Podcast appearances and mentions of kevin conrad

Everyone who steps outside can appreciate the value that the natural world brings to our lives. To some people, the idea of placing a monetary value on trees and mangrove forests is wrong because nature and its gifts are priceless. But others say the love of nature has not stopped it from being polluted or destroyed. The natural world plays a major role in capturing the carbon from our atmosphere. A marketplace now exists where countries and big businesses can pay others to protect their forests, swamps and bogs in return for offsetting their emissions. But several of these schemes have faced scandal and corruption. Could the world's largest biodiversity conference in Colombia, COP16, help put a stop to that? Tell us what you think of the show or send us your own climate question. Email: TheClimateQuestion@bbc.com or Whatsapp: +44 8000 321 721 Presenters Kate Lamble and Jordan Dunbar are joined by: Kevin Conrad, founder, Coalition for Rainforests Tina Stege, climate envoy, Marshall Islands Pavan Sukhdev, chief executive officer, GIST Producers: Darin Graham & Graihagh Jackson Researcher: Natasha Fernandez Reporter: Gloria Bivigou Series Producers: Alex Lewis & Simon Watts Sound engineers: Graham Puddifoot & Tom Brignell

World leaders scientists and environmentalists will gather in the United Arab Emirates this week for the latest UN Climate Conference - COP 28. And far from hitting the much discussed 1.5 degree warming target, the United Nations has warned that the world could be facing what it called a "hellish" 3 degrees if urgent action isn't taken. So can COP28 deliver where so many other gatherings appear to have failed?In this episode of The Agenda, Juliet Mann takes the global temperature ahead of the COP meeting with Kevin Conrad, Founder of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations, Dimitri de Boer, Regional Director for Asia of ClimateEarth and Andrew Morlet, CEO of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which was named a Champion of the Earth by the UN Environment Programme earlier this year.

Listener Discretion Advised Spawn #38 by Todd McFarlane & Julia Simmons & Tony Daniel & Kevin Conrad "Mind Games" Dedicated To: Marv Wolfman My name is Frederick Willheim, and I was born in Geneva, Switzerland... Anna. Intelligent. Caring. Beautiful... she did me the honor of becoming my wife... Her health then declined rapidly... I then focused solely on studying neurology, and vowed to save her or die trying. Learning of my research, the U.S. Army invited me to head up their Cybernetic Simian project. When the Cy-Gor moved of its own free will... I've had a stroke... I cannot reach her. My Anna... The beast... It hasn't eaten. It will escape... It will want my Anna...WildC.A.T.s: Covert Action Teams #5-9 by Jim Lee with Brandon Choi, Scott Williams, & Co. Cyberforce #0-3 & (1993-1994) by Marc Silvestri & Eric Silvestri with Walter Simonson Image is Everything Episode Art Gallery Promotional Material Fanholes Podcast: A pop culture Podcast by the fans, for the fans!! Your hosts: Tony (chainclaw) Derek (derekwc) Brian (Breakdown) Mike (Thunderwing) Justin (Grimlock) 3rd Degree Byrne: Join Brian and Tim, two life long comic freaks, as they take a look at one of the quintessential comic book writer/artists of the last 40 years, John Bryne. The Video Archives Podcast: Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary invite you to become a customer at the store that started it all. Joined by their announcer Gala Avary, they'll travel back in time to revisit old classics and discover new favorites, pulled from the actual VHS tapes that Quentin and Roger used to recommend to customers at the original Video Archives store in Manhattan Beach. Spawning Ground Twitter Facebook tumblr rolledspinepodcasts@gmail.com #Spawnometer Spawnometer on Blogspot Rolled Spine Podcasts on Wordpress Al Simmons, Cogliostro, Cy-Gor, Cyberforce, Cybernet, Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri, Spawn, Spawn Podcast, Stormwatch, Todd McFarlane, Travis Charest, WildC.A.T.s, Wildstorm

