Climate Change

Antonio La Viña, who led the REDD-plus negotiations for Copenhagen, shares some personal reflections in ‘Ways Forward after Copenhagen: Reflections on the Climate Change Negotiating Processes by the REDD-plus Facilitator’

Read the full report

20 October, 2009 - FIELD warns that international legal frameworks are unprepared to deal with people displaced by climate change. Although estimates vary widely as to how many climate exiles can be expected, it is clear that the international community needs to prepare for the likelihood that some small island countries and low-lying territories will be lost in the future.

29 September, 2009 - FIELD staff are helping developing countries, including small islands, in the international climate change negotiations in Bangkok between 28 September and 9 October. FIELD has a new project to help developing country negotiators with REDD-plus. See our REDD project page for a briefing paper for the Bangkok session and ‘Quick Tips' for new negotiators.

FIELD staff are attending the climate change negotiations in Bonn from 1-12 June, which are preparing the UN Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December. In Copenhagen, countries will be expected to agree on new greenhouse gas emission reduction targets to replace the Kyoto Protocol targets, which are expiring.

From 20-24 April, 2009, the Indigenous Peoples' Global Summit on Climate Change took place in Anchorage, Alaska. FIELD provided strategic advice on how to bring the concerns of indigenous groups into the climate change negotiations.

All over the world Indigenous Peoples are affected by the impacts of climate change. They often live close to the land and depend on it for their livelihoods and well-being. In September 2008, FIELD prepared a paper on ‘Ways for Indigenous Peoples' groups to advance adaptation concerns and solutions through international fora'.

FIELD will be attending the next session of the international climate change negotiations in Poznan, Poland, December 1-12. Together with other partners, we will be organising a capacity building workshop.

During the last week of October, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) convened an open-ended consultation on the relationship between climate change and human rights in preparation of an OHCHR study on this subject due to be considered by the Human Rights Council at its tenth session in March 2009.

> Projects

FIELD has received a US$150,000 grant from the US-based Christensen Fund to strengthen the ability of Pacific Island countries to negotiate international legal regimes on biodiversity and climate change. The 2008-2010 project will focus on Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji.