Climate Politics
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Global will is ripe. Leaders need to pluck it.
The “Copenhagen Accord” is terribly weak. Not just “weaker than it needs to be to prevent climate catastrophe.” We knew it would be that, but hoped to emerge with a serious framework for real solutions. Formally, diplomatically, legally, we didn’t get that. This truth is stark but indispensable. We shouldn’t spin away from it. The […]
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Why is everyone so pissed at Obama?
An insufficient deal has been struck at Copenhagen, leaving many participants dismayed by the outcome and miffed at President Obama. Resentment toward Obama had been building throughout the day, and it spilled over as I went looking for food. After buying a plate of lentils at a cafeteria inside the Bella Center, I sat down […]
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Quick thoughts on the new climate deal?
Rhiya TrivediClimate activist and first-year student at Middlebury College All I can really say at this point, having just run to the screen with President Obama’s press conference with all the other fools who believed that this might be worth our time, is that the time for “meaningful first steps” is long, long gone. You […]
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Transcript: President Obama’s remarks to press about climate accord
Just before departing Copenhagen for Washington, President Obama made a brief appearance before the White House traveling press corps. The transcript was provided by the White House press office. — THE PRESIDENT: Let me start with a statement and then I’ll take a couple of questions. Today we’ve made meaningful and unprecedented — made a […]
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With climate agreement, Obama guts progressive values, argues McKibben
The President of the United States did several things with his agreement today with China, India, and South Africa: He blew up the United Nations. The idea that there’s a world community that means something has disappeared tonight. The clear point is, you poor nations can spout off all you want on questions like human […]
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Mixed reactions to late-night deal in Copenhagen
COPENHAGEN–What a day here in Copenhagen. For much of the afternoon and well into the evening, the cold and dark seemed to settle more deeply today on this city of 1.2 million. Here in the Bella Center, as the day turned to night without an agreement to cool the planet that most people expected today, […]
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The Climate Post: Rumors, intimations, and a deal
First Things First: Denmark’s most widely sought-after exports this week, at least until several minutes ago, were intimation and rumor. World leaders have been locked in negotiation on the second floor of the Bella Center, trying to strike a political “Copenhagen Accord,” various drafts of which (confirmed or unconfirmed) have circulated for the past several […]
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McKibben uninspired by Obama
COPENHAGEN — I watched Barack Obama from the back of a drafty warehouse, which the U.N. has repurposed as the holding tank for all the NGOs they kicked out of the Bella Center. Great idea, except they didn’t manage to hook up Internet. So now I’m at a nearby coffeeshop monitoring the end of the […]
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Chatting with Gore and Markey over canapes
As negotiations reached a rapid boil at the Bella Center last night, and expectations for a positive outcome at COP15 simultaneously soared and sank, some U.S. leaders took a brief reprieve in the neighborhood of Rydhave — a wealthy enclave of Copenhagen about 25 minutes outside of the city center. Gathered at the personal residence […]
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Impatient Obama urges forward movement in Copenhagen, but glum mood prevails
COPENHAGEN — There’s a sour mood inside the Bella Center, where a closed-door meeting among more than a dozen heads of state or top national officials on Friday morning appeared not to have yielded any immediate agreement. Talks are supposed to wrap up today, but there’s a rumor that Yvo de Boer, head of the […]