Placed among the busy streets of Washington, D.C. is a large public garden that many Americans have never heard of. The U.S. National Arboretum includes a collection of flowering plants called azaleas, a field of native plants called ferns, and flowering trees in the dogwood tree area. Government scientists are in charge of the 183-hectare area. Their main goal is to strengthen the U.S. economy by making sure an important kind of agriculture, called the nursery industry, continues to perform well. “What we do is support the American nursery industry … which is really one of the largest forms of agriculture,” said Richard Olsen, director of the National Arboretum.位于华盛顿特区繁忙的街道上有一个许多美国人从未听说过的大型公共花园。美国国家植物园包括一系列名为杜鹃花的开花植物、一片名为蕨类植物的本土植物以及山茱萸树区的开花树木。政府科学家负责管理这片 183 公顷的区域。 他们的主要目标是通过确保称为苗圃业的重要农业继续表现良好来增强美国经济。“我们所做的是支持美国苗圃业……这确实是最大的农业形式之一，”国家植物园馆长理查德·奥尔森说。He said that different kinds of agriculture industry like ornamental landscapes, horticulture, and turf, “… all of that occurs in every county, in every state of the union. So, it forms a large portion of American agriculture and therefore, an important part of the economy.” The most recent numbers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, show that the ornamental and landscape plant industry creates $13.8 billion in sales each year. The garden was established by Congress in 1927. It plays a leading part in researching and developing plants like trees, shrubs, flowers, and grasses.他说，不同类型的农业产业，如观赏景观、园艺和草坪，“……所有这些都发生在美国每个县、每个州。 因此，它构成了美国农业的很大一部分，因此也是经济的重要组成部分。”美国农业部 (USDA) 的最新数据显示，观赏和景观植物行业每年创造 138 亿美元的销售额。该花园于1927年由国会建立，在乔木、灌木、花卉、草类植物的研究和开发方面发挥着主导作用。Olsen called the arboretum a “science-based research facility and public garden.” He said the place has bred or released around 650-plus plants. They include more than 450 azaleas for landscaping, but also trees like maples, American elms, and hemlocks. The arboretum is home to one of the largest collections of preserved seeds in the world. The National Arboretum Herbarium houses around 700,000 example seeds. They include seeds from plants that the USDA considers as economically important. Scientists collect many genetically different seeds within a kind of plant from both native and non-native plants. The reason for collecting that data is to protect plants from harmful situations like climate change, changed environments, or other new and possible risks.奥尔森称该植物园为“以科学为基础的研究设施和公共花园”。 他说，这个地方已经培育或释放了大约 650 多种植物。 其中包括 450 多种用于景观美化的杜鹃花，还有枫树、美国榆树和铁杉等树木。该植物园是世界上最大的保存种子收藏地之一。 国家植物园植物标本馆收藏有约 700,000 颗样本种子。 其中包括美国农业部认为具有重要经济意义的植物种子。科学家们从本地和非本地植物中收集了一种植物中许多基因不同的种子。 收集这些数据的原因是为了保护植物免受气候变化、环境变化或其他新的和可能的风险等有害情况的影响。Kevin Conrad is a lead plant scientist at the arboretum. He said there are examples in USDA history where a gene from a plant like wheat or grapes has been able to solve a disaster or a collapse of an important agricultural crop. While the scientists do their work, the public is free to explore the arboretum grounds. About 600,000 people visit the gardens each year. That is a small amount compared to the 25 million who visit the monuments and places in the National Mall. Although many people may not know it, the arboretum has had a hand in developing many of the plants that are part of American landscaping. Conrad says the goal is to green the landscape. And he added, “It's to create a welcoming, secure, safe, beautiful, calming landscape for the public.”凯文·康拉德 (Kevin Conrad) 是植物园的首席植物科学家。 他说，美国农业部历史上有一些例子，来自小麦或葡萄等植物的基因能够解决灾难或重要农作物的歉收。当科学家们工作时，公众可以自由地探索植物园。 每年约有 60 万人参观花园。 与参观国家广场的纪念碑和场所的 2500 万人相比，这个数字很小。尽管很多人可能不知道，但植物园参与了许多美国景观植物的开发。康拉德说，目标是绿化景观。 他补充道，“这是为了为公众创造一个热情、安全、美丽、平静的景观。”

Host Llewellyn King discusses the situation of the world's rainforests with Kevin Conrad, director of the Coalition of Rainforest Nations, who is participating at the COP27 conference.

