Climate Change
Global Issues
Simon Evans

A draft international climate agreement package will be published within weeks, setting the scene for crunch UN talks in Paris in December.

During negotiations in Bonn last week, countries made progress on some key sticking points and started to lay out the skeleton of the planned agreement. Yet with just five more days of formal negotiations before Paris, disagreement over many details remains profound.

The co-chairs of the process will now attempt to cement progress and bridge those divides. They have been given a mandate to prepare a draft agreement by the first week of October. Parties will then start line-by-line negotiations on the draft text when they return to Bonn on 19 October.

Carbon Brief summarises events in Bonn last week and rounds up reactions to the latest talks.

Source:
Carbon Brief

Climate Diplomacy
Global Issues
Dhanasree Jayaram, MAHE

As we step into 2020, time has come to implement the Paris Agreement and raise climate ambition, but the geopolitical tide seems to be against it. The best way forward at this crucial juncture might be to forge a ‘climate coalition of the willing’ – recognising and streamlining actions of all actors at all levels.

Climate Change
Early Warning & Risk Analysis
Global Issues
Lauren Anderson, IISD

For the first time in the survey’s 10-year outlook, the top five global risks in terms of likelihood are all environmental. They are: extreme weather events, failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation, major natural disasters, major biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, and human-made environmental damage and disasters.

Climate Change
Land & Food
Sub-Saharan Africa
Issa Sikiti da Silva, SciDev.Net

Millions of people across Sub-Saharan Africa could face grave hunger in the first half of 2020 because of armed conflict, political instability and climate change-linked disasters, a report says.
The report published by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) this month says that the countries affected will require life-saving food assistance and investment to prevent humanitarian catastrophes.

Climate Change
Forests
Oceania & Pacific
Daisy Dunne, Josh Gabbatiss and Robert McSweeney, Carbon Brief

Australia is currently experiencing one of its worst bushfire seasons, with swathes of the southern and eastern coastal regions having been ablaze for weeks.  As the fires have spread, there has been extensive media coverage both nationally and internationally documenting – and debating – their impacts. This Carbon Brief overview summarises how the fires – and the political response to them – have been covered by the media.