International Action
Browner: Climate Bill Unlikely By December; US Will Act One Way or Another
Published October 02, 2009 @ 05:27PM PT
Above: Carol Browner on goals for December's climate treaty talks in Copenhagen.
President Obama's "climate czarina" told a Washington audience today that Senate passage of a climate bill in time for December's international climate talks was extremely unlikely.
Carol M. Browner, director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, said during the interview that "“Obviously we’d like to be through the process — that’s not going to happen,” reports Andrew Revkin in The New York Times. She continued, "I think we would all agree the likelihood you would have a bill signed by the president on comprehensive energy by the time we would go in early December is not likely."
The Senate version of the climate legislation was introduced only on Wednesday, a full three months after House passage of a climate bill. Yet Ms. Browner said that it was possible that the Senate could at least complete its rounds of hearings on the bill by the time the international climate talks open on Dec. 7 in Copenhagen. Those hearings, along with the Obama administration’s recent moves toward regulating greenhouse gases, would provide evidence that the nation is serious about cutting emissions, she said.
A show of resolve by the United States about doing its part in combating global warming is considered critical to the outcome of the Copenhagen talks.
“We will go to Copenhagen and manage with whatever we have,” Ms. Browner said.
Browner made her statement this morning at the First Draft of History Conference. Her comments made recently by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), as well as the growing "common wisdom" among politicos that between the domination of health care legislation in Congress, and the contention to come over the climate bill, that climate legislation won't make it to the president's desk before 2010.
If true, it makes Obama administration moves to regulate greenhouse gas pollution via the Clean Air Act even more important -- to curb climate change, demonstrate to negotiators in December that the US really will act on climate change, one way or another.
Further, "We need to give the business community certainty and predictability," Browner said today, to achieve "a whole new generation of jobs and a [stable] climate."
Per Joshua Green's write-up at the Atlantic,
To this she added the underappreciated point that the history of major changes in U.S. environmental law shows that new rules invariably turn out to be cheaper and easier to implement than almost anyone anticipates at the time.
Fatalistic Friday: Climate treaty still stalled, catastrophic climate change forecast, more
Published October 02, 2009 @ 03:53PM PT
Above: At a press conference held midway through the Climate Change Talks in Bangkok, Yvo de Boer told reporters that progress has been made key areas including adaptation, technology and capacity-building in developing countries. However, progress on rich nation emission reduction targets and financial support for climate change action in developing countries is still elusive.
Grab a stiff drink and take in this week's bad news about global warming:
Climate talks stall on targets, finance: Efforts to convince rich nations to toughen emissions cuts have failed to make much headway at climate talks in the Thai capital, the U.N. said on Friday. "Progress toward high industrialized world emissions cuts remains disappointing during these talks. We're not seeing real advances there," Yvo de Boer, the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told reporters. "Movement on the ways and means and institutions to raise, manage and deploy financing support for the developing world climate action also remains slow." (Reuters)
Catastrophic climate change could happen with 50 years: If average global temperatures arc toward a rise of 7.2 deg. F (4 deg. C) by 2100 (over those of the mid-19th century), according to a study released this week by the UK's Met Office, we'd be screwed in diverse ways as soon as 2060: Arctic temperatures would increase by 28.8 deg F (16 deg C), while parts of sub Saharan Africa and North America would be devastated by an increase in temperature of up to 18 deg F (10 deg C); rainfall could decrease by 20 per cent in Central America, the Mediterranean and parts of coastal Australia, causing mass drought; Temperature rises in the Amazon would cause the rainforests to die, while Alaska and Siberia would see the melting of the permafrost causing more carbon dioxide to be released. (The Telegraph)
Kofi Annan Rocks! 'Beds Are Burning' re-mixed as climate change anthem
Published October 01, 2009 @ 09:53AM PT
Above: Stirring climate anthem, or earnest do-good dirge?
Long Live Rock Dept: The Tck Tck Tck "countdown to Copenhagen" campaign has re-recorded the Midnight Oil guitar rock anthem "Beds Are Burning" into a call for action on climate change. The song is available for free download on the web and on iTunes, too.
"Every download will count as a unique digital petition with people adding their names to demand world leaders reach an ambitious, fair and global deal at the UN Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen," says the campaign in a statement.
