Tag: Flexible Mechanisms

CAN Pre-COP Workshop 2011 Announcement

Climate Action Network-International is excited to inform that as part of our ongoing efforts under the Southern Capacity Building program, a "Pre-COP Workshop" will be organized for developing country CAN members in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 19th to 21st October 2011.  About 50 participants will be attending the workshop.

This event is primarily for civil society members in developing countries, and aims to strengthen and work towards a common southern civil society voice within CAN and like minded organisations in the lead up to COP 17.  The event will be building upon the similar and successful pre-COP workshop held last year in Mexico City, which roughly 50 CAN members and partners attended.

We are very excited to be planning this workshop in collaboration with a large variety of CAN members and partners, whose financial support is not only making this event possible but also whose engagement we believe will bring richness to the discussions.  Thus far, we have received commitments of support from the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Bread for the World, Greenpeace International, WWF-International, Oxfam International, the Norwegian Environment ForUM, the Development Fund, the Southern Voices Program consortium and CARE Denmark. We’d like to thank these organizations and partners for their interest in supporting this event!

Main Objectives:
1. Provide space for southern CAN members and other stakeholders to work on a common and unified southern voice for greater influence at the Seventeenth Conference of Parties in Durban.
2. Strengthen the South–South dialogue and discussion in order to support the CAN-International policies to have impact in the climate negotiations through broader understanding and knowledge base.
3. Strengthen and reinforce the connections between the southern civil society members to continue dialogue and strategize for future advocacy and actions in their respective country and regions.
4. Have dialogue and interaction with African governments and/or the African Union.

Program Design
The full focus of the program is on policy framing and influencing the outcome in COP17. Attention will be given to major areas such as: UNFCCC processes, thematic issues discussion (e.g. low carbon development, adaptation, etc.), and institutional strengthening and sharing of country/regional experiences focusing on policy advocacy in the Global South.

Who will Attend?
Developing country CAN members and partners having policy experiences especially related to the UNFCCC process (national, regional and international) are invited. Selected participants will do a preparatory work on their respective national/regional policies before attending the workshop.  And these participants are also expected to share the outcomes of the pre COP workshop once they go back to their home country or regions in order to ensure information is disseminated to wider stakeholders. Participant selection will be inclusive of different regions from the where gender, organisational, country and regional balance will be considered.
 

CAN Final Panamá Press Conference

Watch the CAN Panamá wrap-up press conference from earlier today. Greenpeace International, ActionAid UK and Forum For Environment-Ethiopia representatives explain what happened in Panamá and what that means moving forward to the year-end climate talks in Durban, South Africa.

Tove Ryding, Greenpeace International; Harjeet Singh, ActionAid International; and Mahlet Eyassu, Forum for Environment.

View the press conference: http://unfccc2.meta-fusion.com/kongresse/111001_AWG/templ/play.php?id_kongresssession=4029&theme=unfccc

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CAN-International Press Briefing Advisory - October 7 at 17 GMT in Panamá

Media Advisory – Webcast Notice
7 October 2011

UNFCCC CLIMATE TALKS IN PANAMA

 


NGO BRIEFING ON THE NEGOTIATIONS

[Panama City, Panama] Climate Action Network - International will host a media briefing, webcast live, to provide reactions to the week of UN climate talks in Panama, which kicked off on Saturday and ends today. Panelists will speak about the outcomes from this week as well an outlook towards the Durban climate talks to be held at the end of the year.

The briefing takes place in Panama City, Panama, on Friday, October 7, at 12:00 local time (17:00 GMT), UNFCCC Press Conference Room, Room San Lorezon, Atlapa Convention Center.

It will be webcast live at: http://bit.ly/UNFCCCwebcast

Archive: http://unfccc2.meta-fusion.com/kongresse/111001_AWG/templ/play.php?id_kongresssession=4029&theme=unfccc

NGO experts on the panel will include: Tove Ryding, Greenpeace International; Harjeet Singh, ActionAid International; and Mahlet Eyassu, Forum for Environment.

What: Briefing on the UNFCCC climate negotiations in Panama
Where: Press Conference Room (San Lorenzo), Atlapa Convention Center, Panama
Webcast: via www.unfccc.int and at: http://bit.ly/UNFCCCwebcast
When: 12:00 local Panama time (17:00 GMT), Friday, 7 October 2011
Who: International NGO experts on UNFCCC negotiations

Climate Action Network - International (CAN) is a global network of over 700 NGOs in 95 countries working to promote government and individual action to limit human-induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels.  For more information go to: www.climatenetwork.org

For more information please contact:

David Turnbull, CAN International, +12023163499 (US mobile), or +50764751851 (local mobile in Panama)

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First Place Fossil Goes to the USA, while Saudi Arabia Earns Its 2nd Second Place Fossil

Photo Credit: Adopt a Negotiator

First place Fossil is awarded to the USA. There are three excellent reasons to award today's first prize Fossil to the United States:

First, recent news has surfaced that the US State Department has a bias towards carbon polluting pipelines--namely, the Keystone XL, which is a 1,700-mile fuse to the largest Carbon bomb on the planet, the Alberta tar sands. The State Department is currently conducting a review for the pipeline, but has been receiving significant counsel from the pipeline company's own lobbyists.

