All bar one presentation from the recent conference on Delivering Appropriate Assessment in Ireland are now available at the BirdWatch Ireland website. More information on Appropriate Assessment will be added to this page shortly. Link

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Fr. Seán McDonagh, SSC December 14th 2009 On December 9th 2009, negotiations at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen dramatically broke down after a split between ‘developing’ countries who favoured a new protocol and others who wished to continue with the legally binding Kyoto agreement. The crisis was partly precipitated by revelations that the host nation, Denmark was proposing another negotiating mechanism which would sideline, if not kill off, the Kyoto Protocol. In response, Tuvalu, [...]

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Rev. Seán McDonagh, SSC December 8th 2009 This is my fourth time attending the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). My first one was COP 12, which took place in Nairobi in 2006. About 5,000 people were present at the event, including country delegates, people from civil society organisations and the media. We all gathered at the headquarters of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Nairobi. Security [...]

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Fr. Seán McDonagh, SSC, December 9, 2009 In the run up to the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change, hackers broke into computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Centre and got access to many private emails exchanged between climate scientists who have worked with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This ignited a global controversy about the reliability of the IPCC’s data and methodology. It forced the chief scientist at the centre [...]

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Fr. Seán McDonagh SSC December 10, 2009. Last year at the Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland, I wrote an article about the importance of prioritizing the Adaptation Fund in any overall climate agreement. I made the point that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the primary goal of the whole process. According to Article 2 of the UN Famework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) the ultimate goal of the Convention is to achieve the “stabilization [...]

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“You can’t negotiate with the atmosphere. Physics doesn’t compromise,” according to leading Irish scientist Friends of the Earth has accused negotiators at the UN climate talks of “playing Russian roulette with the future of humanity”. As ministers begin arriving at the summit in Copenhagen, the environmental organization has called on Presidents and Prime Ministers to end the short-sighted jostling for national advantage and focus on “our common interest in a safe climate”. The first week [...]

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BirdWatch Ireland has been concerned recently by several prominent statements made by public representatives questioning the value of monitoring work on frogs and Hen Harriers, a type of bird of prey. It is easy to belittle the value of frogs and birds to people. On the face of it, it seems that many people think they are, at worst, harmless and, at best, keep our kids amused and allow for glib and easy puns in [...]

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Car scrappage scheme misguided, wasteful Where is the promised carbon audit of capital spending? Finance for retro-fitting, electric cars weclome Friends of the Earth has welcomed the introduction of carbon tax in today’s Budget, while criticising the exemption of big polluters, and claiming that the tax level falls far short of what is needed to reflect the damage carbon pollution does. The other measures with an environmental impact are a mixed bag according to the [...]

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Starting at 8pm this evening from Busaras in Dublin 25 young Irish climate activists will travel to the UN climate talks in Copenhagen. The activists, including young people from across Ireland, include members of Young Friends of the Earth and Climate Camp Ireland. They will be taking action on the streets of Copenhagen as well as working inside the convention centre walls to persuade decision makers that we no longer have time for distractions, inadequate [...]

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