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Guy Edwards | March 19th, 2013
By Guy Edwards and Susanna Mage Regardless of one’s position on el Comandante Hugo Chávez, the death of the Venezuelan president opens the door for a policy debate on a critical issue for Venezuela and the world’s security: climate change. As the... -
Guy Edwards | March 19th, 2013
Next year a Latin American and the Caribbean country will host the annual UN climate change negotiations or ‘COP20’ of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Rumours are circulating that Peru and Venezuela are interested in... -
Guy Edwards | March 19th, 2013
I recently spoke at an Anglo-Ecuadorian Society event at the Casa Ecuatoriana in London on Latin America and climate change. Latin America is a key battleground and laboratory for confronting climate change and decisions taken in Latin American... -
Guy Edwards | March 19th, 2013
By J. Timmons Roberts and Guy Edwards Well-worn stories of dinosaurs like the United States and India battling it out in the United Nations climate change negotiations in Doha last week continue to crowd out other, more positive stories that need... -
Guy Edwards | October 12th, 2012
By J. Timmons Roberts and Guy Edwards Over the past two years, the Watson Institute partnered with Brown’s Center for Environmental Studies to provide partial support for Visiting Fellow Guy Edwards. Edwards has led Brown student... -
Guy Edwards | June 19th, 2012
By Guy Edwards and Cody Zeger* As Mexico hosts the G20 Leaders’ Summit followed later this week by the Rio+20 Conference in Brazil, both countries climate credentials are under serious scrutiny. Little serious bilateral cooperation has taken... -
Spencer Fields | June 8th, 2012
This press release was prepared by Cody Zeger, Brown University, and was originally posted on IntercambioClimatico.com. History is on the verge of repeating itself in Bolivia. In a time when the world is trying to find the best ways to achieve... -
Emily Kirkland
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June 3rd, 2012
In Eastern Africa, severe drought is causing massive famines. In the United States, temperature records are soaring due to one of the warmest winters in decades. From pine beetle infestations in the Rockies to thinning ice in the Arctic, the impacts...
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Guy Edwards | May 10th, 2012
By Guy Edwards, Victoria Elmore* and Jin Hyung Lee** The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) is underway and is due to be completed by 2013/14. There are 84 Latin American and Caribbean contributing... -
Guy Edwards | April 18th, 2012
After the longest session on record, governments at the COP17 in Durban in December 2011 agreed to negotiate by 2015 a climate deal to enter into force in 2020. The Durban Platform for Enhanced Action defied predictions that the meeting in South... -
Guy Edwards | February 17th, 2012
The COP17 was a watershed moment for Latin American civil society participation in the UNFCCC negotiations. Civil society organizations (CSOs) actively engaged with governments at the talks and, in turn, governments made efforts to reach out to... -
Guy Edwards | February 17th, 2012
During the COP17 I caught up with Dr. Fernando Tudela Abad, one of Mexico’s foremost climate change experts and a high ranking official of the Mexican delegation. Dr. Tudela is Under Secretary of Environmental Policy and Planning at the Ministry of... -
Adam Kotin | December 10th, 2011
We have been waiting literally all day for things to get going here in Durban at COP17, as talks press on through Saturday. There's been a lot of downtime for us observers, as the Ministers and decisionmakers talk behind closed doors, trying to hash... -
Becca Keane | December 9th, 2011
"[Climate Change] almost makes irrelevant any advances we get to achieve in stopping AIDS. We might get to defeat AIDS but discover we are getting ourselves fried or drowning."- Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, World AIDS Day, December 1, 2011... -
Cecilia Pineda | December 9th, 2011
By Adam Kotin and Cecilia Pineda As negotiators determine the fate of the Kyoto Protocol on the last day of COP17, youth from all over the world, NGO members, and a few distinguished negotiators stormed the hallways of the International Convention... -
Adam Kotin | December 9th, 2011
By Cecilia Pineda and Adam Kotin When the United States, the EU, and Australia all disagree with a chorus of small developing countries in the negotiation rooms, it looks a bit like schoolyard bullying. But that’s exactly what happened this week in... -
Becca Keane | December 8th, 2011
During the first week of COP17 in Durban, South Africa, agriculture was a hot topic. There was already a robust focus on the issue amid the side events happening parallel to the negotiations and the topic should continue to warm as the negotiations... -
Cecilia Pineda | December 8th, 2011
In the months prior to the COP15 in Copenhagen, President of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed convened the first meeting of the Climate Vulnerable Forum and urged leaders to make active carbon neutral pledges to arm their convictions that... -
Kelly Rogers | December 8th, 2011
Welcome to math class. Let me warn you that your view of the world board will differ greatly depending upon your seat. Please get out your calculators and try not to throw spitballs. Today’s lesson is about climate finance... -
Adam Kotin | December 7th, 2011
When devastating floods hit El Salvador in October 2011, 40% of the country’s crops were wiped out. Agricultural Minister José Guillermo López Suárez was forced to import the nation’s signature kidney beans all the way from China. But sadly,... -
Graciela Kincaid | December 5th, 2011
By Graciela Kincaid and Spencer Fields Since arriving in Durban, South Africa, for the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, we have been fortunate enough to engage in many different parts of... -
Spencer Fields
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December 4th, 2011
By Spencer Fields and Graciela Kincaid Since arriving in Durban, South Africa, for the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, we have been fortunate enough to engage in many different parts of...