Host Chad Bouton sits down with Dr. Kevin Conrad who is the Director of Medical Services for Guide Dogs of America. Dr. Kevin Conrad shares his decades worth of knowledge with me on how he has helped create various programs that have lead to better and stronger service dogs.

Kim is in studio with candidate for El Paso County Sheriff Steve Noblitt and Kevin Conrad, candidate for Senate District 35.

Everyone who steps outside can appreciate the value that the natural world brings to our lives. To some people, the idea of placing a monetary value on trees and mangrove forests is wrong because nature and its gifts are priceless. But others say the love of nature has not stopped it from being polluted or destroyed. The natural world plays a major role in capturing the carbon from our atmosphere. A marketplace now exists where countries and big business can pay others to protect their forests, swamps and bogs in return for offsetting their emissions. Could giving nature a dollar value make us care about it more and help us fight against climate change? Presenters Kate Lamble and Jordan Dunbar are joined by: Kevin Conrad, founder, Coalition for Rainforests Tina Stege, climate envoy, Marshall Islands Pavan Sukhdev, chief executive officer, GIST Producer: Darin Graham Researcher: Natasha Fernandez Reporter: Gloria Bivigou Series Producer: Alex Lewis Editor: Emma Rippon Sound engineer: Graham Puddifoot

Sometimes we inherit homes unexpectedly. What are our options? I speak with attorney Kevin Conrad to go over just that.

When you think of a Southeastern Guide Dogs service or guide dog, do you also think “Olympic Athlete”? Well, you should! Thanks to the special canine fitness work we do to strengthen muscles and increase stamina, our working dogs are more physically fit than ever. On today’s episode of “Sit, Stay, Speak!” we visit with our extraordinary head veterinarian, Dr. Kevin Conrad. Hosts Sean Brown, Katie McCoy and Marisa Blanco dig into the training regimen that helps create superheroes. Don’t miss it! Did you know our podcast is available on streaming platforms, such as Stitcher, iTunes and Spotify? Be sure to subscribe via the links above!

In this second part of our three-part series on the history of forests in the Paris Climate Agreement, we hear how REDD+ got its name and made its way into the climate negotiations. Special Guest: Kevin Conrad of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations

