Market speculation

A festival for social justice: reporting from the World Social Forum

It is now the fourth day of this great festival of ideas, discussions and debates about the key political issues of our times and the struggles taking place at local, national, regional and international levels to achieve social justice. The focus is inevitably on African issues of struggle and the various forces impacting local communities and national and Pan African trajectories.

New US interagency study on carbon markets

On Tuesday, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission released an interagency study on carbon emissions markets. The 54-page study for the U.S. Congress was mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Grain Reserves: A Smart Climate Adaptation Policy

Consider these four developments: 1.) Climate change is having a profound effect on current and anticipated food production; 2.) Those effects are expected to be greatest in some of the world’s most impoverished regions, particularly in the countries that sit around the equator; 3.) The anticipated effects of climate change, coupled with the already evident disruptions to natural phenomena, inc

Following Civil Society's Lead on Climate Solutions

In 2009, when IATP published its first climate series prior to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting in Copenhagen, there was genuine hope that governments would make significant progress towards a global response to climate change. That progress never materialized, and cynicism has grown about the effectiveness of the UNFCCC.

Financing Agriculture Adaptation to Climate Change: A Modest Beginning

President Obama’s climate-related diplomatic capacity in Cancún will be severely limited by incoming and current members of the U.S. Congress who consider climate change science too uncertain to serve as a basis for economic policy change or simply a fraudulent conspiracy to undermine the U.S. economy.

Reporting on the roadmap at the global conference on ag and climate

IATP's Shefali Sharma is reporting from the Global Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change at The Hague.

Draft AGF report offers clues on climate finance

We've posted an October 4 draft report of the U.N. High-level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing (AGF). The AGF was set up by the U.N.

Volatile times discussed in Rome

I'm in Rome to talk about volatility (my powerpoint here). More precisely, the volatility in agricultural commodity markets and what can be done to a) mitigate it and b) better cope with its consequences.

Carbon markets: A reliable and practical source of climate finance?

Remarks of Jim harkness, president, IATP United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Tianjin, China

Rethinking the fundamentals of food security

After a lull in public attention over the last couple of years, rising food prices are back in the spotlight. A spike in prices triggered in part by the Russian export ban, and a deadly food price riot in Mozambique have rekindled the debate on global food security.