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PM Singh’s visit: The local papers are filled this morning with news of the Prime Minister’s visit to COP11 yesterday. He addressed the main plenary where he reaffirmed India’s commitment to the Nagoya Protocol which he said the Indian government had recently ratified. He also pledged $50 million for biodiversity here in India over the next two year’s while the country holds the COP Presidency.
Fire at the HICC: My personal favourite of the PM Singh stories this morning is that a small fire broke out near the spot where the Prime Minister was set to make his speech. It is said to have been caused by a short circuit and interrupted the meeting of the working group taking place at the time. It was small enough not to be noticed by any attendee outside of the hall though and was quickly extinguished.
Banned from the proceedings: There are also a couple of reports of those who were banned from the proceedings. Firstly, not all journalists were given access to the main hall, with rumours that those not emitted entry were from publications who openly sympathise with the Telangana cause. Three Greenpeace activists wearing tiger suits were also refused entry. They staged a small protest outside, where lots of pictures were taken of them and their banners – possibly their aim in the first place.
Power shortages: The Central Power Distribution Company Limited in Hyderabad has warned the power situation is going from bad to worse, as the gap between demand and supply widens. They say the power crisis could continue till May 2013.
REDD+: It was REDD+ Day at the Rio Conventions Pavilion here in Hyderabad yesterday. The main event was the launch of the Little Forest Finance Book which offers different options to scale-up forest financing. Speakers at the event discussed the importance of forest financing to achieving the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and called for the mobilisation of the private sector to provide sustainable forest funding.
Geoengineering: The Contact group on geoengineering met again yesterday and continued to discuss how to ensure geoengineering techniques take place in controlled laboratory conditions, within national jurisdiction and in accordance with international law – without having negative impacts outside a country’s own exclusive economic zone.
Video of the day: Andrew Mitchell, Executive Director of the Global Canopy Programme talks about the Little Forest Finance Book and how it is aims to make complicated topics understandable…