Spain
Institute for Policy Studies associate fellow Oscar Reyes is a writer and activist focussing on climate and energy finance.
A stark new United Nations climate report warns that humans have about 12 years to slash global emissions by nearly half. Unfortunately, that's going to be extremely challenging with deep changes to the global financial system.
"We're living in extraordinary times that demand brave and creative solutions. If we're able to imagine a different city, we'll have the power to transform it." - Ada Colau, Mayor of Barcelona. On 24 May 2015, the citizen platform Barcelona en Comú was elected as the minority government of the city of Barcelona.
The reform of the EU Emissions Trading System could hand more than €230 billion in subsidies to energy intensive industries, a new report from Corporate Europe Observatory shows.The Emissions Trading System (ETS) is at the centre of EU climate policy, and a Directive currently passing through the European Parliament and Council intends to keep it that way until 2030.
California's cap-and-trade scheme is in trouble. The latest carbon auction announced Aug. 23 failed to sell two-thirds of the available pollution permits, a third successive flop. That could leave a significant funding gap for other climate measures, such as weatherizing old homes, which are supposed to be paid for by revenue from these state-run auctions.
Green Climate Fund - now there are three words guaranteed to raise the hackles of Republican members of Congress. The fund is little known outside the world of climate skeptics and policy wonks.
Ada Colau, the new mayor of Barcelona, on a 'stop evictions' protest. Imagine the Occupy movement stood for election in London and won - or that anti-gentrification activists took over the city hall in Manchester.
This post was written by writer and activist Oscar Reyes, associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, and originally appeared at Foreign Policy In Focus on December 14. The headlines from the Paris climate talks tell an inspiring story. Agence France-Presse reported an outbreak of " euphoria" as the international climate accord was sealed.
Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation. If you stick a dollar bill under a microscope it is full of dirt. It turns out something similar is true of climate finance - the billions of dollars developed countries pay to help developing countries cope with the effects of climate change and create cleaner energy systems, industry and cities.
This article is a joint publication of TheNation.com and Foreign Policy In Focus. It's one of the oldest tricks in politics: talk down expectations to the point that you can meet them.
What would fill the void if the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) were allowed to collapse? This briefing shows that ending the ETS would not leave a climate policy void. Emissions trading has awarded huge subsidies to some of the EU's most polluting industries while at the same time failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and undermining other environmental measures.
BRUSSELS - The Emissions Trading System (ETS) is the EU's flagship climate policy and it is sinking fast. The stated aim is to put a price on carbon, providing a financial incentive for companies to cut their pollution and, ultimately, invest in cleaner energy sources and more efficient technologies.
Here's how it works. Oil exploration and production require huge reserves of cash, which first comes from selling shares and bank lending. The London Stock Exchange provides a platform to channel investors' money - much of it from ordinary people's pension funds and insurance policies - to the fossil fuel companies.
On a rainy Sunday afternoon in Barcelona, about 150 people are sitting in the booking hall of the central Plaza de Cataluña underground station listening to a roundup of the latest action by the 15M movement, which sprang into life on town squares across Spain after the occupation of Madrid's Puerta del Sol on 15 May.
Emissions trading is the European Union's flagship measure for tackling climate change, and it is failing badly. In theory it provides a cheap and efficient means to limit greenhouse gas reductions within an ever-tightening cap, but in practice it has rewarded major polluters with windfall profits, while undermining efforts to reduce pollution and achieve a more equitable and sustainable economy.
Carbon trading lies at the centre of global climate policy and is projected to become one of the world's largest commodities markets, yet it has a disastrous track record since its adoption as part of the Kyoto Protocol. Carbon Trading: how it works and why it fails outlines the limitations of an approach to tackling ...
Every time the carbon market fails to reduce emissions, the politicians and businesses who promote the market as the solution to the climate crisis reach for their Samuel Beckett: "Try again, fail again, fail better."