At the G20 summit in St. Petersburg, there was some very cool stuff happening. Not necessarily the stuff that grabbed the headlines. It was on climate change as 35 countries and the European Union have decided to take action to curb hydrofluorocarbons, a set of powerful heat-trapping gases used in refrigeration, air conditioning, heat
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An innovative G20 interpretation of the rules of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) may be required to finance global environmental public goods, according to a new commentary by Barry Carin, a senior fellow at The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), which is an independent, non-partisan think tank on international
The coming decade is expected to attract $245 billion in new clean energy investments, but unless more aggressive policies are adopted, the US could leave nearly another $100 billion on the table. So says a report released last week from the
The opening sentence of the four-paragraph section on the environment in the G8 Summit final communiqué reads: “Among environmental issues, climate change remains top of mind.” While climate change may be at the top of G8 leaders’ minds–or on the tip of their tongues–it is not at the top of their to-do lists.
After climate change received only brief attention at the G20 and G8 meetings last fall in Pittsburgh, some thought this year’s meetings in Toronto could be different. But the meetings, which concluded on Sunday, were dominated by issues related to security and the economy.
Environmental groups activists seem disappointed that no new initiatives or specific actions were announced that might indicate any sense of urgency among the G8 leadership on climate.
Groups like WWF and Greenpeace say that climate change and the
In spite of the fact that President Obama is facing an uphill battle – in his own party – on domestic climate change legislation; and, with China taking every opportunity to hide behind their “developing” status, both the US and China used the UN General Assembly to ramp up rhetoric on climate change. To misquote the Bard, “methinks they doth protest too much.”
With every new splashy promise made, the December climate change conference in Copenhagen is threatening to become little more than a public relations event with little real concerted action. More climate talks are on the agenda for the G20 in Pittsburgh, but Obama and his team should avoid making the push for global leadership on climate change into a new breed of arms race because its a battle that the US cannot win.