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Coal Stokes Dispute at Climate Negotiations in Peru

I "To keep richer countries’ extra coal from being burned in poorer countries, the U.S., the World Bank, the United Nations and others are curtailing funding for coal-fired electricity in developing countries…" This is appalling–indeed, a sin against humanity. Rich nations are trying to foist high rich-nation power costs on poor nations still trying to feed, house and employ all their citizens. It’s global-warming theory elevated over the everyday reality of the poorest people on the globe. These world leaders are morally sick.

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Lima climate talks: Final push amid ongoing divisions

Drought in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The talks have highlighted divisions between developed and developing nations Related Stories Talks have continued past the official close of business on the final day of a key UN climate summit in Peru aimed at advancing a new global treaty. The negotiators in the capital, Lima, are tasked with preparing a text to serve as the basis for a new compact to be signed in Paris next year. But long-running divisions between rich and poor continue to hamper progress. US Secretary of State John Kerry has warned that the world is "still on a course leading to tragedy". He said a deal was "not an option – an urgent necessity". Negotiators have been meeting in Lima for almost two weeks to prepare the elements of the new treaty. ‘Red lines’ A new text has been produced by the chairman of the talks in an […]

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Strange Climate Event: Warmth Toward U.S.

LIMA, Peru — When it comes to global warming , the United States has long been viewed as one of the world’s worst actors. American officials have been booed and hissed during international climate talks, bestowed with mock “ Fossil of the Day ” awards for resisting treaties, and widely condemned for demanding that other nations cut their fossil fuel emissions while refusing, year after year, to take action at home. Suddenly, all that has changed. At the global climate change negotiations now wrapping up in Peru, American negotiators are being met with something wildly unfamiliar: cheers, applause, thanks and praise. It is an incongruous moment, arriving at a time when so many aspects of American foreign policy are under fire. But the enthusiastic reception on climate issues comes a month after a historic announcement by the United States and China, the world’s two largest polluters, that they would […]

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Republicans Use Spending Bill to Pursue Environmental Goals

@Paula Dowling You Had To Be aware that the electorate voted a shellacking of the democrats and Obama specifically to obstruct and stop their policies that hurt the American worker and companies. Hopefully the republicans will shut down the Obama government  when necessary disregarding the media hype that the Republicans would be blamed. The last shutdown really hurt the republicans, they went out and beat the Obama agenda by winning the midterms making the president and democrats the embarrassing  biggest losers ever.

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Exxon Issues Energy Reality Check as UN Debates Emissions

The world’s largest oil company sees emissions in the developing world surging 50 percent, a forecast that suggests the diplomatic push to draft an accord to curb global warming stands to fall short. The assessment, in a report today from an Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) team of economists, scientists and engineers, shows how far the world is from cutting pollution blamed for climate disruption. It comes as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon warned envoys today at United Nations talks in Lima that the “window of opportunity” to slow climate change is closing. Even as the most advanced economies cut energy use by almost one tenth through 2040 and add hundreds of millions of fuel-efficient vehicles, booming growth in places like India , South Africa and Thailand will boost demand for fuels 36 percent, the Irving, Texas-based company said in its annual outlook. Emissions will surge as an expanding middle class […]

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Global Warming to Make European Heat Waves ‘Commonplace’ by 2040s, Study Finds

PARIS — In June 2003, a high-pressure weather system took hold over Western Europe and hovered there for weeks, bringing warm tropical air to the region and making that summer the hottest since at least 1540, the year King Henry VIII discarded his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. Temperatures were about 2.3 degrees Celsius, or 4.1 degrees Fahrenheit, above average that summer, contributing to perhaps 70,000 additional deaths and hitting the elderly particularly hard. The heat was a factor in the outbreak of forest fires and in lower than usual crop yields. It caused Alpine glaciers to shrink at a rate double that seen in the previous record summer five years earlier. Now, three scientists from the Met Office, the British weather agency, have concluded that human-caused global warming is going to make European summer heat waves “commonplace” by the 2040s. Their findings, published on Monday in the online […]

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Ambition Meets Wariness as U.N. Climate Change Talks Begin in Lima

A Beijing man wears a mask in heavy smog last month. The pollution is one… ENLARGE A Beijing man wears a mask in heavy smog last month. The pollution is one reason China recently unveiled long-range plans to curb emissions. Getty Images The U.S., Europe and China are about to confront the gulf between their carbon-cutting ambitions and those of less industrialized countries. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping surprised many observers last month by jointly unveiling long-range plans to curb carbon-dioxide emissions. The move followed a pledge by the other big carbon-emitting economy, the European Union, to reduce greenhouse gases as part of a new round of United Nations-led climate negotiations. Those talks have begun this week in Lima, Peru, and will continue on a higher level next week. But officials and experts say there is little evidence most other developing economies will follow China’s lead. […]

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Keystone Antagonist Steps Down as Head of Climate Group 350.org

Bill McKibben, a chief antagonist of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, is stepping down as chairman of the environmental group 350.org that he helped create. McKibben, an author and climate advocate, said the move will give him more time to write and to organize campaigns. He’ll remain as a senior adviser to the New York-based group that pushes for action to combat climate change. “If this sounds dramatic, it’s not,” McKibben wrote in a letter to supporters sent from Sweden , where he is receiving the Right Livelihood Award from Parliament. “I will stay on as an active member of the board, and 90 percent of my daily work will stay the same, since it’s always involved the external work of campaigning, not the internal work of budgets and flow charts.” McKibben, 53, has led 350.org since he co-founded it in 2007. The group gets its name from a […]

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