Sergio Abranches
The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other international groups are expected to present a paper on climate finance at the G20 meeting this Friday in Washington. It recommends a sharp reduction of subsidies for fossil fuels, putting a price tag of $25 per ton on carbon emissions, and collecting a surcharge on bunker fuels to raise money for climate finance. More »
Sergio Abranches
The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) its annual survey of the Global 500 largest companies by market capitalization included in the FTSE Global Equity Index Series provides some interesting indications on how the larger public corporations are dealing with climate change. More »
Sérgio Abranches
Economic damage costs related to extreme climate events to date in the US exceed $35 Billion, says the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration – NOAA. These costs are likely to affect both the domestic and the global economies already facing a serious crisis. More »
Major climate talks in South Africa at year-end will be unlikely to strike agreement on a new pact, but will be important in determining the shape of long-term efforts to tackle climate change, a senior U.N. climate official said on Tuesday. More »
Sergio Abranches
Moving from a high-carbon to a low-carbon economy entails replacing the global energy and industrial high-carbon infrastructure over the next decades. UN’s recent Economic and Social Survey 2011 – The Great Green Technological Transformation estimates replacement costs at $15-$20 trillion, or between one quarter and one third of global income. More »
Sergio Abranches
The last official preparatory meeting before COP17, in Durban, South Africa, has started yesterday in Bonn pointing to more problems than solutions. Christiana Figueres, top UN climate official, warned the parties about the risk of inaction, but realistically acknowledged that there will likely be very few substantial decisions in Durban. She finally admitted that there is not enough time left to approve the text for a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. A regulatory gap is already unavoidable. More »
