Hillary Clinton Arrives

At a press briefing today, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged that the United Stated will contribute its “fair share” of the $100 billion dollars needed for developing countries to deal with the negative effects of climate change IF the parties can come together on an agreement by the end of the COP.  This has […]

Powerful Statements from the Plenary

I am not one of the three in our group in the plenary today, but I have been watching the live streaming for the past 4 hours.  Various heads of states are now giving their 5-10 minutes statements.  I just listened to the Prime Minister of Mali, Modibo Sidibe and the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.  […]

Half Way

With the first week of the COP 15 coming to an end, a draft proposal is finally on the table, although it leaves many of the details still “to be determined.”  http://unfccc.int/files/kyoto_protocol/application/pdf/draftcoretext.pdf During negotiations this morning, Tuvalu made another impassioned plea for the world to realize that its very survival depends on a binding and […]

Happy Human Rights Day!

On this day in 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  To celebrate the anniversary of this historic text and the principles it proclaims, several leaders in the human rights field gave a panel presentation today at COP15.  Panelists included Martin Wagner of Earthjustice and Ulrich Holstein of the U.N. Human Rights Council, as […]

And the Dance Goes On

After Tuvalu’s call for a suspension of the COP yesterday, Steffen Schmidt was assigned the task of meeting informally with the parties to reach some resolution, the details of which were to be announced during the afternoon plenary.  Unfortunately, and somewhat predictably, the parties could not reach resolution in the few short hours allotted. After announcing […]

Negotiations Breakdown?

The morning started out with a flurry of activity. After some discussion about the logo and how certain parties felt it represented the end of Kyoto, the COP plenary commenced with the Tuvalu delegation proposing a contact group to review its protocol, which was proposed and tabled six months ago. As proposed, the Tuvalu protocol is a legally binding agreement meant to complement Kyoto through amendments, as well as the creation of a new protocol entitled the Copenhagen Protocol. In no uncertain terms, Tuvalu stated it was here to “seal the deal” and wanted nothing less than a legally binding document.