This week, on the Major Spoilers Podcast: Geoff Johns takes on the Teen Titans, Invincible gets and animated series, and is Incredibles 2 worth the wait? Also we review, Black Hammer Age of Doom #3, Fathom #1, and Shanghai Red #1. Show your thanks to Major Spoilers for this episode by becoming a Major Spoilers Patron at http://patreon.com/MajorSpoilers. It will help ensure the Major Spoilers Podcast continues far into the future! NEWS Invincible gets animated series at Amazon Studios https://variety.com/2018/biz/news/robert-kirkman-invincible-amazon-walking-dead-creator-1202851000/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=exacttarget&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=101567&utm_term=306000 REVIEWS STEPHEN BLACK HAMMER AGE OF DOOM #3 Writer: Jeff Lemire Artist: Dean Ormston Publisher: Dark Horse Comics Release Date: June 20, 2018 Lucy Weber, a.k.a. Black Hammer, continues her journey in Dreamland back to the farm, leading to a confrontation with the mysterious Bereaver. At the same time, both Abe and Barbie give one last shot at salvaging their love lives. [rating:4/5] MATTHEW FATHOM #1 Writer: Ron Marz Artist: Siya Oum Publisher: Aspen Comics Cover Price: $3.99 Release Date: June 20, 2018 1998's Best-Selling Title of the Year Celebrates 20 Years in 2018! This all-new adventure for Aspen's preeminent hero sees her attempt to navigate an ever-changing world where The Blue are not only present above the surface-but exploited in new and dangerous ways. When a rival nation to The States decides to take control of the global landscape by tapping into the power of The Blue, Aspen Matthews discovers that a new adversary has risen to challenge the notion that she is the most powerful person on the planet-and humanity may suffer the consequences! Michael Turner and Aspen Comics' flagship title commemorates its landmark twenty years since its debut in grand fashion! The superstar creative team of Ron Marz (Green Lantern, Witchblade) and Siya Oum (Lola XOXO) are on board to deliver Fathom, and the iconic heroine, Aspen Matthews, to a new generation of readers as well as loyal fans alike! [rating:3/5] RODRIGO SHANGHAI RED #1 Writer: Christopher Sebela Artist: Joshua Hixson Publisher: Image Comics Cover Price: $3.99 Release Date: 6/20/2018 Red is one of hundreds shanghaied out of Portland in the late 1800s. Drugged, kidnapped, and sold to a ship's captain, she wakes up on a boat headed out to sea for years, unable to escape or even reveal who she truly is. Now she's coming back in a boat covered in blood to find her family and track down the men responsible for stealing her life out from under her. Eisner-nominated writer CHRISTOPHER SEBELA (High Crimes, Heartthrob, We(l)come Back), JOSHUA HIXSON (The Black Woods) and HASSAN OTSMANE-ELHAOU (Felix & Macabber) bring you a tale of revenge, family, and identity that stretches from the deck of a ship outside Shanghai all the way to the bleak streets and secret tunnels of Portland, Oregon. [rating: 3.5/5] MAJOR SPOILERS POLL OF THE WEEK http://majorspoilers.com/2018/06/17/major-spoilers-poll-of-the-week-incredibles-2-edition/ DISCUSSION Teen Titans: A Kid's Game Writer: Geoff Johns Publisher: DC Comics Witness the dawn of a new era in TEEN TITANS: A KID'S GAME, a 192-page trade paperback collecting the best-selling TEEN TITANS #1-7, written by the fan-favorite Geoff Johns with art by Mike McKone and Marlo Alquiza, additional art by Tom Grummett, Nelson DeCastro and Kevin Conrad, and a cover by Michael Turner! Witness the gathering of a new team of Teen Titans and their initial battle against an old, familiar foe: Deathstroke! The reasons behind his actions prove shocking to the team, and before the teen heroes can even get their feet on the ground, they must reencounter the cult of Brother Blood. Plus, an introduction by Johns and Profile Pages from TEEN TITANS/OUTSIDERS SECRET FILES #1! CLOSE Contact us at podcast@majorspoilers.com Call the Major Spoilers Hotline at (785) 727-1939. A big Thank You goes out to everyone who downloads, subscribes, listens, and supports this show. We really appreciate you taking the time to listen to our ramblings each week. Tell your friends! Closing music comes from Ookla the Mok.