The star-studded video features Duran Duran, Mark Ronson, Jamie Cullum, Melanie Laurent, Marion Cotillard, Milla Jovovich, Fergie, Lily Allen, Manu Katche, Bob Geldof, Youssou N'Dour, Yannick Noah, Jet Li, Suketu Metha, Amadou et Mariam, and more -- all framed by voiceovers from Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations and now a big league anti-poverty advocate, and Bishop Desmond Tutu.
Videos to Watch: Climate week highlights, what's next in int'l talks
Published September 27, 2009 @ 02:43PM PT
Above: Climate advocates are striving to contain growing worries that the December climate talks in Copenhagen will be a bust. In this video made just as the G20 summit wrapped up, Kumi Naidoo, chair of the Tck Tck Tck climate mobilization campaign (and incumbent director of Greenpeace), encourages people to get active in their communities, churches, mosques, temples, and clubs. Naidoo and others believe it's crucial that citizens to contact their leaders and demand that they reach a "fair, ambitious and binding" climate treaty agreement in December.
It has been an inconclusive "Climate Week." The world's major economic powers made few significant moves on curbing global warming, and produced no major public breakthroughs in deadlocked climate treaty negotations.
On the activist side, things were a good deal more inspiring:
The Global Wake-up Call saw thousands of people worldwide performing creative, cheerful street actions and calling their political leaders to support a strong climate treaty. This "Human Countdown" in New York City last Sunday kicked off the week's activist events:
The film "The Age of Stupid" had a star-studded evening opening in New York City. The film takes a black-humored backwards look at our era, when no one acted fast enough to stave off global warming. Gillian Anderson! Moby! Heather Graham! Stephen Baldwin!
[[There, my SEO for the week is accomplished.]]
The Yes Men pranked New York City and the media with their mock "climate change edition" of the Rupert "Fox News" Murdoch-owned tabloid, The New York Post:
"SPECIAL EDITION" NEW YORK POST from The Yes Men on Vimeo.
More activist moments, and the anti-climatic policy roundup, after the jump.
Climate at the G20: White House briefs bloggers on climate discussions
Published September 26, 2009 @ 05:25PM PT
Above: G20 Voice bloggers at a briefing by Michael Froman, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor, at the end of the G20 Summit on Friday, Sept. 25. (Photo by Julie C. Roth; Courtesy G20 Voice.)
Climate activists were underwhelmed by what came out of this week's Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh in the way of formal climate change commitments.
True, the heads of state of the 20 leading developed and developing economies agreed to phase out fossil fuel subsidies "in the medium term." But they couldn't come to a consensus on climate finance -- aid from richer nations to poorer, directed at adapting to and mitigating the impacts of global warming.-- which is what it takes for something to make it onto the summit's final statement.
Stronger pledges on climate had been part of a leaked draft of the summit communique earlier in the week, and climate activists from Oxfam, Greenpeace, US Climate Action Network and other groups were aggravated that they vanished from the final version.
The G20 are asking their finance czars to keep digging into the issue when they meet in Scotland, in November, according Michael Froman, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor. Froman met with bloggers covering the G20 for a briefing, soon after President Obama's press conference late Friday afternoon.
The G20 "felt it is important that climate financing stays primarily in the UN context," said Froman -- the context of the UN's international climate treaty negotiations in Copenhagen in December -- where all developing as well as poorer nations will also be at the table to help forge the agreement. Although the G20 nations represent about 85% of the globe's economic output, there are over 160 additional countries involved in the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty.
According to Froman, there has been no decision made on whether President Obama will attend December's international climate treaty talks in Copenhagen.
Top 10 Moments of Climate Week
Published September 25, 2009 @ 01:47PM PT
Things were snoozy at the United Nations Climate Summit, but the popcult climate scene was alive and kicking in all its star-studded glory during Climate Week NYC . From Hugh Jackman, Sexiest Man Alive, to Yes Men pranks, Grist's Umbra Fisk lists the top 10 best moments from Gotham's global warming fest.
Snapshot of Climate Protest at G20 in Pittsburgh
Published September 25, 2009 @ 09:08AM PT
One of the frustrations of covering events like the G20 is that I can't be everywhere at once. So while I'm sitting here tracking down information on what's very likely to be the summit's biggest climate news -- the beginnings of an international agreement to phase out national subsidies that help perpetuate use of fossil fuels -- there are all sorts of photogenic protest events happening elsewhere in the city.
This snap -- fresh from the streets of Pittsburgh -- is courtesy of It's Getting Hot in Here youth climate activist/blogger Morgan Goodwin..
