About the Climate Change Program

Rising global temperatures are already causing devastating effects on the planet.  An urgent, global response is needed. 

While there are existing international processes to address the climate change problem, at present specific commitments only extend until 2012.  We need a more durable solution, and we need it now. 

The overall goal for CIEL’s Climate Change Program is to support the negotiation and implementation of an effective international regime to address climate change that is both socially just and environmentally sound. 

This goal is directly linked to the need to support genuine sustainable development, an institutional priority that cuts across all our work. 

CIEL's climate work employs a three-part strategy: 

1) Provide technical support to others;
2) Advocate for social and environmental protections; and
3) Strengthen the rule of law. 

In doing so, our work cuts across a number of different issues, including:

• Legal architecture;
• Reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD);
• Measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) and compliance;
• Public participation; and the
• Intersection between climate change and human rights, trade, and investment. 

Legal Architecture for the Climate Regime

CIEL is one of the leading thinkers and advocates for a coherent, durable long-term legal architecture for the post-2012 international climate regime.  We have provided analysis to support both the efforts of the UNFCCC secretariat and the Climate Action Network (CAN) to think through the complex suite of issues surrounding the design of the emerging regime. 

As a co-chair of CAN’s Legal Working Group, CIEL has led efforts to clarify and unify civil society thinking on what legal structures are both possible and workable.  We do so by helping to provide concise and timely analysis of issues as they emerge in the negotiations and by helping to develop CAN positions on legal architecture.