For as long as the United Nations has been holding climate summits, protesters have been gathering outside them to bemoan the rate of progress and call for tougher action.
Is carbon offsetting little more than a bandaid on a much bigger climate problem?
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The stakes could scarcely be higher at December’s climate summit in Paris, described as the world’s best chance of averting climate catastrophe. The Conversation will be there to see if the talks can deliver.
Last week’s G7 meeting showed that turning our backs on fossil fuels altogether is no longer a fringe idea.
Michael Keppeler/EPA/AAP Image
Advocates of climate action have been saying it for years - we need to wean ourselves off fossil fuels completely. And now, the leaders of the world’s richest countries have started saying the same.
Australia has faced tough questions over whether it is doing its part to cut greenhouse emissions.
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Australia’s grilling by other major nations at this week’s climate talks in Bonn show that it still has serious questions to answer over the scope of its greenhouse emissions-reduction targets.
How are we helping their children’s children?
Everett Kennedy Brown / EPA
Throughout his prime-ministership, which ran from 1996 to 2007, John Howard’s perspective on climate change was informed by geopolitics more than science. The Kyoto Protocol, the key international climate…
A green trade deal would encourage the development of renewable energy in big carbon emitters such as China.
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Ten years on from the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement, Australia is entering another round of negotiations towards the new and controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership. In this Free Trade Scorecard series…
Treasurer Joe Hockey didn’t even mention the word climate in his budget speech.
AAP Image/Lukas Coch
The word “climate” was conspicuously absent from Joe Hockey’s first budget speech as treasurer. It’s not hard to guess why – the full budget sets out major cuts to climate research, and strong moves against…
IPCC leaders release their climate mitigation report in Berlin - but governments already have one eye on next year’s UN climate summit.
EPA/Joerg Carstensen
In the wake of this month’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on ways to cut global greenhouse gas emissions, accusations began to fly in the media that the report had been censored…
No vote: despite activists’ urgings, the 2009 Copenhagen climate talks were stymied by the threat of veto.
EPA/HENNING BAGGER/AAP
Anyone who has watched in frustration as the United Nations repeatedly failed to secure a meaningful climate treaty could be forgiven for taking a rather glum view on this weekend’s report by the Intergovernmental…
Our climate system is collapsing, but international negotiations in Paris still hold out the best promise for change.
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Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri, said last week that on climate, “We have five minutes before midnight”. He argues that governments have historically avoided…
Foresters and farmers have an 8000-year history of dealing with climate variation and providing food and provisions - they may have climate change solutions.
Ollivier Girard/CIFOR
Peter Holmgren, Centre for International Forestry Research
The UNFCCC COP-18 in Doha worked overtime to finally agree not to disagree. The Secretariat was quick to make a release that declares success and highlights four results: Amendment of the Kyoto Protocol…
All eyes are on Doha, but most of the action is taking place in Asia.
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The irony of the world’s climate change negotiators meeting in Doha this week cannot be lost on anyone taking an interest in climate change. Qatar is hardly a model of the low carbon economy. With annual…
Delegates to international climate talks opening in Doha on Monday are unlikely to agree to binding emissions cuts, experts said.
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Time has run out for governments to reduce carbon emissions gradually and only drastic reform can keep catastrophic global warming at bay, a panel of climate change experts said on Friday. Speaking ahead…
Global energy use must grow substantially every year to keep up with population - our decarbonisation efforts aren’t making inroads.
Carolyn Chan
The Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Greg Combet, announced on Friday that Australia is “ready” to join a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework…