look to both China and the United States to see whether domestic political events will provide any momentum for the stalling talks. However, because of the proximity of the U.S. Presidential Election and the start of China’s once-in-a-decade leadership transition that will culminate in March, it is not expected that the world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs) will be bringing too much by way of game-changing developments to Doha. Instead, we can expect most of the discussions in Doha to focus on securing final details for a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol, primarily for the E.U. and now Australia, as well as starting to formulate language for a new deal that will be decided by 2015.
