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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 […]

  • Final text of the Copenhagen Accord

    This is the text of the climate accord worked out by President Obama and the leaders of several key nations in Copenhagen on Dec. 18. In pursuit of the ultimate objective of the Convention as stated in its Article 2, Being guided by the principles and provisions of the Convention, Noting the results of work […]

  • 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, […]

  • Price of coal surges!

    The price of coal surged this morning as a new buyer entered the market.  A high-volume rush order came in from the North Pole in the last few hours, accounting for the surge.  Shaking his head, one dazed trader said the size of the order was equivalent to the yearly total of a medium-size country […]

  • 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 […]

  • 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. […]

  • ‘This entire conference is an elaborate sham’

    COPENHAGEN — For two weeks we’ve been listening to the story of the leaked emails from East Anglia — a media tempest in an English teapot. And all the time the biggest scandal has been directly under our noses. This afternoon at Copenhagen a document was mysteriously leaked from the UN Secretariat. It was first […]

  • Pelosi and pals tell world: ‘Blame the Senate’

    COPENHAGEN—Seven Democratic leaders from the U.S. House of Representatives made an appearance in the Bella Center on Thursday, spreading the message that treaty negotiations have the support of the House along with President Obama. Photo evidence: Congress cares! Speaker Nancy Pelosi (center, in red … duh) brought along six fellow Democrats to make sure everyone […]