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Cheers to Copenhagen

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Cheers!Cheers!Yesterday I talked about Obama needing to put on the S suit on the plane on the way over to Copenhagen- he did. While it’s nowhere near what everyone had been hoping for when Copenhagen started to gather steam earlier this year, it is in fact more than everyone had been expecting as the summit grew closer. With deadlocks around emissions cut commitments and monetary contributions from industrialized nations, Obama was walking into a snakepit. But he did it anyway. "This progress did not come easily and we know this progress alone is not enough ... We've come a long way but we have much further to go," said Obama. Read more

The Road to Copenhagen: An Update

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Europe and China both came out this week asking the U.S. to do more than what is in their landmark climate change bill. As countries around the world prepare for the Copenhagen summit where global powers are poised to make pivotal agreements around goals and standards for dealing with climate change, the major powers and emissions producers are clamoring for position and relevance. Politics are by no means reserved to the halls of Washington, and long gone is the time when Washington and the U.S. could think of itself as an island in the midst of the climate change debate. The idea of not participating in the effort to battle the global environmental problems or of not coming out of Copenhagen as part of the agreement the way we did with Kyoto is unacceptable. Read more

Climate Change: The Road to Copenhagen Continues- EU & China

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Two other major players in the climate change world are the European Union and China. China has been using EU benchmarks to gauge their own projections and commitments, a nod toward the EU’s self-proclaimed leadership in the global battle against climate change. The EU is now offering assistance to China and India deal with carbon emissions.

Remember when you were a little kid and you were eating in the kitchen and instead of cleaning up your crumbs on the floor you just swept them under the rug? Well, there is a high-tech process called Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) that sounds kind of similar. You take the emissions from coal-fired power plants and bury them. Like, underground. Read more

Climate Change: The Road to Copenhagen Continues

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The politics leading up the Copenhagen summit in December are fascinating. Major players like the EU, China, Russia and the United States are all jockeying for position, some playing a few cards, some holding them- and I’m sure there is some bluffing going on as we still have almost 6 months to go.

I wrote in Politics Report how the Democrat-sponsored climate change bill is still stalled in committees as lawmakers work to satisfy Democrats, and further satisfy Republican legislators whose votes are necessary to pass the bill through the House.

Russia rang in with a long-delayed play of their own.

The general guideline from green groups and developing nations has been a request that Industrialized nations cut their emissions 25-40% from 1990 levels, a number reached in reference to UN climate scientist panel suggested cuts. Read more

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