This week, on the Major Spoilers Podcast: Geoff Johns takes on the Teen Titans, Invincible gets and animated series, and is Incredibles 2 worth the wait? Also we review, Black Hammer Age of Doom #3, Fathom #1, and Shanghai Red #1. Show your thanks to Major Spoilers for this episode by becoming a Major Spoilers Patron at http://patreon.com/MajorSpoilers. It will help ensure the Major Spoilers Podcast continues far into the future! NEWS Invincible gets animated series at Amazon Studios https://variety.com/2018/biz/news/robert-kirkman-invincible-amazon-walking-dead-creator-1202851000/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=exacttarget&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=101567&utm_term=306000 REVIEWS STEPHEN BLACK HAMMER AGE OF DOOM #3 Writer: Jeff Lemire Artist: Dean Ormston Publisher: Dark Horse Comics Release Date: June 20, 2018 Lucy Weber, a.k.a. Black Hammer, continues her journey in Dreamland back to the farm, leading to a confrontation with the mysterious Bereaver. At the same time, both Abe and Barbie give one last shot at salvaging their love lives. [rating:4/5] MATTHEW FATHOM #1 Writer: Ron Marz Artist: Siya Oum Publisher: Aspen Comics Cover Price: $3.99 Release Date: June 20, 2018 1998's Best-Selling Title of the Year Celebrates 20 Years in 2018! This all-new adventure for Aspen's preeminent hero sees her attempt to navigate an ever-changing world where The Blue are not only present above the surface-but exploited in new and dangerous ways. When a rival nation to The States decides to take control of the global landscape by tapping into the power of The Blue, Aspen Matthews discovers that a new adversary has risen to challenge the notion that she is the most powerful person on the planet-and humanity may suffer the consequences! Michael Turner and Aspen Comics' flagship title commemorates its landmark twenty years since its debut in grand fashion! The superstar creative team of Ron Marz (Green Lantern, Witchblade) and Siya Oum (Lola XOXO) are on board to deliver Fathom, and the iconic heroine, Aspen Matthews, to a new generation of readers as well as loyal fans alike! [rating:3/5] RODRIGO SHANGHAI RED #1 Writer: Christopher Sebela Artist: Joshua Hixson Publisher: Image Comics Cover Price: $3.99 Release Date: 6/20/2018 Red is one of hundreds shanghaied out of Portland in the late 1800s. Drugged, kidnapped, and sold to a ship’s captain, she wakes up on a boat headed out to sea for years, unable to escape or even reveal who she truly is. Now she’s coming back in a boat covered in blood to find her family and track down the men responsible for stealing her life out from under her. Eisner-nominated writer CHRISTOPHER SEBELA (High Crimes, Heartthrob, We(l)come Back), JOSHUA HIXSON (The Black Woods) and HASSAN OTSMANE-ELHAOU (Felix & Macabber) bring you a tale of revenge, family, and identity that stretches from the deck of a ship outside Shanghai all the way to the bleak streets and secret tunnels of Portland, Oregon. [rating: 3.5/5] MAJOR SPOILERS POLL OF THE WEEK http://majorspoilers.com/2018/06/17/major-spoilers-poll-of-the-week-incredibles-2-edition/ DISCUSSION Teen Titans: A Kid's Game Writer: Geoff Johns Publisher: DC Comics Witness the dawn of a new era in TEEN TITANS: A KID'S GAME, a 192-page trade paperback collecting the best-selling TEEN TITANS #1-7, written by the fan-favorite Geoff Johns with art by Mike McKone and Marlo Alquiza, additional art by Tom Grummett, Nelson DeCastro and Kevin Conrad, and a cover by Michael Turner! Witness the gathering of a new team of Teen Titans and their initial battle against an old, familiar foe: Deathstroke! The reasons behind his actions prove shocking to the team, and before the teen heroes can even get their feet on the ground, they must reencounter the cult of Brother Blood. Plus, an introduction by Johns and Profile Pages from TEEN TITANS/OUTSIDERS SECRET FILES #1! CLOSE Contact us at podcast@majorspoilers.com Call the Major Spoilers Hotline at (785) 727-1939. A big Thank You goes out to everyone who downloads, subscribes, listens, and supports this show. We really appreciate you taking the time to listen to our ramblings each week. Tell your friends! Closing music comes from Ookla the Mok.

