climate

You know about climate change. You may already be doing your part to protect the environment. But, climate change is a human issue too—it's hitting the poorest people hardest. This is the first of a series of videos by Oxfam America on how climate change is affecting poor communities around the world. Watch the other videos:

One  of the many strands of discussion at a Ditchley Foundation conference on climate change last week was the vexed question of how public opinion shapes the political space open to leaders on climate. There were many furrowed brows on this, not least given that the polling numbers on climate change are all heading the wrong way, all over the world – perhaps unsurprisingly, given the combination of the recession and media coverage of ‘climategate’.

A small but potentially rather significant exchange in the UN Secretary-General’s spokesman’s press briefing on Thursday last week:

One of the most significant developments at Copenhagen was the emergence of the BASIC coalition – Brazil, South Africa, India and China – which negotiated the final details of the Copenhagen Accord with the United States.

Yesterday, I speculated about prospects for the Copenhagen Accord if Democrats lost their super-majority in the Senate. Well, voters in Massachusetts handed them a thumping – so what next?

Most people left Copenhagen thinking the next big crunch date would be the last day in January, when 49 or so countries are due to lodge their commitments for reducing emissions with the UNFCCC (they fill in one of two appendices to the Copenhagen Accord – “quantified economy-wide emissions targets for 2020″ for developed countries; “nationally appropriate mitigation actions” for develo