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What happened to the science in Durban?

Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and one of the world's foremost authorities on climate science, Rajendra Pachauri,  would like to have seen the climate science driving the climate negotiations at the COP17 in Durban last week. "I’d like to see the science driving some of the discussions and the decisions that are taken. I’m sorry I don’t see much evidence of that right now", Pachauri told Amy Goodman last week on Democracy Now. AMY GOODMAN: What do you w...

Leadership of Billion Tree Campaign Passed on to the Children

One very positive result did come out of the COP17 in Durban. During the first week of the conference, on December 7, 2011, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) transferred the management of the Billion Tree Campaign to the children of Plant-for-the-Planet. The Billion Tree Campaign was started by Wangari Maathai and Prince Albert of Monaco in 2006. Since that time, 12.5 billion trees have been planted in 193 countries. The original goal of  Plant-for-the-Planet, planting one ...

COP17: Deal in Durban

Running 36 hours overtime, a deal was finally struck in Durban at the COP17. So was it the worst possible good outcome or a "complete farce" as Venezuelan climate negotiator Claudia Salerno termed it? The steps taken over the next few critical years will tell. And the role of the climate action movement around the globe will be key. Delegates from 194 countries represented at the Durban conference agreed to extend the Kyoto Protocol. The only legally binding agreement to reduce greenhouse...

Climate Deniers Make Presence At COP17 in Durban

While no elected member of the US Congress showed up in Durban this week for the COP17, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) recorded a video message for a conference of climate change deniers at the summit. Heralding the "complete collapse of the global warming movement and the failure of the Kyoto process," Inhofe went on to say he was "confident" that he was the only person in Washington DC left talking about global warming. Earlier that day, Democracy Now interviewed Mark Morano, a fomer Inhofe staf...

COP17 Youth Activist: Get It Done

There were many inspirational people speaking this week in Durban at the COP17. Most were the voices of activists- urging the delegates to put aside the politics and to respect the science by taking action that was fair, ambitious and binding. Here is a video and transcript broadcast today on Democracy Now of one such youth delegate Anjali Appadurai. She evokes the words of Nelson Mandela, "It always seems impossible, until it’s done." She then directs the negotiators to "Get It Done." AMY...

Watch COP17 Live Coverage Here- Starting Nov 30th

The 17th Conference of Parties (COP17 ) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is being held in Durban, South Africa from 28 November to 9 December 2011. In attendance will be environmental ministers and negotiators from 195 countries, activists, corporations and NGOs. The world's only legally binding agreement on climate, the Kyoto Protocol, expires at the end of 2012 and recent efforts in Copenhagen and Cancún have failed to produce a fair, ambitious and bin...