Erik Hoffner

It is always puzzling to witness the immense hype surrounding COPs (conferences of the parties to international conventions or treaties). Back in 2009, Barack Obama had just been elected U.S. President. His arrival in Copenhagen, the host city of that year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15), brought so many expectations. Some would argue that despite his star power, COP15 only managed a last-minute deal to save face. Despite the complexity of the climate COP, every year it is heralded as a crucial juncture in the ongoing battle against climate change. However, it consistently falls short of meeting the expectations of those advocating for swift action in light of the stark warnings presented by scientific research. A recent comprehensive assessment of planetary health, unprecedented in its scope, sounded the alarm that the Earth is surpassing safe thresholds. This begs the question: why are politicians and policymakers not responding with a comparable sense of urgency? Once again, this year, representatives from over 198 countries are gearing up to head to Baku, Azerbaijan, for COP29 to push climate action forward with their usual energy and enthusiasm – perhaps a good thing, as the daunting nature of the process makes it only possible for optimists to stand its slow nature. While it could be credited for enabling incremental change, it falls short in achieving the transformative change demanded by science and activists. Worst still, its ability to deliver what Africa needs regarding financial solutions to address the urgent impacts of climate on its…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Conservation has always been an uphill battle but this has never deterred conservationists from continuing to struggle to make a difference, even if their strategies have not halted the extinction crisis.

What a week. The global biodiversity conference in Cali, Colombia (COP16) had just concluded. And then Trump got re-elected as President of the United States. Clearly the latter puts an enormous damper on the former. That is, if one believes that the Cali conference actually made significant progress in terms of tackling the biodiversity crisis. Surely, the conference produced some positive outcomes: Indigenous peoples have been granted permanent representation at the United Nations and companies need to pay more for ‘nature’s genetics’ to produce drugs. But overall, most agree that COP16 did not lay the groundwork for the dramatic action so urgently needed to address the biodiversity crisis. Unfortunately, this is nothing new. International environmental meetings consistently fail to halt the crises they are meant to address. And in the meantime, the biodiversity crisis keeps going from bad to worse. The massive, climate change-induced fires raging in the largest wetland on Earth, the Brazilian Pantanal, and their staggering impacts on biodiversity, are just one of the latest illustrations. Fires raged in the world’s largest wetland, Brazil’s Pantanal, this year. Image courtesy of Gustavo Figueiroa / Environmental Justice Foundation This is why a growing group, of which we are part, have been pushing hard for a systemic alternative, a ‘convivial conservation’ that confronts the root causes of the crisis: an unjust capitalist economy bent on continual growth through land use change, resource extraction and worker exploitation. To some, this seems radical. And if radical is defined etymologically as ‘going to the…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Todd Smith didn’t intend to quit his career as a commercial pilot, but a visit to the Quelccaya Ice Cap in Peru, which has been receding by about 60 meters, or 200 feet, per year, prompted a frank personal examination of the airline industry’s impacts on the planet. During a subsequent medical leave, he decided […]

Todd Smith didn’t intend to quit his career as a commercial pilot, but a visit to the Quelccaya Ice Cap in Peru, which has been receding by about 60 meters, or 200 feet, per year, prompted a frank personal examination of the airline industry’s impacts on the planet. During a subsequent medical leave, he decided to quit his dream job and leave the industry, for good. Today, Smith is co-founder of the organization Safe Landing, which advocates for an aviation industry transition that adapts to the realities of climate change, adheres to carbon budgets, and ensures long-term employment for those who work in it. He joins the Mongabay Newscast to speak with Rachel Donald about his move away from being a pilot to advocating for industry reform, and what the industry needs to do to effect sustainable change. “I don’t really want anyone to be grounded in the way that I have. I would love for an aviation worker to come into the industry and have a long-term career in an industry that’s compatible with the climate science,” Smith says on this episode. “If we do less now, then we might actually have a budget left when in 15 or 20 years’ time we have a next generation of aircraft, if we can scale green hydrogen, if there’s enough renewable energy to do that.” Smith’s testimony gives credence to the fact that 50% of carbon emissions from the airline industry come from a tiny fraction — just 1% — of…This article was originally published on Mongabay

“I've decided to boycott COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan — a decision shaped by both the failure of the COP process to deliver tangible support for the

The first United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that I worked on was in 2009. I didn’t actually go but rather volunteered for Farhana Yamin representing the Marshall Islands, doing some research. She invited me to come and her delegation would pay half of my ticket and accommodation. She said she would give me a letter to my government to be a delegate and ask them to fund the other half, or get funding for me to come. I couldn’t, because I had law exams to do toward qualifying for the London Bar at Inns of Court School of Law, now City Law School. My actual first COP was in 2011 with the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development (FIELD), founded by the eminent international law barrister Philippe Sands, who had advised Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) with our very own legend, Angela Cropper, back in the 1980s. I’ve been involved with each and every COP since then, from working behind the scenes as a junior barrister in London in various think tanks, where I wrote briefing papers and advised on ad hoc requests – in what we affectionately called the “war room” – to going with delegations to field ad hoc queries from Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries as a legal adviser and liaison, and heading my own Institute for Small Islands while going with my country delegation. It has been an exhilarating and intense ride. I loved the mental challenge of…This article was originally published on Mongabay

In 2016, Finland became the first nation to design a circular economy roadmap, and has set specific goals to reach “maximum circularity” by 2035. While the nation has made great progress, significant challenges remain. For this second episode of a new series of the Mongabay Explores podcast all about the circular economy — the effort […]

In 2016, Finland became the first nation to design a circular economy roadmap, and has set specific goals to reach “maximum circularity” by 2035. While the nation has made great progress, significant challenges remain. For this second episode of a new series of the Mongabay Explores podcast all about the circular economy — the effort to design goods to be less resource-intensive, from their manufacture to disposal and recycling — Tim Forslund from the Finnish Innovation Fund (SITRA) discusses Finland’s circular economy roadmap, what policies it promotes, and what challenges and gaps remain. While Finland has been attempting circularity the longest, an additional 71 nations have launched their own roadmaps since 2016, for a total of 75 at the time of this recording. Forslund stresses that rather than treating a circular economy as a one-size-fits-all solution, each nation will have to tailor and continuously update its own. “If you look at Spain’s circular economy strategy, one of their key areas is water because it’s the most water-scarce area in Europe,” Forslund says. One aspect unique to a small number of nations’ circular economy roadmaps is absolute resource reduction targets, which Forslund says is critical: “I think these really set the course for a more ambitious direction [and] clear goals for what needs to be done, because I think what gets measured, gets done,” he says. A task as monumental as achieving circularity requires policy directed at businesses to ensure they reuse resources for products designed to more effectively meet people’s…This article was originally published on Mongabay

As we’ve watched the biodiversity COP in Colombia and then the climate COP negotiations in recent weeks, the urgency of addressing the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss has never been clearer. The need for bold action is undeniable, and the solutions we implement must be just as transformative. One area that holds […]