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Graciela Kincaid | December 1st, 2011
The tone in Durban is focused and preoccupied. Thousands of delegates march to and fro, big bags and nametags flying, rarely alone and usually deep in conversation. Yet this busy tension is tempered by the beachy, humid atmosphere which... -
Graciela Kincaid | November 30th, 2011
On November 29th, Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change Jonathan Pershing swept into the US Delegation Offices and jumped into a 45-minute session regarding the US position at the negotiations. He held the invited American students... -
Spencer Fields | November 30th, 2011
Originally posted on AlertNet It’s really quite simple. For the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), “funding is paramount,” to use the succinct summary provided by Pa Ousman Jarju, the Gambian chair of the LDC Group. The Least Developed... -
Brianna Craft | November 29th, 2011
I’m sitting in the now-vacant breakfast room of my Durban hotel, using the Wi-Fi that doesn’t quite reach my room on the 19th floor and watching the clouds roll over the Indian Ocean. From across the room, I can hear the staff gathering for... -
Spencer Fields | November 29th, 2011
By Spencer Fields and Dave Ciplet As a part of the 2009 Copenhagen Accord, the rich nations of the world made a concrete dollar pledge to vulnerable countries experiencing the impacts of climate change worst and first. Given that developing... -
Linlang He | November 23rd, 2011
“This world demands the qualities of youth- not a time of life but a state of mind: a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease. “ ... -
Graciela Kincaid | November 21st, 2011
by: Graciela Kincaid and Spencer Fields Ninety-seven percent of self-identified actively publishing climate scientists agree that climate change is human-caused. Scientifically, anthropogenic climate change is a hard reality. Yet... -
Spencer Fields | November 19th, 2011
by: Graciela Kincaid and Spencer Fields Ninety-seven percent of self-identified actively publishing climate scientists agree that climate change is human-caused. Scientifically, anthropogenic climate change is a hard reality. Yet... -
Kelly Rogers | November 18th, 2011
By: Guy Edwards & Kelly Rogers As U.S. influence in Latin America continues its downward trajectory, the complex domestic situation in Washington D.C. risks jeopardizing greater cooperation on climate change. Although the vote in the House of... -
Brianna Craft | November 13th, 2011
The 17th UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP) at Durban this November will not be concluded without a vote for – and, most probably, an extended financial commitment to - Technology Transfer. Technology Transfer (TT) in the context of the... -
Guy Edwards | November 7th, 2011
By Guy Edwards and Kelly Rogers As U.S. influence in Latin America continues its downward trajectory, the complex domestic situation in Washington D.C. risks jeopardizing greater cooperation on climate change. Although the vote in the House of... -
Keith Madden | November 7th, 2011
In a recent visit to Brown University’s Center for Environmental Studies, Sivan Kartha of the Stockholm Environment Institute addressed the failings of the current international climate negotiations, and discussed ways for moving forward. ... -
Adam Kotin | October 26th, 2011
Well, this sure feels familiar. Last year about this time, as I prepared to travel to Cancun, Mexico with a group of students and faculty for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations, the outlook was grim. Following the 2009... -
David Ciplet | October 14th, 2011
The need for transparency in climate finance is plain: unless developing countries know how much money to expect, when and for what, they cannot effectively plan their efforts to address and respond to climate change. But what has been the track...
Brown’s Climate and Development Lab
The Climate and Development Lab, at Brown’s Center for Environmental Studies, contributes timely, accessible and impactful content that informs more just and effective global policy making on climate change, particularly on the issues of climate finance, equity issues and Latin America. Our focus during the fall 2011 semester will be to influence the United Nations climate change negotiations at the COP17 in Durban to produce more just and effective processes and outcomes concerning climate finance and other relevant climate policy. A second goal is to cultivate the skills and knowledge base of students/scholars/activists to engage in this work at a high level of proficiency and skill.
This conversation represents the Lab’s primary outlet for up-dates on our research and group activities. You can also follow us on Twitter here.
If you would like to learn more about our work, please get in touch at: climatedevlab[at]gmail[dot]com
Location
South Africa
