Climate Politics
All Stories
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A Copenhagen compact
Copenhagen, Denmark, outside the Bella Center (What, you think I would be inside?) Up until the wee hours of this morning, the consensus view was that this meeting was about to fall apart completely. Some of the most trusted environmental journalists I know, who have the most astute anti-“sky is falling” meters in the business […]
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Copenhagen is not on the verge of signing a treaty that would lock in 3C warming!
If we were all in the Bella Center I’d start this post with something like, “The buzz in the hall today at COP 15 in Copenhagen was a leaked UN document confirming the worst fears of …” But we’re not in the hall. Most of us were locked outside today. So I’ll settle for: The […]
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Johnny, Can You Spell Salmonella?
How is it that a country can put a man on the moon, but can’t seem to feed it’s children school lunches that are safer than those eaten at McDonald’s or Jack in the Box? In the past 10 years more than 23,000 school children have become sick as a result of hundreds of food […]
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Kerry-Boxer bill will cut the deficit; Will ‘fiscal conservatives’ sign on?
The Congressional Budget Office — the arbiter of the federal budget impact of all legislation — just released an analysis that the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, S. 1733, … would reduce budget deficits (or increase future surpluses) by about $21 billion over the 2010-2019 period … In years after 2019, direct spending […]
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Obama Interior Department surrenders to the coal interests
After close of business on Friday, Oct. 30, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar surrendered to coal mine operators who are rapidly destroying the central Appalachian Mountains. Interior’s capitulation was filed by the Obama administration in federal court in papers that reveal the Department will further delay its promise to rescind the Bush administration’s gutting of crucial […]
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Obama and Wen to meet soon one-on-one in Copenhagen
COPENHAGEN — The Chinese premier Wen Jiabao will meet one-on-one with President Barack Obama soon in Copenhagen to try to reach agreement on a new international climate treaty, according to He Yafei, the vice chairman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry. “Yes, I believe so,” responded He in the hallways of Copenhagen’s Bella Center late this […]
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Obama science advisor John Holdren on U.S. strategy in Copenhagen
COPENHAGEN — One of the puzzles about the U.S. strategy here in is how negotiators expected that pledging a 17 percent emissions reduction below 2005 levels by 2020 could be taken seriously. After all, that would bring the U.S. to approximately 1990 levels a decade from now, which is higher than the level the U.S. […]
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Tim Wirth says imperfect deal at Copenhagen better than no deal
Timothy Wirth, head of the United Nations Foundation, has a long-term perspective on climate negotiations — and he says people who contend that no deal is better than an imperfect deal are “flat wrong.” While serving as undersecretary of state for global affairs during the Clinton administration, Wirth led the U.S. delegation to Kyoto, Japan, […]
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John Kerry on whether a weak climate deal is better than no deal at all
COPENHAGEN — As climate negotiators hash out the eleventh-hour details of an operational accord, one question looms over the discussions: Is a weak deal better than no deal at all? I put that question and others to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in a sit-down interview yesterday. The chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee admitted […]
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No ‘truth,’ but telling consequences for Inhofe’s strange Copenhagen visit
COPENHAGEN — On the day that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton showed up in Copenhagen to say the U.S. would contribute to a global climate action fund, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) also appeared in Copenhagen. Without, however, his much-hyped “truth squad.” Earlier this month, the Oklahoma Republican and one of Capitol Hill’s fiercest critics of […]
