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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 […]

  • 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 […]

  • 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, […]

  • 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 […]

  • 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 […]

  • 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 […]

  • 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 […]

  • A sneak peek at a draft three-page climate agreement

    Here’s the latest leaked draft text of the centerpiece statement of the COP15 climate agreement, passed along to Grist by Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth.: Spread the news on what the føck is going on in Copenhagen with friends via email, Facebook, Twitter, or smoke signals.

  • Obama in Copenhagen: Let’s get this show on the road, people

    U.S. President Barack Obama delivered this speech at the Copenhagen climate talks on Friday: Here are Obama’s remarks as prepared for delivery. Good morning. It’s an honor to for me to join this distinguished group of leaders from nations around the world. We come together here in Copenhagen because climate change poses a grave and […]

  • They might just pull this thing off

    This thing might just come together after all. I’ve said all along that the first week and half of these international climate talks will consist of posturing, ultimatum trading, threats to walk out, and other drama, each twist and turn amplified by a milling, ravenous press corps that’s locked out of the rooms where the […]