China
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80 percent of the world’s emissions are taking steps to curb their global warming pollution
As I mentioned here by the end of January countries were to register their actions to reduce global warming pollution as agreed under the Copenhagen Accord. And by deadline countries accounting for over 80 percent of the world's global warming pollution (and a bit more) have registered their actions to reduce their pollution. So what does this all mean?
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Four stories that should have changed the media narrative … but didn’t
One of the most frustrating things about covering national energy politics is that conventional wisdom in D.C. never seems to change. The incestuous circle of journalists, pundits, lobbyists, and lawmakers known as The Village has its own set of narratives about climate/energy policy. Those narratives are a) completely at odds with the rest of the […]
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Turning the Copenhagen Accord into action on global warming
In December 2009, more than 120 Heads of Government attended the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit, the largest meeting of world leaders in history (the previous largest one was the funeral of the Pope according to Wikipedia). Many of the leaders came to Copenhagen with new commitments to actions on global warming pollution (as I discussed […]
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Where things stand on the Copenhagen Accord and international climate politics
After the Copenhagen Accord was “noted” by the UN in December, there was a great deal of insta-analysis. In truth, there was no real way to evaluate the Accord because the meat of it — the emission-reduction commitments from participating countries — was blank. Literally: The deadline for participating countries to submit their commitments was […]
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U.S. slips in Environmental Performance Index
Researchers at Columbia and Yale released a new Environmental Performance Index ranking 163 countries on a broad variety of indicators—basically, how well they protect their people’s air, water, natural resources, and ecosystems. Surprise, surprise, Scandinavian and Northern European countries do well. So does Costa Rica, the country that shut down its military in 1949 and […]
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Will Google’s fight with China stymie climate negotiations?
If any progress is to be made in the global fight against climate change — whether via diplomatic negotiations or cleantech partnerships — it will only happen through cooperation between the U.S. and China. But the potential for collaboration of any kind took a big blow this past week thanks to the Google fracas. Reports […]
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Did China block Copenhagen progress to pave way for its own dominance in cleantech?
You hear it all the time, one of the most frequently voiced excuses for Western countries failing to radically cut carbon dioxide emissions: Taking any such action would hand a massive competitive advantage to fast-industrializing China. Yet evidence is piling up that the very opposite is the case. The main challenge from the world’s new […]
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Senate needs to get back to work on clean-energy bill, says Washington rep
Copenhagen may not have been a giant leap for mankind, but it was a step forward. So as the Congress returns to work this year, its post-Copenhagen duty remains the same as its pre-Copenhagen responsibility: to pass an energy bill that both jump-starts the United States’ economy and screws down the nation’s carbon pollution. There […]
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Developing nations continue to lead post-Copenhagen
It was one of the biggest surprises in the run-up to the Copenhagen summit, and it may be one of the best reasons for hope now that the meeting has ended in disappointment. Rapidly industrializing developing countries are pressing ahead with their plans to reduce the growth in their carbon emissions, despite the failure to […]
