Climate Treaties - Inside Climate News

Policy Experts Say the UN Climate Talks Need Reform, but Change Would be Difficult in the Current Political Landscape

By Bob Berwyn — Sun, 04 Feb 2024 10:00:00 +0000

Limiting the size of the annual conference, eliminating conflicts of interest and adopting enforceable agreements with a voting system could help speed up global climate action, research shows.

By Bob Berwyn

As COP28 negotiations in Dubai last December stalled over language describing the phaseout of fossil fuels for the summit’s final agreement, several American climate activists and scientists tried to revive a long-simmering call to adopt voting rules at the climate talks, where diplomats currently reach decisions by consensus.

Republican Presidential Candidate Nikki Haley Says Climate Change is Real. Is She Proposing Anything to Stop It?

By Phil McKenna — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 10:00:00 +0000

The former U.N. Ambassador touts her role in pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord and pledges to roll back clean energy incentives.

By Phil McKenna

In her recent memoir, presidential candidate Nikki Haley recounted a telling anecdote about her role in pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2017 when she served as the nation’s United Nations ambassador.

Q&A: In New Hampshire, Nikki Haley Touts Her Role as UN Ambassador in Pulling the US Out of the Paris Climate Accord

Interview by Paloma Beltran, Living on Earth — Sat, 13 Jan 2024 10:00:00 +0000

With Haley emerging as the leading challenger to Donald Trump, it’s clear that climate change won’t be a major issue in the state’s Jan. 23 primary election.

Interview by Paloma Beltran, Living on Earth

From our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Producer Paloma Beltran and Managing Producer Jenni Doering with Phil McKenna of Inside Climate News.

New Research Explores a Restorative Climate Path for the Earth

By Bob Berwyn — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 21:30:00 +0000

Existing green growth policies are leading nowhere fast, so scientists say it’s worth exploring alternatives like degrowth to stay within planetary boundaries.

By Bob Berwyn

With Earth’s average annual temperature speeding toward 1.5 degrees Celsius faster than expected and global climate policy on a treadmill, an increasing number of researchers say it’s time to consider a “restorative pathway” to avoid the worst ecological and social outcomes of global warming.

2023 in Climate News: Did Renewable Energy’s Surge Keep Pace With a Radically Warming Climate?

By ICN Staff — Wed, 27 Dec 2023 10:00:00 +0000

The push and pull of progress and catastrophe made 2023 one of the most discordant—and consequential—years for the world’s climate.

By ICN Staff

In 2023, clean energy progress and the horrors of a radically warming climate fought almost to a draw.

The Climate Treadmill Speeds Up At COP28, But Critics Say It’s Still Not Going Anywhere

By Bob Berwyn — Mon, 25 Dec 2023 10:05:00 +0000

The Dubai climate summit showed how fossil fuel companies and their allied politicians captured the UN process. Decades of obstruction have gridlocked efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions from oil, gas and coal.

By Bob Berwyn

Esa Sharon Mona Ainuu, Niue minister of natural resources and environment, was in tears as she met the press on Dec. 11, near the end of COP28 in Dubai. After 12 days of meetings, any references to a fossil fuel phase-out had suddenly been stripped out of the text by Sultan al-Jaber, the presiding officer at climate talks, who just a few weeks earlier said there is “no science” showing a fossil fuel phase-out is needed to stop global warming.

Q&A: The Sort of ‘Breakthrough’ Moment Came in Dubai When the Nations of the World Agreed to Transition Away From Fossil Fuels

Interview by Steve Curwood, "Living on Earth" — Sat, 16 Dec 2023 09:30:00 +0000

But, says climate advocate Alden Meyer, “the atmosphere only cares about one thing: emissions. It's a matter of physics. It doesn't care what ministers or leaders say in declarations or treaties or pledges or action announcements … So the acid test for this is going to come in the next couple of years.”

Interview by Steve Curwood, "Living on Earth"

From our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by host Steve Curwood with Alden Meyer, a climate advocate and senior consultant at E3G, an independent climate change think tank. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Nature Got a More Prominent Place at the Table at COP28

By Bob Berwyn — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 18:55:10 +0000

Animals’ roles in the carbon cycle have long been overlooked. At the climate conference in Dubai, scientists showed how rewilding ecosystems can have big climate benefits.

By Bob Berwyn

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates— As COP28 ended with just a faint glimmer of hope that the world will take seriously the need to decarbonize by 2050, leading scientists at the conference said it’s time to “put the protection and restoration of wild ecosystems at the heart of global climate policy” as a viable option for cutting carbon dioxide pollution.

The U.S. May Not Have Won Over Critics in Dubai, But the Biden Administration Helped Keep the Process Alive

By Marianne Lavelle — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 01:30:00 +0000

Special Climate Envoy Kerry clearly believed the final deal was better than no deal at all, especially after direct pre-COP diplomacy with China became a springboard for action led by the world's top carbon, and methane, emitters.

By Marianne Lavelle

When it looked like climate negotiations in Dubai were about to fall apart early this week over the summit’s failure to make any commitment to transition away from fossil fuels, U.S. Special Climate Envoy John Kerry sharpened his tone to align with the most ardent climate activists—many of whom had been targeting him for criticism.

COP28 Does Not Deliver Clear Path to Fossil Fuel Phase Out

By Bob Berwyn — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 18:30:00 +0000

Small island states that arrived after the document was approved, don’t accept the outcome as a consensus decision.

By Bob Berwyn

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates—Going into overtime under the cover of a dark winter night in Dubai, climate negotiators at COP28 cooked up a weak sauce of climate half-measures that fail to adequately address the existential risk of global warming to millions of people around the globe, according to leading climate experts at the conference.