On Friday, at the UN Climate Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen, Deputy Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) Crispin S. Gregoire from Dominica announced the release of draft amendments to the Kyoto Protocol. The draft, which advances the Tuvalu Proposal, seeks to stimulate negotiation toward adoption of a complimentary treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012. The amendments re-allocate responsibilities for addressing climate change to match their contributions to the crisis.Read the show transcript
“All hell is breaking loose.” That’s what Sea Change Climate Correspondent Cimbria Badenhausen skype texted to Executive Producer/Host Bill Baue from Copenhagen at 3:27 pm there on Wednesday December 9, the third day of the UN Climate Conference, or COP15. At that point, protest erupted in support of an “ambitious legal treaty now,” as requested by the so-called Tuvalu Proposal. The tiny island nation is calling for an amendment to the Kyoto Protocol to create a complimentary treaty that would limits global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celcius above preindustrial levels, and reduce carbon concentrations in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million.
The Guardianleak of the so-called “Danish text” threw the UN Climate Conference (COP15) into “disarray,” with developing countries “furious” at developed countries such as the US, UK, and Denmark for secretly drafting a framework agreement dated November 27. Among other affronts, the draft document would allow developed countries to emit almost twice as much carbon per person (2.67 tonnes) than developing countries (1.44 tonnes). Sudan’s Lumumba Stanislas Dia Ping, head of the G77 group of developing countries, said the Danish text is a “serious violation that threatens the success of the Copenhagen negotiating process. Read the show transcript
This week’s Sea Change Radio News Analysis comes from Tania Haldar Hart:
The conference to negotiate a new climate treaty is rapidly approaching — early December, in Copenhagen — and the Sea Change Correspondent will be there to cover it. The goal is to to come out of Copenhagen with a workable Climate treaty. But what this will look like is still up in the air. There’s debate over two possible treaties.
Following up on our coverage of World Wide Views on Global Warming in April, Sea Change returns to this event that gathered citizen opinions on climate change in more than 40 meetings around the world that just happened. Sea Change Correspondent Cimbria Badenhausen attended the meeting at the Museum of Science in Boston. She and Co-Host Bill Baue also spoke with WWViews representatives worldwide, both before and after the event.
Over the weekend, President-Elect Barack Obama appointed John Holdren as his Science Adviser, a move applauded by many environmentalists. Holdren is director of the Woods Hole Research Center and teaches at Harvard. Corporate Watchdog Radio has featured him twice. We aired part of his opening address at the 2008 UN Investor Summit on Climate Risk. And in September 2006, he talked with us about the pros and cons of nukes as a low-carbon solution to the climate crisis. This week, we reprise these shows to give a sense of Holdren’s opinions.
CWR News Analysis: Nick Robins of HSBC Analyzes the Poznan Climate Talks and the EU Climate Legislation —
Nick Robins
As head of the Climate Change Centre for Excellence at the major UK bank HSBC, Nick Robins attended the recent climate talks in Poznan, Poland. This was the last step for the Kyoto Protocol before talks in Copenhagen in late 2009 negotiate post-Kyoto climate agreements. And, as world leaders met in Poznan, European Union Commissioners hammered out new climate legislation. Robins, co-author with Cary Krosinsky of the new book Sustainable Investing, weighs in on these as well from the HSBC offices in the UK.
CWR ViewPoint: Real or Fake — Christmas Tree, That Is!
Bama AthreyaCWR co-host Bill Baue speaks with Mil Niepold, senior policy advisor at Verité, a supply chain monitoring and auditing nonprofit that serves as secretariat of the International Cocoa Verification Board, and Bama Athreya, executive director of the International Labor Rights Forum, an advocacy organization that combats child labor and has collaborated with other NGOs and Fair Trade chocolate companies to propose a “Commitment to Ethical Cocoa Sourcing. Niepold and Athreya present diverse views on how best to address child labor in the cocoa supply chain in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana–Niepold promotes Verité’s multistakeholder initiative supported by industry and West African governments, while Athreya points to progress occurring outside of industry and government influence.
Corporate Watchdog Radio co-hosts Bill Baue and Francesca Rheannon speak with Larry Lohmann of the Corner House, a UK-based environmental and human rights NGO, about the book he recently edited, Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatisation and Power.
Lohmann debunks the myth of carbon trading as an effective solution to climate change. He points out that sulfur dioxide trading, widely touted as a solution to acid rain in the 1990s and hence a model for carbon trading, is neither. Lohmann also discusses shortcomings of the Kyoto Protocol Clean Development Mechanism, and suggests that traditional solutions such as regulation are more efficient and effective in addressing environmental problems than creating a market that diverts attention from the main problem and introduces social inequalities.
On Friday, at the UN Climate Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen, Deputy Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) Crispin S. Gregoire from Dominica announced the release of draft amendments to the Kyoto Protocol. The draft, which advances the Tuvalu Proposal, seeks to stimulate negotiation toward adoption of a complimentary treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012. The amendments re-allocate responsibilities for addressing climate change to match their contributions to the crisis.Read the show transcript
“All hell is breaking loose.” That’s what Sea Change Climate Correspondent 
This week’s Sea Change Radio News Analysis comes from 
Following up on our 
