An activist shows support for the Kyoto Protocol in Durban.Photo: Hollywood NorthCross-posted from ThinkProgress Green. "Even if others are not, we are ready to take a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol," said European commissioner for climate action Connie Hedegaard. Australia and New Zealand, which sponsor the most developed carbon markets outside Europe, say they won't agree to remain part of the Kyoto treaty unless other countries bolster efforts to curb emissions.  Brazil, South Africa, India, and China, known as "BASIC countries," remained united over major issues in relation to climate change, a senior Chinese official on climate change …

Photo: Gage SkidmoreCross-posted from ThinkProgress Green. At an oil-sponsored event at the Heritage Foundation, presidential candidate Jon Huntsman reversed his prior defense of climate science. Huntsman, who famously mocked his fellow candidates for questioning global warming in August, was asked by NewsBusters blogger Lachlan Markey if humans contribute to climate change. Huntsman said that the "scientific community owes us more": I don't know, I'm not a scientist, nor am I a physicist, but I would defer to science ... The scientific community owes us more in terms of a better description or explanation about what might lie beneath all of …

Cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green. "The Nepalese government has exhausted funds to drain the Tsho Rolpa (Nepal's biggest glacial lake), which poses an immediate threat to at least 10,000 people," said Samjwal Bajracharya, the lead author of a new report on the status of glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region, also known as the Third Pole. Thai Airways International will lose about $100 million in revenues in Q4 due to the flood crisis, airline president Piyasvasti Amranand said Tuesday.  Efforts to establish water as an agenda item in its own right in climate change negotiations are gaining momentum in Durban. …

The march on Saturday. Photo: Oxfam InternationalCross-posted from ThinkProgress Green. As the first week of climate negotiations drew to a close, Saturday saw people from across Africa and beyond march through the streets of Durban to demand progress on a fair, ambitious, and legally binding global climate deal. Caritas Internationalis President Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga said failure at U.N. climate talks in Durban is a "moral apartheid" that cannot be allowed to happen. Several animal species including gorillas in Rwanda and tigers in Bangladesh could risk extinction if the impact of climate change and extreme weather on their habitats is …

Siberia: A perfect place to move after climate change messes up your home.Photo: Sean RouvinskyCross-posted from ThinkProgress Green. The inability of mainstream economists to grapple with the consequences of unrestrained global warming has been a recurring theme at ThinkProgress Green. However, the gold medal for sociopathic insouciance about a world of unimaginable biodiversity collapse, global desertification, the death of the oceans, and the inevitable wars and chaos that would bring would have to go to Karl Smith, one of the bloggers at the influential economics blog Modeled Behavior. In his post "In Praise of Dirty Energy: There Are Worse Things …

Canadian climate deniers gave Archbishop Desmond Tutu flack for speaking out against Canada's oil sands.Photo: Greater Tacoma Community FoundationCross-posted from ThinkProgress Green. Activists used hundreds of LED emergency lights to spell "climate fail" across the Canadian Parliament lawn in huge, illuminated letters to send Prime Minister Stephen Harper the message that he must listen to people, not polluters.  Canada's right-wing National Post said Archbishop Desmond Tutu "should shut his trap when it comes to the oil sands," calling his criticism "unwarranted hysteria from naïve environmentalists."  Canadian climate denier Rex Murphy attacked the Durban conference, saying Tutu "should be ashamed" for …

Cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green. The Canadian Youth Delegation has publicly apologized for the actions of the Canadian government and their negotiators at Durban, publishing an apology letter in a local newspaper. The Persian Gulf nation of Qatar, which has the highest per-capita greenhouse gas emissions in the world, has been selected as the site of the United Nations climate change meeting next year. "Qatar has an appalling record of ignoring workers' rights, especially migrants, and the decision to hold next year's climate summit there sends a wrong message and risks delaying vital action," global trade union representatives complained. The United …

Cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green. This Saturday's Crankshaft cartoon took on global warming, noting that climate change is threatening Ohio's iconic buckeye trees, the namesake of the Ohio State Buckeyes. "Once it starts to affect football, they'll get moving on climate change," one character says: As greenhouse pollution from oil and coal continues to build, the Ohio buckeye (Aesculus glabra) is on its way out of the Buckeye State. Between 1990 and 2006, United States hardiness zones shifted northward, putting Ohio closer to the southern end of buckeye viability. That trend will accelerate. A 2007 study by Daniel W. McKenney and …

Cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green. After the spiking of the Keystone XL pipeline by the Obama administration, the tar-sands industry moved quickly to open an alternate route from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries. With the announcement of the pipeline deal, U.S. oil prices spiked, on the expectation that Canadian tar-sands crude would no longer be locked in the Midwest market. ConocoPhillips sold its stake in the Seaway Pipeline, which connects Texas to Oklahoma, to Enbridge Inc. Enbridge plans to alter the 200,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) pipeline so that it can take Candian crude from Oklahoma to Texas: The sale of an oil …

Cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green. Tax breaks and subsidies for energy companies have gotten so extreme that dozens of top companies have made billions in profits while having negative taxes -- actually receiving taxpayer welfare instead of paying anything to the federal treasury. An analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found dozens of companies that had a negative tax balance [PDF] between 2008 and 2010, while making billions in profits. Because of tax breaks and questionable tax dodging, these companies reported higher post-tax profits than pretax profits, often actually getting checks from the …