 Towards the end of summer, climate negotiators learned of three trademark applications that were filed in May of this year. One was for the logo “REDDPLUSX”, which is described as a carbon credit brokerage. Another was for the logo “RRU”, which are proposed carbon credits generated by saving or supporting forests under the Paris Agreement. But it was the third, for the logo REDD+, that raised eyebrows across the climate community. It raised those eyebrows because scores of organizations already use the acronym “REDD+” to describe activities that reduce greenhouse gasses by saving or reviving endangered forests. The acronym is generally spelled out as “‘reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks”, and it describes as set of mechanisms that generate “reduction units”, which might one day be worth billions of dollars as the world implements the Paris Climate Agreement. The trademark applications were filed by the Coalition for Rainforest Nations (CfRN), which is a New-York-based entity that promotes forest-carbon initiatives in roughly two dozen countries, and the applications came to light just as one of those countries, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), proposed a new “Gateway” for handling REDD+ Reduction Units – which, not coincidentally, is what “RRU” stands for. CfRN executive director Kevin Conrad says he’s just trying to provide clarity in a process that often seems chaotic, but critics say the proposals replicate mechanisms that are already on the table, and some see an effort to control a process that’s designed to be open and inclusive. Whatever the motives for their creation, the proposals offer insight into the issues being negotiated here in Bonn, so let’s take a quick look. Who Uses the REDD+ Acronym? REDD+ began as an experiment in 1988, when US electric company Applied Energy Services (AES) wanted to see if it could reduce its carbon footprint by helping poor farmers in Guatemala manage their land more sustainably (for the full story, see “REDD Dawn: The Birth Of Forest Carbon”). The acronym then was “AD”, for “avoided deforestation”, and the concept evolved over the decades as NGOs continued to experiment with the science. Eventually, the phrase shifted to “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation”, then to “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation”, and finally to one that includes a broader range of land-use activities. At the same time, standard-setting bodies like the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and the American Carbon Registry emerged to provide ways of generating carbon offsets by determining which forests were endangered and which procedures can be used to save them. Within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), however, REDD remained on ice until 2005, when Conrad, as lead negotiator for Papua New Guinea, wrangled it back onto the agenda at Climate Talks in Montreal (COP 11). At the 2013 climate talks in Warsaw, the UNFCCC agreed on the Warsaw Framework for REDD+, which is a cluster of agreements on how to develop REDD+ programs at a national or sub-national level and pay for results. That rulebook was enshrined in the Paris Agreement – which, by the way, rarely uses the acronym but instead spells it out in most cases. The acronym is, however, used by carbon standards like VCS and Plan Vivo, as well as by sub-national governments like those of the US state of California and the Mexican state of Chiapas – and that, says Conrad, is a problem. Shades of REDD In an interview for the Bionic Planet Podcast, scheduled to be posted today, Conrad said that REDD+ should only be used to describe programs that are embedded into national carbon accounting initiatives under the Paris Agreement. “The REDD+ description under the UNFCC is that you have to have a national plan, you have to have a national monitoring system, you have to have a reference level, you have to write a report of your safeguards, and then you submit your results, and those results have to be independently reviewed by the UNFCCC itself, and then once it goes through that process, emission reductions are issued and put on the REDD+ Hub,” he said. “None of these project have gone through that process, which means they shouldn’t be calling themselves REDD+ projects.” Currently, REDD+ offsets – meaning emission-reduction units that can be purchased by non-state actors to offset emissions – only exist in the voluntary and regional markets, although voluntary standards are increasingly being embedded in national accounting programs. Outside of the climate arena, people do often confuse voluntary markets, regional compliance markets, and the overarching UNCCC. It’s common to see voluntary REDD programs described in the media as having been developed under the UN process, when in fact they were developed in parallel, but with an eye on eventually converging. The Mexican state