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The article reports that a new approach to negotiations in curbing emissions has raised hopes that the United Nations climate change conference in Paris, France in November 2015 will agree to meaningful climate steps. It says that negotiators hope that the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) approach will prevail where the Kyoto strategy failed. It mentions that with the INDC approach, nations pledged to limit their emissions.

The European Union (EU) is widely assumed to be a global environmental leader, especially in addressing climate change, though this reputation suffered greatly when European leaders were sidelined during the 2009 United Nations Climate Summit in Copenhagen. Subsequently, however, the EU has made significant progress in extending its Emission Trading System to the aviation sector, one of the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions, and did so not only regionally, but also managed to get it onto the global policy agenda. This contribution investigates the EU's role in shaping the 2013 International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) resolution committing 191 government signatories to developing a global market-based measure to cap international aviation's carbon pollution. While not exactly setting new environmental standards or achieving definitive regulatory success, the case illustrates the agenda-setting capacity of the EU through leveraging its market power and adopting an explicitly extra-territorial rule to induce potential regulatory co-operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the course of the last four years, finance ministries have increasingly become involved in the international climate change negotiations. Their involvement has to a large degree been an outcome of the framing of climate change as a market failure. This framing calls for an active climate change policy and is at odds with the framing of climate change policy that was previously predominant in finance ministries: that it constitutes expenditure to be avoided. The persistence of both framings has led to clashes within and between finance ministries with respect to climate change. The article calls for further research focusing on the role of the two frames and of finance ministries as actors in climate change politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reviews the problems impeding adaptation to the effects of climate change, but discerns hopeful trends. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

UN/GA- UNCED 1992: Second Session of Preparatory Committee 42UNEP- Enhancing UNEP's Role: US Proposal 47- Biological Diversity: No Progress 48Basel Convention- Liability and Compensation: Progress on Protocol 49UN/INC- Climate Change Convention: First Discussions 50UN/ECE- Senior Advisers: Water Pollution and Industrial Accidents 53- Environmental Rights and Obligations (draft charter) 55 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the 9th part of the second session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban platform for Enhanced Action (ADP-29) conducted in Bonn, Germany on June 1 to 11, 2015. It states that the session is aimed at streamlining and consolidating the Geneva negotiating text (GNT) of the Paris Agreement. It notes that the streamlining was made within facilitating groups, corresponding to each chapter of the GNT.

The authors offer a proposal of reforms to international environmental policies for the 2012 United Nations (UN) Conference on Sustainable Development to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 2012. The recommendations are based on the results of a 2011 study by the Earth System Governance Project and include topics such as the reform and upgrade of UN environmental institutions, the integration of sustainability policies from local to global governments entities ,and an emphasis on economic fairness and equity for poorer nations in sustainable development programs. It is argued that a constitutional movement of global environmental governance is necessary to ensure sustainable change.

The author reflects on the challenges of protecting ecosystem across the world. She cites a doubling of the number of protected sites since the 2003 meeting of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN's) World Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa, arguing that protected areas are the most effective tool in biodiversity conservation, and discusses how the scientific community's knowledge can help guide environmental policy at the World Parks Congress in Sydney, Australia.

Presents details of various environmental reports and meetings by different organizations worldwide. Includes the Global Environment Outlook 2000; Report criticizing profit-driven private financial institutions; Meeting on alternative approaches to debt relief.

Highlights issues discussed at the 100th Conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Union held in Moscow, Russia, in September 1998. Debate on political, economic and social situation in the world; Government moves to ensure promotion and protection of human rights; Management of water resources.