Archives for Reports

Comhar published Community Renewable Energy Report

This policy paper explores the status of community renewable energy in Ireland, identifies the barriers to developing community renewable energy and outlines potential options to overcome these barriers. A balanced renewable energy solution for Ireland should be an integrated mix of large, small, community and micro-scale development from various sources. Community based energy generation can play an important part in job creation, local income generation, enhancing support for renewable projects and ensuring community involvement in [...]

Area of Activity: Energy

category: News, Reports

tags: Comhar, Energy, Renewables

Is China being used as a scapegoat by countries which are unwilling to make significant cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions?

Written by Fr Sean McDonagh SSC For a number of years the United States and other countries such as Canada, Russia and more recently Japan, have stated that they are unwilling to sign any binding treaty to significantly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions unless China does the same. In support of their position, these countries point to the fact that China is now the number one emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. In 2005, [...]

category: UN Climate Change Conference - Durban 2011

What has happened to the EU’s leadership on Climate Change?

Written by Fr. Seán McDonagh, SSC (December 5th 2011) In the early years of the Conference of the Parties (COPs) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the European Union along with the Nordic countries was generally seen to be in the vanguard of both climate science and of dealing with the crisis through binding agreements to reduce greenhouse emissions, such as the Kyoto Protocol. Even someone as politically conservative as Margaret Thatcher [...]

category: UN Climate Change Conference - Durban 2011

A Small breakthrough at Durban: Is it too little, too late?

by: Fr. Seán McDonagh,SSC COP 17, the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, was scheduled to end on Friday December 9th 2011.  At that point there was no agreement on a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol (KP) nor a willingness to accept legally binding cuts to greenhouse gas emissions by the big three emitters the United States, India or China. On Thursday, December 8th 2011 and [...]

category: UN Climate Change Conference - Durban 2011

A Brief History of the Aarhus Convention

The UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters was adopted on 25 June 1998 in Aarhus, Denmark, at the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the “Environment for Europe” process, under the aegis of UNECE. It entered into force on 30 October 2001 and currently has 44 parties including the European Union. The Aarhus Convention has the objective of guaranteeing the rights of access to information (first [...]

Area of Activity: Governance

category: Reports

No Breakthrough at Bonn Climate Change Conference

Fr. Seán McDonagh, SSC At the end of the Climate Change Conference in Bonn (June 6th to 17th ), Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said that the negotiations on climate change were “the most important negotiation the world has ever faced.” [1] Unfortunately, there was no dramatic break-through at the Bonn conference. Maybe it is too much to expect that the UNFCCC multi-track negotiation process [...]

Area of Activity: Climate Change

category: News, UN Climate Change Conference - June 2011

The Bonn Climate Change Conference

By Fr. Seán McDonagh, SSC At the end of the first week of the Bonn Conference on Climate Change, the first thing which comes to mind is how little coverage this vitally important negotiation session is receiving the world media.  A favourable outcome from the Bonn Conference is essential if the UN Framework Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which is to meet later in the year in Durban, South Africa, is to succeed.   As the [...]

Area of Activity: Climate Change

category: UN Climate Change Conference - June 2011

UN Climate Talks in Bonn, June 6 to 17, 2011

By Fr. Seán McDonagh, SSC The UN sponsored climate change  talks began in Bonn, Germany on June 6th 2011 and will run until June 17th 2011.  These talks will attempt to revive negotiations on various aspect of climate change  so that a fair, ambitious and  legally binding treaty, a successor to the Kyoto Protocol,  can be signed at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change  (UNFCCC) in Durban, South Africa, later in the year. While [...]

Area of Activity: Climate Change

category: Reports, UN Climate Change Conference - June 2011

Fieldtrip and music: The North Wexford food from the wild and sea shore interpretation for visitors.

[imagebrowser id=2] On Sunday May 22nd ‘World Biodiversity Day’ an international group came down to North Wexford to celebrate. Thirty five visitors came by train, bus and car to N Wexford to celebrate Austrian Maypole day and World Biodiversity Day. The successful day was packed with little testers and tasters as well as music and shore nature fieldtrip. The meal started with wild garlic and wild water cress soup collected locally, the salads contributed included [...]

category: Biodiversity 2011, Biodiversity Week Projects 2011, Uncategorized

The 19th Session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) ended in failure

Fr. Seán McDonagh, SSC Though it received very little media attention the failure of the 19th Session of the UN Commission On Sustainable Development (CSD) to reach an agreement on May 14th 2011, on a series of environmental and development issues is a major set-back for global diplomacy.  The CSD emerged in 1992 from the United Nations Conference on Environment and  Development (UNCED), popularly known as the “Rio Earth Summit.” Since 2003 the CSD cycle [...]

category: CSD19, News

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