of Chiapas added to the confusion a few years back when it used the acronym to describe a program that funneled auto usage fees into conservation. All forest-carbon programs are built on scientific guidelines established by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and voluntary programs are increasingly being used to fund conservation in Latin America, the Caribbean region, and Africa, according to a regional analysis of voluntary carbon markets that Ecosystem Marketplace published last month. A separate report focused on buyers of voluntary offsets. It found that companies purchase forest-carbon offsets as much for their knock-on social benefits as for their conservation values. As projects and national accounting systems evolve, most of these disparate programs hope to become “nested” within the national framework, and Conrad says buyers will need more clarity to know which are and are not nested. He bristles at accusations by some that the CfRN was trying to corner the term to earn licensing fees. “So, the idea is to have an official REDD+ logo or mark, that all REDD+ governments can use for free,” he wrote in an open e-mail to members of the REDD+ Working Group on October 24. “This is to help the market-place determine what is real REDD+ and to distinguish it from the ‘pretenders.’” Other negotiators cried “foul”, and pointed out that existing standards are working with governments to embed their offsets in national accounting systems, and that the UNFCCC, by design, only sets accounting guidelines, and is not meant to act as a standard. “REDD+ was developed through the UN’s negotiations, which included all the parties to the Convention, and it’s being used around the world by governments, by UN organizations, by civil society, by indigenous peoples,” said Peter Graham, a longtime negotiator for Canada who is now with a consultancy called Climate Advisors. “You have to ask yourself why a private entity based in Manhattan would try to create a trademark of what I would see as a global public good,” he said, adding: “That same group is proposing a mechanism through another process going on in other rooms, talking about creating a body or entity that would, in effect, control finance for REDD+.” That entity, officially called the “Gateway to Encourage, Measure, Report, Verify and Account for Non-Party Contributions” was submitted by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Dominican Republic, Kenya, Mozambique, Panama, Papua New Guinea, and Uganda. Most negotiators say it will probably not become an agenda item in formal talks, but could become a topic in ongoing informal talks happening on the fringes. What Does the Gateway do? The Paris agreement doesn’t explicitly mention carbon markets at all, but instead assumes that countries will develop them domestically. The Agreement’s contribution is to recognize this and to say that countries can trade “Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes” (ITMOs) among themselves to deepen the targets they’ve set in their Nationally-Determined Contributions (NDCs). (For a deep dive, see “Building On Paris, Countries Assemble The Carbon Markets Of Tomorrow”) Article 6 of the Paris Agreement lays out two paths that countries can use to trade their emission-reductions internationally, and the two paths are not mutually exclusive. The first is the “cooperative” approach, which lets countries coordinate trading among themselves, provided they follow accounting principles that pass muster with the UNFCCC. The second path, championed by Brazil, will be forged within the UNFCCC itself and offer a centralized mechanism for transferring emissions reductions. The Gateway seems to suggest a third way, which Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, DRC’s chief climate negotiator and chair of the CfRN, says will be a UN-sanctioned platform designed to ensure the integrity of emission-reduction units generated by “non-parties”, which are entities that don’t have a seat at the UNFCCC table. They can be cities or states within countries that do have a seat, or they can be companies looking to offset their greenhouse gas emissions. “We’ve realized that in our countries, we often have different private actors that come and implement projects whose quality isn’t clear, whose outcomes are sometimes unfairly distributed,” he said, in an interview that will appear on the Bionic Planet podcast. “For us, is important that we have a platform, a gateway where different nonparties actors can come and report what they do,” he said. “For us, if what they do comes with high level of environmental integrity, high level of rigor, there will be keen of showing what they are doing.” Few delegates believe the Gateway will become an official agenda item, but it can become a “political movement” kicking around “voluntary meetings” that were sanctioned in 2013 to make sure that outside voices were being heard.

