Great news on the Environmental front this morning! 700 climate scientists plan to take on the corporately funded climate skeptics.
Last week, it appeared a fait accompli that the GOP would emerge victorious in reigning in EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. And things don't bode well for the US as the the UNFCCC prepares for COP16 later this month.
Hard to believe Obama flew into Copenhagen last winter with the hope of the world propelling AirForce One forward.
If The Copenhagen Accordwas a dismal failure then, can we expect anything from Cancun?
What a difference a few days can make. Last week things looked quite gloomy for the EPA & their authority over regulating greenhouse emissions under the Clean Air Act Link
But better news this morning as a hefty team of heavy hitting climate scientists are at the ready to battle with climate deniers.
The American Geophysical Union plans to announce that 700 researchers have agreed to speak out on the issue. Other scientists plan a pushback against congressional conservatives who have vowed to kill regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. link
And not a minute too soon as the plutocracy, and its subsidized minnions, fresh from a walloping midterm election under its belts, is now settling its site on further weakening President Obama's bargaining power as COP16 talks begin later this month.
"This group feels strongly that science and politics can't be divorced and that we need to take bold measures to not only communicate science but also to aggressively engage the denialists and politicians who attack climate science and its scientists," said Scott Mandia, professor of physical sciences at Suffolk County Community College in New York.
"We are taking the fight to them because we are ... tired of taking the hits. The notion that truth will prevail is not working. The truth has been out there for the past two decades, and nothing has changed." John Abraham of St. Thomas University in Minnesota
Boehner: Boneheaded on Climate
climate cues from the next speaker
"The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical," Mr. Boehner told ABC News in an April 2009 interview. "Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you’ve got more carbon dioxide." Boehner, 2009
The American Energy Act, an energy plan introduced by House Republicans last year, offers some clues to Mr. Boehner’s latest thinking. It calls for expanding domestic oil and gas drilling and nuclear power and would subsidize some clean energy development, but makes no provisions for curbing carbon dioxide emissions.
The bill would have also curtailed environmental reviews of energy projects and put restrictions on environmental lawsuits.
Mr. Boehner has often called this an "all of the above" energy strategy.
"The House Republicans’ American Energy Act –- not the Democrats’ national energy tax –- is the fastest route to a cleaner environment, lower energy costs and more American jobs," he said in introducing that bill. Link
Flashback. Copenhagen, December 2009
How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room
Mark Lynas wrote a brutal Dec. 22 column for the Guardian laying the blame for the failure of COP15 at China's feet, claiming " ... I saw Obama fighting desperately to salvage a deal, and the Chinese delegate saying "no", over and over again."
As recriminations fly post-Copenhagen, one writer offers a fly-on-the-wall account of how talks failed, with quotes from LDC leaders scattered throughout the story ... quotes like ... "a suicide pact, an incineration pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries". Sudanese delegate Lumumba Di-Aping ... President Nasheed of the Maldives ... "How can you ask my country to go extinct?"
Here's what actually went on late last Friday night, as heads of state from two dozen countries met behind closed doors. Obama was at the table for several hours, sitting between Gordon Brown and the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi. The Danish prime minister chaired, and on his right sat Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the UN. Probably only about 50 or 60 people, including the heads of state, were in the room. I was attached to one of the delegations, whose head of state was also present for most of the time.
What I saw was profoundly shocking. The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country's foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself. The diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as was the practical implication: several times during the session, the world's most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his "superiors".
Above all, Obama needed to be able to demonstrate to the Senate that he could deliver China in any global climate regulation framework, so conservative senators could not argue that US carbon cuts would further advantage Chinese industry. With midterm elections looming, Obama and his staff also knew that Copenhagen would be probably their only opportunity to go to climate change talks with a strong mandate. This further strengthened China's negotiating hand, as did the complete lack of civil society political pressure on either China or India. Campaign groups never blame developing countries for failure; this is an iron rule that is never broken. The Indians, in particular, have become past masters at co-opting the language of equity ("equal rights to the atmosphere") in the service of planetary suicide – and leftish campaigners and commentators are hoist with their own petard.
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China v The US: A different pespective
China & Cancun
Is blame it on China really a diversion?
The U.S. posture on climate negotiations continues to reflect not only a lack of leadership and political will, but a hubris that is counterproductive to accomplishing anything. Efforts by the U.S. to suggest that China is responsible for the stalemate in substance reflect an arrogance that is an impediment to addressing the urgency of the issue informed by scientific consensus. Fixating on issues of monitoring greenhouse gas emissions in China is merely an effort to divert attention from its own responsibility to reduce emissions and commit to a fair portion of climate financing." Tianjin climate talks sputter ahead of UN conference. Kyle Ash, Greenpeace U.S. energy policy analyst.
Last week, Alex Stark wrote her first hand impressions on the climate negotiations, citing how post Tianjin flare ups between the US and China were remediated when EPA Director Jackson met with China's Environmental Protection Minister Zhou Shengxian to sign a Memorandum of Understanding formalizing an eco detente partnership on environmental protection between the two countries. a tensions resurfaced in Tianjin yet werethe Center for Center for a New American Security
According to the EPA, the under the terms of the MOU the United States will "collaborate with China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) on the prevention and management of air pollution, water pollution, pollution from persistent organic pollutants and other toxics, hazardous and solid waste, and the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental law."
The MOU is a good first step, but it’s not enough. Instead of filing a complaint with the WTO, the United States should find ways to cooperate more closely with China on renewable energy technology research, development and trade. This kind of cooperation could be incredibly effective, especially considering that these are now probably two of the most advanced countries in the world when it comes to alternative energy technology, and cooperation on these kinds of on-the-ground issues could smooth out the high-level negotiating process by encouraging greater U.S.-China cooperation at the UNFCCC in Cancun.
Meanwhile ....
Environmental groups anticipate spending the next two years playing defense on all climate legislation.
"We knew when we weren't able to pass a comprehensive climate and energy bill through the Senate that it was going to be tough in the next Congress, and the results from last night confirm that," says Tiernan Sittenfeld, legislative director at the League of Conservation Voters.
"It's critical that [EPA] move forward with the authority that they have," she added. "We anticipate that there's going to be a fight over that, and it's going to be a priority for us."
Soon after the bill died in the Senate, the World Resources Institute released a report which detailed that even if both federal and state governments aggressively employed every GHG pollution prevention tool available, the US would still fall fall short of-the small 5% emission cut from 1990 levels that it promised in Copenhagen. US negotiators need to be able to deliver at least that much in at the Cancun climate summit.
Taking it to the States
Thanks to the resounding defeat last Tuesday of California's Proposition 23, The Western Climate Initiative also remains alive and kicking. The WCI, is a cooperativebetween numerous western states and Canadian provinces who are joined at the hip in the quest to work together to implement a joint strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Endnote:
A great read:
Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the United States Using Existing Federal Authorities and State Action, the July 1010 report report analyzing potential GHG emissions reductions under existing U.S. federal authorities and announcing state actions through 2030. link
Stay tuned for more climate news in tonight's Earthship