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Contrasting Views in South Africa

By Prof. Jeff Niemitz One of the things we tried to do on this Mosaic was to give the students not only a sense of the UN Climate conference but also a small taste of the rest of South Africa outside the conference venue.  For ten days we saw the same wall, corridors, exhibits, and venue spaces for the negotiations and the side events explaining some of the issues either from a topical, national, or regional view.  But that was not all there was to it.  The weekend between the conference weeks we experienced the biodiversity of the large animals of Africa up close and personal.  We understood that it was not so simple as to pay the game drive guide and find the animals. In fact the game parks are actively managed … Read entire article »

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Protected: Whither the Oceans in Climate Change negotiations?

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post. … Read entire article »

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Whither the Science in the COP-17 negotiations?

By Prof. Jeff Niemitz I’ll admit from the outset that I know relatively little about the art of negotiation of the climate actions on the table in Durban.  I have learned a lot in the past two weeks however.  It is always hard to bridge the gap between the science and the policy implications that may go along with it.  This appears to be the case this year at COP-17.  The science, while well digested from the IPCC 2007 report, does not appear to be much of an influence on the negotiations 4 years hence.  Even a very important interim report from the IPCC on the increasing extreme weather events the world has been experiencing including the eastern US as you all know (excessive rain this fall, Hurricane Irene and Lee, … Read entire article »

Filed under: Climate Change