Interview with Dr. Michael Wilks, immediate past President of Standing Committee of European Doctors and Dr. Pendo Maro, Senior Climate and Energy Advisor

There is rightly a lot of attention on the extreme harm caused to health by climate change. Health professionals are publicizing the fact that investment in reducing greenhouse gases produces immediate and lasting benefits to health. Such health benefits save money: moving the EU greenhouse gas emissions reduction target from 20% to 30% domestically by 2020 (compared to 1990 levels) would cost €46 billion per year in 2020 but save about €30.5 billion annually through reduced medical bills or ill-health avoided, in addition to the €52 billion health gains associated with the current 20% target. The public health benefits can be used as a unifying argument to push towards an ambitious climate change outcome here in Cancun.

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Interview with Dr. Qamar Uz Zaman Chaudary, Vice-president WMO-Asia Region

Recent Pakistan’s devastating floods an eye opener, and Pakistan National Climate Change Policy (development).

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Interview with Dr. Rodney Cooke, Director, Policy and Technical Advisory Division of International Fund for Agricultural Development and Dyborn Chibonga, Chief Executive Officer, National Smallholder Farmer’s Association, Malawi

Climate change hits both the earning capacity and food security of the poorest through its impacts on agriculture. Climate change is increasing uncertainty and degrading the natural asset base of poor smallholder farmers, making it more difficult for them to escape and remain out of poverty.

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12:00

Interview with Luis C.A. Gutiérrez-Negrín

Present status of geothermal energy in the world and its potential to replace non-renewable sources to generate heat and electricity, so contributing to mitigate the climate change.

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Interview with Liane Schalatek, Associate Director, Heinrich Boell Foundation North America

Climate finance decisions utilizing public funds are not made within a normative vacuum. Comprehensive legal frameworks related to environmental protection and universal human rights exist, which together with core democratic principles must be applied to the mobilization, governance and disbursement of public climate finance.

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Interview with Helen Clark, UNDP Administrator

Helen Clark, UNDP Administrator, talks about the challenges climate change poses for development. She explains how it destabilises food production and the impacts of water insecurity on women. She emphasises that we need a global deal and clean development paths now. She discusses how much each country is prepared to do, and refers to the common but differentiated responsibility of the parties. She further explores what UNDP is able to do.

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13:00

Interview with Matthew Vespa, Senior Attorney , Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute

The Copenhagen pledges fall far short of what is needed to limit global warming to 1.5C or even 2C. What can be done here to move toward closing this divide?

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Interview with Premier Kuupik Kleist of Greenland

The premier believes that developing countries need to be heard more, when the developed countries take the lead in the negotiations, if we are to have a respected and balanced global climate agreement. The premier also advocates the need to strengthen the participation and rights of indigenous peoples in relation to the climate agreement.

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13:40

Interview with Eva Filzmoser, Programme Director, CDM-Watch

Just days before the start of COP-16, the European Union proposed an outright ban on credits from CDM HFC-23 projects in the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme. The UN´s CDM Executive Board simultaneously acknowledged the existence of flaws in the crediting rules for these abatement projects that led to the over-issuance of carbon credits. CDM Watch was instrumental in exposing what many would describe as a carbon market scandal of unprecedented proportions. Programme Director Eva Filzmoser will give a full and frank account of some industry players’ attempts to hijack the regulatory process in a bid to safeguard their financial interests and explain why companies still planning to use their ill-gotten HFC-23 credits are putting their reputation on the line.

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14:20

Interview with Dr. Aslam Alam, Secretary, Disaster Management and Relief Division of the Ministry of Food and Disaster Management, Bangladesh

The climate change has already impacted people in Bangladesh. Due to salinity intrusion and water logging following climate change many people in the coastal zone of Bangladesh are loosing their livelihoods. It is necessary to provide support and assistance to these climate victims in terms of creating and providing opportunities of alternative livelihoods which are not sensitive to climate change and variability.

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Interview with Dr. Luis Alberto Ferrate Felice, Minister of the Enviornment and Natural Resources, Guatemala and Dra. Karin Slowing Umaña, Secretary of State Planning and Programming, Guatemala

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15:00

Interview with Carlos Busquets, Deputy of Policy and Business Practices, International Chamber of Commerce

How can business contribute to the UNFCCC process and other forums, such as the G20, to move forward on climate change?

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15:20

Interview with Nick Campbell, Chair, International Chamber of Commerce’s Climate Change Task Force; and Environment Manager, Arkema

The UNFCCC Executive Secretary has challenged business to do more, even before regulation is in place. What is business doing now and how can it step up its efforts to find solutions to climate change?

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15:40

Interview with Marta Benavides, Co Chairs of the Global Council to Action on Poverty / GCAP

Communities affected by Climate Change met  Nov 29th , Chapultepec Mexico City  to make a challenge to COP 16 on Climate Change to approve the Kyoto Protocol, create the International Tribunal on Climate Justice and the creation of the Global Assembly of the Communities affected by Climate Change.

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16:00

Interview with Dr. Carol Turley, Knowledge Exchange coordinator, UK Ocean Acidification Research Programme, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Prospect Place

Ocean acidification is the other CO2 problem, when CO2 enters seawater it makes it more acidic and this could impact marine organism, food chains and ecosystems.

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16:15

Interview with Yang Xin, President, Greenriver

Greenriver as been monitoring the rapid glacier retreating on Qinghai-Tibet plateau for 24 years, we also pay close attention to the people living here around the glaciers. Our anthropologist, rubbish disposal engineer, river explorer, tourism experts and local Tibetan will tell you the true stories happening there.

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16:40

Interview with Professor Calvin B. DeWitt, Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, The University of Wisconsin-Madison

The biospheric economy is the context of the human economy and climate change.

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