By Guy Edwards, Victoria Elmore* and Jin Hyung Lee**

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) is underway and is due to be completed by 2013/14. There are 84 Latin American and Caribbean contributing authors out of a total 833.

As we approach the publication date, these scientists have a vital role to play in promoting the importance of climate science in Latin America and persuading governments to create robust and ambitious national and international climate policies.  In turn, regional governments should continue increasing levels of funding and scientific cooperation on climate science given the significant role it can play in developing policies on climate.

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After the longest session on record, governments at the COP17 in Durban in December 2011 agreed to negotiate by 2015 a climate deal to enter into force in 2020. The Durban Platform for Enhanced Action defied predictions that the meeting in South Africa would lead to a collapse of the UN climate talks. Many parties from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have worked many years to make possible the political compromise achieved in the final hours and included in the Durban Platform. Today, the challenge is to make this platform ambitious enough to avoid dangerous climate change.

In this new CDKN and Energeia Policy Brief we discuss the outcomes of the COP17, the contribution Latin America and the Caribbean made and the implications of the Durban Platform for the region. The Brief finishes by offering a set of recommendations:

1. Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) countries supporting high ambition at the international climate negotiations need to continue to shape a more ambitious climate narrative by acting together, domestically and internationally, and strengthening existing work with experts on bold action both within and outside the COPs.

2. Informal exchanges inside and outside of the UNFCCC process to jointly define key milestones for the Durban Platform and identify areas of convergence and divergence must take place within LAC countries and with Africa and Asia between now and 2015.

3. Both at home and abroad, the LAC region needs to improve how it communicates its successes on low carbon, climate resilient strategies to keep building confidence and generating a stronger impact at the international climate negotiations.

4. LAC countries need to continue to explore how best to advance national conversations linking climate change issues such as mitigation and resilience plans to national interests and potential losses in food security, infrastructure and trade.

To read the Policy Brief click here.

According to the Foreign Office’s website in Ecuador:

The author of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change will visit Ecuador at the end of this month.

The Stern Review, published in 2006, has a particular significance, as it is the first climate change report commissioned by a government to an economist instead of a climatologist.  Its author, Economist Nicholas Stern, pioneer in the field of the economics of climate change and the quantification of its impacts, will visit Ecuador to analyse the costs of inaction and the challenges related to the mitigation of climate change and the sustainable development of the region.

The visit is being organised by the British Embassy in Quito and the Ecuadorean Ministry of the Environment, with the support of the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN), Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano (FFLA), FUNDAR Galápagos, Conservation International (CI), World Wildlife Foundation (WWF), and the Charles Darwin Foundation.

For more information and updates about the visit please follow the British Embassy’s social media channels on the following links:

Facebook: UkinEcuador

Twitter: UkinEcuador (Hashtag: #sternecuador)

 

During the COP17 I caught up with Dr. Fernando Tudela Abad, one of Mexico’s foremost climate change experts and a high ranking official of the Mexican delegation. Dr. Tudela is Under Secretary of Environmental Policy and Planning at the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resource and also chairs the expert group of the OECD on climate change.

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The COP17 was a watershed moment for Latin American civil society participation in the UNFCCC negotiations. Civil society organizations (CSOs) actively engaged with governments at the talks and, in turn, governments made efforts to reach out to civil society. This increased level of exchange can be observed on two levels.

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By Adam Kotin

When devastating floods hit El Salvador in October 2011, 40% of the country’s crops were wiped out. Agricultural Minister José Guillermo López Suárez was forced to import the nation’s signature kidney beans all the way from China.

But sadly, this wasn’t a new experience for the fast-developing Central American nation. At a COP17 panel presentation, El Salvadoran Minister of the Environment, Herman Rosa Chávez, discussed the slew of extreme weather events his country has endured over the last several years.

For El Salvador, severe climate-related losses have almost become an annual rite.

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At a press conference, Andre Correa Lago, the ambassador and principal negotiator for Brazil at the COP17, claimed that the new Forest Code would not affect goals for reducing deforestation.

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By Guy Edwards and Mónica López-Baltodano*

Today, at the COP17, a group of Latin American platforms, networks and fora organized by the Building Bridges initiative met with delegations from Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Panama to discuss the primary issues under negotiation including the longevity of the Kyoto Protocol, designing the Green Climate Fund and adaptation.

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This article was originally published in ECO from the international climate change negotiations in Durban, South Africa

As the world tries to find ways to reduce global emissions, Brazil is on the verge of igniting a real carbon bomb. A bill to change the country’s Forest Law is about to be approved, resulting in the increase of deforestation by reducing protected areas, removing the obligations for the restoration of cleared areas, and pardoning loggers. The proposed bill will be sent to President Dilma Roussef for final consideration in coming weeks.

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