developing countries
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Tools for supporting international action on global warming: American Power Act
The draft of the American Power Act is now out (see NRDC’s first read summary of the entire bill). The core global warming pollution limits in the bill, covering all major pollution sources, are a solid foundation for Senate legislation to put a final bill on President Obama’s desk this year. So how does this […]
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Bill Gates disses energy efficiency, renewables, and near-term climate action while embracing the ma
Billionaires say the darndest things! The above screen shot of a nonsensical Bill Gates piece dissing energy efficiency came from his website, The Gates Notes, which turned into a HuffPost piece, and then Yahoo News. Yes, even the very rich are very confused about energy efficiency, renewable energy, climate policy, and global warming — […]
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The world in 2020: China, the U.S., the global South, and the planet
This was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission. As the second decade of the twenty-first century begins, we find ourselves at one of those relatively rare moments in history when major power shifts become visible to all. If the first decade of the century witnessed profound changes, the world […]
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What you need to know following the Copenhagen climate summit
Co-authored by Rebecca Lefton. The international negotiations on climate change wrapped up Dec. 19 in Copenhagen. The conference achieved an interim agreement, known as the Copenhagen Accord, which could put the major polluting nations on a pathway to reducing global warming pollution, and it continues to set the expectation for U.S. domestic action on climate […]
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Rough initial thoughts on the Copenhagen Accord
Copenhagen was obviously a failure — at least if you judge it by “the numbers,” the formal emission targets and financial commitments that are needed to support a fair and effective emergency global climate mobilization. If you judge it, that is, by what is necessary. The more pressing question, though, is whether Copenhagen was a […]
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Obama hits the reset button on the foundations of international climate agreements
Shortly before leaving Copenhagen yesterday, President Obama announced that the terms of an interim, “political” agreement, the Copenhagen Accord, had been reached with the leaders of Brazil, South Africa, India, and China which very well may lay the groundwork for a new international agreement on climate change. Commentators are already lining up to decry this […]
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An unwelcome lesson in power politics
350.org’s Bill McKibben at a candlelight vigil Dec. 17 in Copenhagen.Matthew McDermott via FlickrCOPENHAGEN — Late last night, after the word had come down that the climate talks had ended in a four-way, non-binding, unfair, and breathtakingly unambitious agreement between the United States, China, India, and South Africa, a crowd of young demonstrators from around […]
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‘Transparency’ is a hot issue in Copenhagen — but what does it mean?
Sergio Barbosa Serra. Photo courtesy Brazilian governmentCOPENHAGEN — I just had a cappuccino with Sergio Barbosa Serra, Brazil’s ambassador of climate change and one of the country’s top delegates at the Copenhagen talks. We discussed what’s going to get hashed out over the next 36 hours of the U.N. climate conference. He boiled the challenge […]
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Counting the world’s capacity for emission reductions
Delegates in Copenhagen are struggling through the difficult start of the second week of talks, with charges and counter-charges that one party or another is not doing their part to save the planet and the future of humanity thick on the ground. This is not atypical in the history of the U.N. climate meetings, but […]