Climate Change Program Accomplishments

“Climate change is a silent human crisis. Yet it is the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our time. Already today, it causes suffering to hundreds of millions of people most of whom are not even aware that they are victims of climate change …”
-Kofi Annan, former United Nations Secretary-General - 2009

2010 Climate Change Accomplishments

 

 

International Negotiations On Climate

In the lead-up to critical global climate negotiations in Copenhagen last December, and in the ensuing year, CIEL has worked on numerous fronts to help secure a strong and effective outcome from the process. As a member of the political coordination group for the Climate Action Network (CAN), we are helping steer the NGO community in developing positions and strategies to move the international negotiations.

As coordinator of the CAN legal group, CIEL is helping clarify the nature of legally binding obligations under international law and elevating the level of the debate on legal form within both the NGO community and among Parties.

In the wake of Copenhagen, CIEL has worked to improve public participation in the UNFCCC process and provided analytical support to the UNFCCC secretariat in helping to understand the potential consequences of a gap between Kyoto Protocol commitment periods.

CIEL continued to lead on critical compliance issues such as Measurement, Reporting and Verification, which included coordinating a subgroup in CAN, facilitating discussions of experts, and developing text for a post-2012 compliance mechanism. This work also included briefing staff in U.S. Congressional offices on existing compliance processes in the climate regime and ongoing efforts to develop common positions to bridge the gulf between developed and developing countries.

REDD/Climate

Around the world in 80 days, CIEL attorney Kristen Hite traveled from South America to South Asia conducting regional workshops on free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) in projects for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD).

The workshops were sponsored by UN-REDD and the Yale Forest Dialogue. To safeguard the rights of indigenous peoples and other forest-dependent communities, CIEL:

• Presented on the legal framework of FPIC
• Facilitated working groups to develop a grievance mechanism for UN-REDD
• Served as rapporteur for some of the discussions
• Chaired a “hard talk” panel on UNREDD’s activities in Indonesia and Vietnam.

2009 Climate Change Accomplishments

 

Protecting the Global Environment & Reforming International Law Policy - Climate Action Network Legal and Technology Working Groups

In 2009, CIEL attorneys led both the Legal and Technology Working Groups of the Climate Action Network, and took the lead coordinating an analysis of how to design a new compliance mechanism for the post-2012 period.

 

United Nations Framework Convention On Climate Change (UNFCCC)

CIEL provided assistance to the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on options for the post-2012 legal architecture of teh climate regime.

Climate Change Workshop

CIEL organized and led a groundbreaking workshop in which 20 of the world’s top human rights and climate change experts discussed how to put into practice the human rights aspects of climate change.

This workshop led directly to commitments to take action by:

• Experts
• The Secretariat of the UNFCCC,
• The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights,
• The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
• Other other human rights groups acting jointly.

This on-theground work carries forward CIEL’s innovative work in securing recognition that climate change affects human rights and in detailing the substantive content of that relationship.

 

Assist Indigenous Communities and Non-Governmental Organizations

CIEL assisted members of indigenous communities and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the drafting of textual proposals and official interventions during negotiations on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), and we advised the United Nations on REDD-related issues such as designing and effective accountability mechanism.