international treaties
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Obama will never get 67 votes for an international climate treaty in the Senate
It is all but inconceivable that Obama can deliver the 67 votes in the Senate needed to ratify a global climate treaty — no matter what happens in the 12 months between Poznań and Copenhagen. And the only thing worse than no global climate treaty in 2009 is a treaty that Obama can’t get ratified. […]
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Will Poznań be a good COP, a bad COP, or just another COP out?
International negotiators are flocking to Poznań, Poland to figure out how to extend the Kyoto protocol, whose climate targets end in 2012. I believe that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process is essentially dead — especially from a United States perspective — as I will discuss this week. Still, Poznań will be […]
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Food sovereignty needs to be the center of renewed negotiations
With each new event or international conference in 2008’s saga of economic and food crises, there are calls to complete the long-running Doha Round of World Trade Organization negotiations. The international players all act as if achieving a Doha agreement, seemingly any agreement, will help solve one or more aspects of these crises. The latest […]
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Climate activists take heart from Obama’s remarks
It was snowing in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday morning as hundreds gathered to ask for action — the kind of omen that those of us who obsess about global warming look for. Maybe the incoming Obama administration really is ushering in a new climate to our nation’s capital! The president-elect certainly sent a strong […]
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Happy international folk
Avaaz brings you happy people who hope Obama will get cracking on an international climate agreement:
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How Obama can revive the economy and heal the planet
A few days before the election, Barack Obama told Time‘s Joe Klein: Finding the new driver of our economy is going to be critical. There’s no better driver that pervades all aspects of our economy than a new energy economy … That’s going to be my No. 1 priority when I get into office. That’s […]
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The next president should use the Clean Air Act to control greenhouse gas emissions
This essay was originally published at Yale Environment 360. —– The urgency of the current situation cannot be overemphasized: The latest scientific research tells us that global warming is accelerating at a rate beyond previous expectations, and that the window for a timely response is closing quickly. Despite some political efforts to muddy the waters, […]
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Al Gore, Wangari Maathai urge U.N. to tackle deforestation in next climate treaty
Nobel Peace Prize winners Al Gore and Wangari Maathai urged United Nations countries on Monday to pay special attention to tropical deforestation in their next international climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol. Preserving forests, they said, will help local communities, fight poverty, and may substantially slow global warming since deforestation accounts for about one-fifth […]
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Bush administration, other G8 leaders agree to halve emissions by 2050
Today at the G8 summit, which began yesterday in Hokkaido, Japan, world leaders reached a landmark deal: agreeing to cut emissions in half by 2050. The leaders agreed to “seriously consider” this goal last year, and six of the eight leaders have been trying desperately to get George Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper […]