Durban, South Africa, 6 December. As countries are negotiating the global climate crisis, an open letter sent by a broad coalition of green groups including Greenpeace, WWF and Friends of the Earth to the COP Presidency today calls for an exclusion of coal power projects from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Groups claim such projects undermine the integrity of the CDM and the already weak climate targets. continue reading…

Photo from SABC

by By Thobile Hans. Published in SABC.

South African President Jacob Zuma’s declaration on “climate smart and carbon markets” as a climate change solution for African agriculture has raised suspicions among roughly 100 civil society organisations at the COP17 conference in Durban. continue reading…

Dear Ministers,

We, more than hundred civil society organisations from 35 countries across all continents, call on Parties to acknowledge the urgency with which climate change needs to be addressed and to agree to ambitious and immediate emissions reduction targets that are in line with the Cancun Agreement to prevent global warming beyond two degrees Celsius. Kyoto Protocol parties must commit to a second commitment period at Durban. The legal and governance structure of the Kyoto Protocol is crucial to ensuring that mitigation commitments are legally binding and have environmental integrity. continue reading…

Barcelona, 21^st November 2011. A new report released today by GAIA – Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, reveals serious flaws in CDM-backed Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) projects. Most of these projects support incineration technology to burn waste and landfill gas systems (LFG) to bury waste, which ultimately increase greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and displace informal workers communities’ livelihoods, amongst other problems. By buying CDM carbon credits from these projects, the EU is contradicting its own policies on waste management, which prioritize recycling, pollution controls and waste diversion from landfills. The report calls for a EU ban on CDM carbon credits in the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS). continue reading…

10 November 2011, Brussels. A report published today by the UNFCCC’s expert panel shows that coal power plants that receive climate finance through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) may receive millions of artificial carbon credits under current rules. CDM Watch and Sierra Club call on the CDM Executive Board to exclude this project type from the CDM at the upcoming climate change conference in Durban. continue reading…

by Finnigan Wa Simbeye

Replacing community conservation of mangrove forests at Rufiji delta in favour of fortress conservation by the state to meet carbon trading needs will not work.

Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) is a climate change mitigation initiative that seeks to integrate tropical forests into market-based carbon sequestration schemes to counter the effects of global climate change. continue reading…