The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
The UN Climate Conference, COP 18, gets underway this week in Doha, as the Kyoto Protocol winds down and is set to expire by the end of this year. COP 18 is unlikely to emerge with a suitable replacement for Kyoto, as yearly climate talks grind on and disagreements about emissions reductions continue to foil any meaningful agreement that would halt global warming.
Kyoto set binding targets for industrialised countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5% against 1990...
Glenn Ashton -
If we had to choose a country to host the COP17 international climate change negotiations and broker a consensus deal to manage the increasingly urgent matter of human induced climate change, we could not do much worse than choose South Africa.
It is not that South Africa won’t be a gracious host. This is a nation renowned for its hospitality and its open, welcoming nature, across all cultures in this multifaceted society.
South Africans are certainly excellent negotiators as well....
Michelle Pressend -
When South Africa hosts the United Nations Climate Change meeting, COP 17 (17th Conference of the Parties), it will be make or break for the Kyoto Protocol.
COP 17 is important because the first commitment period that legally bound developed countries to cut their emissions under the Kyoto Protocol comes to an end on 31 December 2012. If the meeting in South Africa does not agree to a second commitment period, COP 17 could be labelled, “the COP that killed the Kyoto...
Glenn Ashton -
In 2005 two environmental activists published a provocative paper titled 'The Death of Environmentalism.' It was met with predictable fury from the environmental movement and with support from big business who wished for nothing more than to see the extinction of pesky environmentalists.
Hindsight broadens our historical perspective.
Around the same period as the publication of this paper, I rebutted an article in the local media that echoed these allegations of the lack of direction, of...
