The Week in Review at COP16
What progress has been made? Check out the Week One Roundup from John Vidal at the Guardian. Here is the abridged version: 
Emissions Reductions
Progress: Little
REDD (preventing deforestation)
Progress: Little
Financing a Climate Fund (for adaptation)
Progress: Good
Kyoto Protocol
Progress: Backwards
Voices from the Ground: An Interview with a Legal Expert on REDD
Greengrants CEO Terry Odendahl arrived in Cancún late last night to join the action. Early this morning, she caught up with Kristen Hite, Senior Attorney for the Center for International Environmental Law. The Center focuses on human rights and ensuring that people and ecosystems are protected as we look to stem the global rate of deforestation. Kristen’s been in Cancún for almost a week and has been tracking negotiations everyday. Here’s what she had to say about the latest discussions about REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation):
TO: Tell us what’s happening with REDD in Cancún…
KH: Parties have been meeting and negotiating everyday around REDD, but informally. Their first formal meeting on REDD is this afternoon.
TO: How do these discussions compare with those in Copenhagen?
KH: In Copenhagen countries felt like they got an agreement. But what was missing were the other pieces beyond REDD: what happens with markets? with finance? with adaptation? [what about the] things that aren’t directly part of the REDD negotiations? The general view was that REDD won’t move forward until these other things move forward. So, because parties feel like they mostly have consensus, and there are just a few sticking points, things are looking pretty positive.
We know there are still some serious sticking points—like incorporating the rights of indigenous and forest-dependent communities into REDD policies—but it sounds like there’s hope for progress.
Hundreds of Grassroots Activists Arrive in Cancún Today
La Via Campesina, the international movement of peasants, small- and medium-sized producers, landless, rural women, indigenous people, rural youth and agricultural workers, is raising grassroots voices in Cancún. Their caravan arrives there today, bringing a delegation of more than 300 activists to the climate summit.
The caravan is meant to publicize the grave conditions of social and environmental deterioration found in the cities, communities and towns of Mexico. You can read more about their trip and the environmental degradation they’re fighting.
Google’s new ‘Earth Engine’
Google unveiled a new tool yesterday in Cancún that will enable global monitoring and measurement of changes in our planet’s environment. Their Google Earth Engine pulls information from 25 years of satellite data to create “a living, breathing model of the earth with all of the data and analysis that’s available,” according to Rebecca Moore, the project’s engineering manager.
The Google Foundation also announced that they are donating 10 million CPU-hours a year over the next two years on the Google Earth Engine platform. Their goal:
To strengthen the capacity of developing world nations to track the state of their forests, in preparation for REDD. For the least developed nations, Google Earth Engine will provide critical access to terabytes of data, a growing set of analytical tools and our high-performance processing capabilities. We believe Google Earth Engine will bring transparency and more certainty to global efforts to stop deforestation.