What’s health got to do with it?

by Graham Reeder So how are climate change and health connected anyway? I don’t know about you, but the first thing that comes to mind when I used to think about climate change is arctic sea ice and major industry polluting. As I’ve developed a stronger interest in public health issues over the last couple of years, the human ecologist in me has driven me to make connections between climate...

Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property Rights – Not as Scary as it Sounds

by Anjali Appadurai The climate regime is huge, transboundary, multidimensional. The UNFCCC, being the only body facilitating multilateral negotiations on climate change, is made up of a maze of different issues and tracks. The fundamental premise of the climate debate is that developed and developing countries are responsible to different extents for the current level of global emissions, but...

Carbon Markets

by Joe Perullo Lately, the phrase Carbon Markets is what comes to me when I hear the word “controversial.”  Much of the literature I have read on them mentions how the markets are "a horrible distraction from real emission mitigation strategies" and how they "redefine the problem to fit the assumptions of neoliberal economics."  I wouldn’t say I disagree with these statements, but...

“Trust Your Mexican” – Reflections on Mexico as Host of COP16

by Anjali Appadurai The other day our delegation went to Puerto Morelos to meet with Doreen. Moises had the address and was leading us. We were unfamiliar with the area but we knew that her house number was #806. However, the street we were walking on had numbers starting at #10. We were convinced that we were going the wrong way even though Moises insisted that he knew where we were going. In...

Finishing Off the Business in Durban – Developing Country Perspectives

by Anjali Appadurai It was my good fortune to be invited to a high-level cocktail party by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) Green Economy Initiative on Friday night. Pavan Sukhdev, head of the initiative, was speaking on the negative effects of meat production on our food systems, but his speech was almost drowned out by the vast number of people who were too busy chatting and...