Climate talks: A long road from Lima to Paris

Walking through the streets of Lima on Wednesday in that nation’s largest-ever march for climate action, I turned to a friend and said: “If you had told me when I started working on this issue in 1986 that I would still be in climate marches when I was 60 and that Canada would be ramping ...

Green Party laments weak outcome from COP20 Negotiations in Lima

OTTAWA – The 20th Conference of Parties (COP20) session to address the threat of climate change came to a close early Sunday morning in Lima, Peru. The two-weeks’ worth of negotiations produced a 12-month work plan for the world’s nations to prepare for the upcoming negotiations (COP21) in Paris.  The negotiations will be pivotal, as ...

Down to the wire – Was the Lima decision better than nothing?

(LIMA) - As you likely have heard, the COP20 talks wrapped earlier this morning at around 3:30 AM. The deal was done in seconds following the break for countries to review a new text tabled by the President just before midnight. He then suspended the session to give parties an hour to read the new ...

The COP that would not die…

(LIMA) – Okay, I know that sounds like a Bruce Willis movie and my apologies… but this COP has achieved that dreamlike-nightmarish quality that obscures what day it is, what time it is. So apologies. I was surprised to check and see that my last blog had been late Thursday. We have been in nearly ...

Fanfare and backrooms

As the available hours for negotiations wind down, we have entered the usual phase at such negotiations of high-level speeches extolling negotiators to finish the work and deliver on our obligations to future generations while the negotiators themselves seem no closer to the finish line than they were days ago. Two work streams have been ...

Climate march in Lima and fresh ideas in talks

The COP20 talks are taking place in an unlikely venue  – a military base outside of town.  Despite the reporting of its carbon footprint, being built from scratch to accommodate ten thousand people, it is working well as a venue.  Depending on your viewpoint, it could be seen as bizarre or appropriate that the COP ...

Elizabeth May video blog from COP20

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Canada’s dismal presence

Leona Aglukkaq has been in Lima at COP20 arriving on the same flight I took to Peru.  She was in first class so I didn’t see her, but I was reliably informed by a friend in the front cabin that she was there. It has been no easier to find her at COP20 than it ...

Canada won’t meet 2020 greenhouse gas emission targets: report

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Climate talks at national and sub-national levels

Sorry. That has to be my least inspired blog title ever.  Chalk it up to being immersed in UN-speak all day. The morning plenary dealt with two newly tabled documents –  a draft decision from the co-chairs of the ADP working group (Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Plan of Action) and a draft ...