It’s a long way from Saudi Arabia to anywhere: forty hours from the early start of my last day in Riyadh til I crawled into bed in Colorado. To then sleep 13 hours. Running 18-hour days at the UN Conference of Parties for two weeks made time a blur. Only now, sorting through memories, do details emerge: incessant traffic jams. Who made Saudi freeways with no offramps to allow a left turn, forcing travel in the wrong direction to make that a U-turn on the freeway itself, creating amazing traffic jams as everyone scrambles across lanes to get to the tiny...

Giving Tuesday is December 3 this year. Created in 2012 as a way to enable everyone to become part of the generosity movement, it grew to a global effort to support the citizen organizations like Natural Capitalism that make this a better world. It inspires hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate, and celebrate generosity. You can join this movement now and give, whether it’s some of your time, a donation, or the power of your voice in your local community. This Tuesday, please support Natural Capitalism Solutions. NCS uses your donation effectively and efficiently, whether it be our...

Climate Voices Dispatch from COP: Actual climate solutions – and at a profit by Hunter Lovins | Dec 06, 2024 Will the desert finally reveal that proven solutions are not a mirage? Originally published on Climate Capital Media here. Editor’s Note: This is the latest in our ongoing series of on-site reports from the UN Conferences of the Parties on climate, biodiversity and, in this case, desertification by our contributor Hunter Lovins. The current United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) or COP16, runs through Dec. 13 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. – Barclay Palmer On the endless flight from Baku two weeks...

The bomb damage from Al Jaber’s “no science” claim yesterday was invisible upon arrival at COP this morning. The lines snaking from the metro lasted for hours. It works spectacularly but was overflowing with the nearly 100,000 people flooding into COP Day 5.  Every morning panel featured empty seats, as the cream of the world’s climate scientists, energy experts, change agents and yes, even negotiators, stood out in the blazing sun, plodding like cattle through chacons inching toward security and badge check to get inside, while protestors sought to remind the parties why they were there in the first place.  Not exactly a promising...

Hunter Lovins live from Dubai — Delegates now must decide the fate of the earth I’m losing total track of what day it is, what month it is: Why are Christmas decorations being hung in the hotel? Oh, right. It is December. COPs usually happen in November. Pouring too much hot water into my instant oatmeal, bleary-eyed from nowhere near enough sleep. Right, it’s not tea. OK, we’ll sip the porridge. What we call in the mounted search and rescue the “ROW” (rest of the world) or rescuing people with horses, seems a dimly remembered hometown fantasy, until I get an email from...

COP Prez Al Jaber’s temper tantrum over Mary Robinson. Protests planned Originally published by Climate and Capital Media. Our correspondent, Hunter Lovins, will be offering her insights as COP unfolds. Her first report:  Dubai — Week one of the UN’s Conference of the Parties (COP) climate extravaganza, and nothing is working.  There’s a poll going around among the “pavilion holders” (the non-profit organizations that have paid tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to rent space to showcase their efforts to implement solutions to the climate crisis) asking whether or not this COP is worse than the shit show in...