Climate talks in Copenhagen: A resource guide

LATEST ARTICLES

Divide and rule: paving the way to an unjust deal
Oscar Reyes
As climate talks enter their final phase, Oscar Reyes outlines the hardball negotiating tactics being used to force a weak deal that favours industrialised nations.

Copenhagen Plan B: “protect the rich”
Oscar Reyes
A leaked text of the political declaration that could conclude the Copenhagen conference reveals back-room dealings that offer little to the Majority World.

How hyper-capitalism may hobble the Copenhagen summit
Walden Bello
Unless we re-think the export-oriented capitalism that's causing all of our climate problems, the Copenhagen conference will be nothing more than a Band-Aid.

Beyond Carbon Markets
Oscar Reyes and Tamra Gilbertson

Although carbon offsets are often presented as emissions reductions, they do not actually reduce emissions. At best, they move reductions to where it is cheapest to make them, which normally means a shift from Northern to Southern countries.

NEWSPAPER

Climate Chronicle
The Climate justice newspaper is produced every two days during the Copenhagen climate talks, reporting and decoding what is going on both inside and outside the climate negotiations. Find out what is really going on behind the media headlines.

FACT SHEETS

1. Cap and Trade
What is wrong with cap and trade? Who profits from these schemes? What is EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)? Can cap and trade markets be reformed?  This fact sheet answers all your questions about cap and trade.

2. Carbon Offsets
What are carbon offsets? Why do they negatively impact environment? Isn't carbon trading better than nothing?  This fact sheet answers all your questions about carbon offsets.

3. What's at stake in Copenhagen
Why are some countries intent on killing Kyoto? Do the reductions targets tell the whole story? Who is paying for it all? This fact sheet answers all your questions about the UN climate talks in Copenhagen.

INTERVIEWS

Copenhagen talks: “Lies, damn lies and emissions reductions pledges”
Interview with Oscar Reyes
A dazzling array of delegates from all over the world is in Copenhagen to hammer out a deal on tackling climate change. Oscar Reyes makes sense of the complex negotiations process.

How the myth of unlimited growth is destroying the planet
Interview with Edgardo Lander
Economic growth and continued expansion are a vital requirement for the current pattern of civilisation. We need to change this if we are to solve the climate crisis.

Carbon Con
Interview with Tamra Gilbertson
How the US forced carbon trading onto the global climate agenda, and why popular movements worldwide have vowed to end this 'false solution" to climate change.

BLOGS

La estrategia del avestruz - Apuntes desde la cumbre del clima en Copenhague (only in Spanish)

REPORTS

Carbon Trading: How it works and why it fails?
Oscar Reyes and Tamra Gilbertson
This accessible, well-researched book provides a devastating critique of both the theory and practice of carbon trading, which lie at the heart of global climate policy.

Contours of Climate Justice
Ulrich Brand, Nicola Bullard, Edgardo Lander, Tadzio Mueller (eds.)
This publication aims to contribute to a more sophisticated understanding of the emerging climate justice movement and to create resonances between different perspectives and spheres of engagement. The activities around the COP 15 in Copenhagen are a starting point in the creation of such a broad movement.

The World at the Climate Crossroads
Praful Bidwai
It is depressingly clear that Copenhagen will at best produce a ‘political’ agreement—just as the Bali conference did two years ago—but not a global climate compact with time-bound, quantifiable, legally binding and enforceable goals or measures.

Change Trade, Not Our Climate (PDF)
Ronnie Hall on behalf of Our World is Not for Sale - Trade and Climate Change Working Group

Taking care of business
Oscar Reyes
The world’s biggest corporations have hijacked the UN climate talks. That’s bad news for our future.

VIDEO: The Story of Cap and Trade

EVENTS

1. The Story of Cap and Trade
Tuesday, 8 December, 21h30-22h30
The Story of Cap & Trade is a fast-paced, fact-filled look at the leading climate solution - emissions trading - on the negotiating table at Copenhagen and in other capitals.

2. Workshop: Putting Justice into the Climate Debate
Tuesday, 8 December, 13h-15h
This workshop will decode and explore ‘Climate Justice’ as a concept through the use of popular education tools to ensure maximum participation.

3. Workshop: Carbon Market Crimes, The Kyoto Years to date
Monday, 14 December, 13-15h
Carbon trading is a complex system with a simple goal: to make it cheaper for companies to continue polluting. The carbon market has fielded perhaps the largest avenue for businesses to earn money while polluting.

4. Workshop: Carbon Market Crimes, Post-Kyoto, Post-2012
Monday, 14 December, 15h00-17h00
This workshop aims to decode the new languages developing inside the climate talks and highlight real issues from a justice-based approach of the impacts on people and the environment.

5. Discussion: Climate justice, ethics and the Copenhagen agenda: Roles of institutions, civil society and markets
15 December, 9-10:30h
Mary Robinson and other leaders from the public, academic and NGO sectors will lead a discussion on emerging institutions and processes for applying equity and human rights to guide the long-term vision and decision-making on mitigation, adaptation, REDD, carbon markets and technology transfer.

6. Exhibtion: Carbon Market Crimes: A photo essay
7-17 December
This photo essay aims to explore some of the voices that are living next to and resisting carbon offset projects. Community-level or popular strategies have historically proven successful as a means to achieve social and environmental change. Often communities have taken action to protect environmental resources as strategies for survival. The legacy of this resistance holds lessons for all who aim to address climate change.

USEFUL WEBSITES

1. TNI's resources on Copenhagen

2. Carbon Trade Watch

3. Climate Justice Now! (TNI and its CTW project are part of this network)

4. Durban Group for Climate Justice (TNI and its CTW project are part of this network)