EcocentricPolitics
Amid all the political agony over the tax compromise taking shape in Congress right now there are side measures that could be incredibly important for renewable energy in the U.S. The final bill is obviously still evolving, but the compromise agreed to by Senators Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell contains a few provisions that will …
EcocentricUncategorized
I’m back from Cancún, and I miss the weather there, if not the all-night hours of the assignment. You can read a longer version of my analysis of the conference over here, which includes some details on the last-minute drama as Bolivia tried to block adoption of the Cancún Agreements, only to be deftly overruled by Mexico. Juliet …
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The Hong Kong Journalists Association is on the defensive this week after several reporters from the SAR were assaulted in a Beijing suburb on Friday, the same day the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in Oslo to jailed human rights activist Liu Xiaobao. The Hong Kong reporters were waiting outside the housing complex of another detained …
EcocentricEcocentric
After the disappointment of Copenhagen and a year when the viability of the UNFCC was repeatedly called into question, the world has its first new legal agreement on climate change in years. The deal is modest—there are no new binding pledges to cut carbon emissions, no hard figures in climate aid and some of the most difficult …
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Update [3:28 AM CST 12/11/10]: That’s it. Over the strenuous and highly verbal objections of Bolivia, the more than 190 countries at Cancún adopted a compromise deal that points the way towards a new system fo climate diplomacy that will include complementary actions by both developed and developing nations. The Cancun Agreements “mark …
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In a briefing for reporters before the Cancún climate summit began, World Resources Institute president Jonathan Lash summed up is expectations for the meeting in a made-up work: “CopenCun.” He meant that much of the work of the Cancún summit would involve tying up the many loose ends of last year’s meeting in Copenhagen, with ended …
EcocentricEcocentric
You don’t have to be in Washington to hear the howls of progressive Democrats enraged by what they see as President Obama’s capitulation to the Republicans on taxes—they’re audible all the way down here in Cancún. (Twitter helps.) As Timothy Noah of Slate puts it, Obama seems to be an easy mark, a terrible poker player who …
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It happens at nearly every international climate summit. Usually about halfway through the two-week long summits, there will be an outcry about “secret” texts being negotiated in secret by the big countries of the world, dealing over the heads of poorer and smaller nations—which happen to be the ones that will be hit hardest by climate …
EcocentricUncategorized
Clouds cool the planet by reflecting sunlight back into space. Clouds warm the planet by trapping heat. Both statements can be true, depending on what kind of clouds you’re talking about.
Add to that the fact that some types of clouds might increase in a warming world and some might decrease, and it becomes clear why clouds are …
EcocentricUncategorized
Someone speaking the truth—it’s an unusual occurrence at any government event (unless you have a link to Wikileaks) and it’s even rarer at the highly stage-managed U.N. climate talks. But that’s exactly what happened last night in Cancún at an event put on by Avoided Deforestation Partners, an NGO dedicated to promoting REDD, or …
