The ongoing negotiations in Copenhagen, which are slated to end Friday, are apparently at a “critical juncture” according to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The United States inched closer to the views of its European allies today by agreeing that it is “prepared to work with other countries toward a goal of jointly mobilizing $100 billion a year to a…

Should environmentalists and other progressives get worked up over the recently leaked “Danish text”? Todays Guardian summarized the key concerns raised by this alleged draft agreement among the rich states:
• Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;…
• Not allow poor count…

One of the critical issues facing Copenhagen negotiators is the amount of money (and technology) that will be transferred from wealthy states (who are responsible for the lion’s share of past and current greenhouse gas emissions) to developing countries so that the latter won’t burn fossil fuels and thereby create future emissions that could effectively cancel o…

Will a new climate agreement require developing countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (ghgs)? Will developing states agree to make reductions? In this post, let’s consider the prospects for Brazil agreeing to such reductions.
First however, keep in mind the history. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed at the Rio Earth Summit in 199…

The Copenhagen climate summit is now less than one month away and observers are not optimistic that states will agree to a deal cementing either specific greenhouse gas emission reductions or increased environmental assistance to the developing world so they can meet the standards without threatening growth vital to fighting poverty.
Last month, Danish Prime Minister Lars Lo…

In late October, the United States National Academy of Sciences released an interesting on-line “prepublication” edition of a report called Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use. The October 19 New York Times reported the key finding on the costs of air pollution from burning fossil fuels:
Burning fossil fuels costs the Unite…

This past week, the news related to the ongoing climate negotiations was quite confusing. On Monday the 19th of October, the BBC reported optimistically:
“It’s an uphill battle, but I just feel today it’s more do-able than (I did) yesterday,” Mr Miliband [UK climate secretary] told journalists in a briefing directly after the MEF meeting closed on Mon…

Do you remember when I mentioned “Greenfinger” on this blog a couple of months ago? Greenfinger would be a rich master environmental criminal — perhaps pursuing climate geoengineering without international approval.
In the October Atlantic Monthly, representatives of the ICE Coalition wrote to the editors to offer a legal solution to the potential Green…

This past weekend, Carol Browner, Director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy proclaimed that the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade climate bill (which passed the House this summer) is not going to become law prior to the upcoming climate negotiations. The NYT :
“Obviously, we’d like to be through the process,” Carol Browner said durin…

Last August, the UN Environmental Programme reported that “around $300 billion or 0.7 per cent of global GDP is being spent on energy subsidies annually.” These subsidies are particularly important because most are devoted to fossil fuels. They artificially reduce the price of those fuels, thereby increasing consumption and dramatically influencing greenhou…