Climate negotiators are meeting in Bonn, Germany, the next two weeks to move the Paris Climate Agreement forward – even as Republicans in the United States seem intent on moving it backward. Most countries say they want the US to stay in the agreement, but there’s reason to believe it will be better off without us. 8 May 2017 | The dark-haired man looked haggard and world-weary as he leaned towards the microphone. “We ask for your leadership,” he told US Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky, with cameras running and the world watching. “We seek your leadership,” he continued. “But if for some reason you’re not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of us. Please, get out of the way!” The year was 2007, and the young man was Kevin Conrad, who represents Papua New Guinea in UN climate talks. The place was Bali, Indonesia, where George W Bush’s US negotiating team had been gunking up talks with silly games and doublespeak. The words perfectly captured the exasperation in the room, and delegates roared in rare applause. Bush’s team backed down. But ten years on, it’s déjà vu all over again, except this time the world isn’t haggling over how to fix the climate mess. Instead, negotiators are meeting in Bonn, Germany this week and next to begin implementing the bottom-up fix that the world has already agreed on – a fix the United States was instrumental in creating: namely, the Paris Climate Agreement, which is a flexible framework that gives every country the leeway to meet the climate challenge as it sees fit. It does require the creation of science-based rules for measuring and monitoring emissions, and the world’s media should be focused on the substantive efforts to develop a detailed rulebook for handling international cooperation on emission-reductions. Instead, however, the Trump Show has stolen the spotlight, and media is preoccupied with the question of whether Trump will or will not pull out of the landmark accord. Most reports focus on the tragedy of him leaving, but some insiders fear the opposite: namely, that he’ll stay in and sabotage progress. Gus Silva-Chavez is one of those. A longtime NGO observer, Silva-Chavez now runs the Forest Trends REDDX initiative, which tracks carbon finance – finance that depends on accurate measurements of greenhouse-gas emissions and reductions, as well as rigorous tracking of international carbon transfers. It’s complicated stuff, but 99 percent of the work has already been done. Silva-Chavez, however, fears the Trump team will either complicate it even more or try to “streamline” it, which would undermine the environmental integrity of the system. “They could go in and say, ‘The UN is not going to tell the US what to do,’” he says in an interview to appear on today’s episode of the Bionic Planet podcast. “They could say, ‘We don’t need an extensive, detailed rulebook. All we need are the basics, and we’re not going to agree to anything more.’” That, he says, could slow the talks without formally appearing to do so, just as Republican strategists undermined civil rights while formally protecting “freedom”. Also, he adds, while the US stands alone now, any opposition could provide cover for other countries to also bail or stall. “Right now, on the record, every country is saying the right thing: that they’ll toe the line,” he says. “But that could change if the US breaks its word.” If that sounds far-fetched, we need just look back to the bad old days of the second Bush administration, which handed negotiations over to a previously unknown and famously unqualified congressional staffer named Harlan Watson. The Triumvirate of Obstruction Watson was a human wrench tossed into the gears of global diplomacy by ExxonMobil for the sole purpose of grinding those gears to a halt. For that task, we was actually well-suited, and his name elicits such visceral feelings of disgust among those who were there that it probably warrants a trigger warning. The parallels to today are frightening: ExxonMobil inserted Watson into the Bush administration via a fax “which Exxon Mobil spokesman Russ Roberts said was sent by the company but not written by any of its employees,” as Washington Post reporter Juliet Eilperin put it – foreshadowing the daily doublespeak that Sean Spicer now spews at every White House presser. Watson, along with Dobriansky and energy industry lawyer James Connoughton, formed an unholy Triumvirate of Obstruction that neutered the US on the world stage, and as an example, you can look to Bali: after months of stalling and flip-flopping, Watson said the US would only sign an agreement without targets or numbers because “once numbers appear in the text, it prejudges the outcome and will tend to drive the negotiations in one direction.” After another collective groan from delegates, it was former US Vice-President Al Gore’s turn to speak. “My own country, the United States, is mainly responsible for obstructing progress at Bali,” he admitted, but “over the next two years the United States is going to be somewhere it is not now….One year and 40 days from today, there will be a new (presidential) inauguration in the United States.” He argued that even a watered-down agreement was better than nothing, so delegates passed an agreement that met all of Watson’s criteria, but Dobriansky still rejected it, prompting Conrad’s famous, exasperated retort and Dobriansky’s about-face. As we all know now, Barack Obama won the next election, and his team incrementally helped shepherd the talks that resulted in the Paris Agreement – an incredibly flexible approach to fixing the climate mess that encourages a race to the top instead of binding targets. Optimists like former Dutch negotiator Jos Cozijnsen point out that, from a rational perspective, the United States has no reason to either leave or torpedo the agreement. “It’s not rational… and this is not Kyoto,” says Cozijnsen, who now advises environmental NGOs, referencing the Kyoto Protocol. “You can’t block anything anymore, and there is no reason for the US to do so.” The Trump team, however, isn’t rational, either; and while they can’t formally block, they can gunk things up. Or they can get out of the way.

The United Nations climate summit in Paris - or COP 21 - is just around the corner. But there's a lot to get a handle on with how these negotiations actually work. You might wonder, why have they failed in the past? What is it like to be there in the room? And what are the main points of contention between countries? To get insights into these questions, and just what we can expect from Paris, we rang up Kevin Conrad, who for 8 years represented Papua New Guinea at UN climate talks, and this year is on the delegation for Panama.

Kevin Conrad, president, Kevin Conrad Heating and Cooling Inc., Nantucket, Massachusetts, breaks down working in the New England climate, the benefits of insulation foam, and more. Posted on June 19.