Exploiting the tar sands is a dangerous step in the wrong direction, and one that President Obama will decide upon before the year is out. This troubling relationship obscures the fact that saying no to Keystone XL is a positive step for the US to demonstrate seriousness in face of the climate crisis.

Given this bias, it's no wonder there is further cause to award the US a Fossil. In today’s LCA discussion on legal form, the U.S. expressed its unwillingness to reach agreement on a mandate.  To sum up, the US doesn't think the likely outcome would suit them, so they would rather not bother continuing the discussion. The US expressed that a strong mandate is in fact in the US interest, but expending the energy to reach it appears not to be.

Finally, yesterday's finance informal resulted in the US stating that no discussion of sources of finance should continue, but rather, proceed into the g20 as a venue. The US is only interested in discussing the standing committee--which is only one of four important areas of focus to ensure adequate financing. Innovative sources of financing are crucial and should be taken up here.

For these three reasons, we award the United States a first-prize Fossil.

Saudi Arabia gets the 2nd place Fossil of the Day for attempting to block the Chair of the Legal Options Informal Group from outlining the options on legal form.  Hmmm - let's go over that one, one more time - the Saudis do not want the Chair, who has been mandated by Parties to convene a group to talk about legal options, to talk about legal options??  Come on!  A mandate is a mandate and progress in this group on legal form is crucial to a successful outcome in Durban.  Luckily, the Chair is well aware of her mandate and will proceed with the discussions on options tomorrow.  Good on her!  A legally binding agreement is the highest form of commitment and with an issue as serious and as pressing as climate change, the highest form of commitment is sorely needed from all countries.  The first step to getting there and bridging the divide is to have a clear overview of the options currently on the table in terms of legal form and where countries stand on them.  We are looking forward to the continued discussions tomorrow, but without any further procedural shenanigans!

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First Place Fossil Goes to the USA, while Saudi Arabia Earns Its Second Second Place Fossil

Photo Credit: Adopt a Negotiator


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                     4 October 2011
Panamá City, Panamá

Contact:
David Turnbull
dturnbull@climatenetwork.org
Home mobile: +12023162499
Local mobile: (+507) 64751851

First place Fossil is awarded to the USA. There are three excellent reasons to award today's first prize Fossil to the United States:

First, recent news has surfaced that the US State Department has a bias towards carbon polluting pipelines--namely, the Keystone XL, which is a 1,700-mile fuse to the largest Carbon bomb on the planet, the Alberta tar sands. The State Department is currently conducting a review for the pipeline, but has been receiving significant counsel from the pipeline company's own lobbyists.

Exploiting the tar sands is a dangerous step in the wrong direction, and one that President Obama will decide upon before the year is out. This troubling relationship obscures the fact that saying no to Keystone XL is a positive step for the US to demonstrate seriousness in face of the climate crisis.

Given this bias, it's no wonder there is further cause to award the US a Fossil. In today’s LCA discussion on legal form, the U.S. expressed its unwillingness to reach agreement on a mandate.  To sum up, the US doesn't think the likely outcome would suit them, so they would rather not bother continuing the discussion. The US expressed that a strong mandate is in fact in the US interest, but expending the energy to reach it appears not to be.

Finally, yesterday's finance informal resulted in the US stating that no discussion of sources of finance should continue, but rather, proceed into the g20 as a venue. The US is only interested in discussing the standing committee--which is only one of four important areas of focus to ensure adequate financing. Innovative sources of financing are crucial and should be taken up here.

For these three reasons, we award the United States a first-prize Fossil.

Saudi Arabia gets the 2nd place Fossil of the Day for attempting to block the Chair of the Legal Options Informal Group from outlining the options on legal form.  Hmmm - let's go over that one, one more time - the Saudis do not want the Chair, who has been mandated by Parties to convene a group to talk about legal options, to talk about legal options??  Come on!  A mandate is a mandate and progress in this group on legal form is crucial to a successful outcome in Durban.  Luckily, the Chair is well aware of her mandate and will proceed with the discussions on options tomorrow.  Good on her!  A legally binding agreement is the highest form of commitment and with an issue as serious and as pressing as climate change, the highest form of commitment is sorely needed from all countries.  The first step to getting there and bridging the divide is to have a clear overview of the options currently on the table in terms of legal form and where countries stand on them.  We are looking forward to the continued discussions tomorrow, but without any further procedural shenanigans!

About CAN: The Climate Action Network (CAN) is a worldwide network of roughly 700 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) working to promote government and individual action to limit human0induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels. www.climatenetwork.org  

About the Fossils: The Fossil of the Day awards were first presented at the climate talks in 1999, in Bonn, initiated by the German NGO Forum. During United Nations climate change negotiations (www.unfccc.int), members of the Climate Action Network (CAN), vote for countries judged to have done their 'best' to block progress in the negotiations in the last days of talks.  

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