Green Options

The Copenhagen agreement fizzled, but failure to take global action on climate change may have greased the skids for transition from the post-9/11 epoch into a new global Eco Cold War.

Climategate’s questions recede as island nations walk out. China sizzles and the US fizzles on world stage. What are the political takeaways from week one in Copenhagen and what does it mean for the possibility of a binding agreement?

This post was written by Stacy Feldman (reporting from Barcelona, Spain), and originally published at SolveClimate.

The United States must deliver concrete mid-term greenhouse gas reduction targets by next month or it will destroy efforts to achieve a framework for a global climate change deal in Copenhagen, United Nations climate chief Yvo de Boer said Monday as a week of international talks on global warming began in Barcelona.

“I do not think the international community will accept an agreement that lacks clarity from the U.S. on targets,” de Boer said.

The Barcelona talks are the final five days of two years of global negotiations leading up to the crucial UN Climate Change Conference, from Dec. 7-18, in Copenhagen. De Boer’s worst fear now is that the Copenhagen conference will end with a lack of clarity on key issues and lead to a protracted political standoff.

“Negotiations must stop at Copenhagen. Otherwise negotiations will drag on when only the technical work should be going on,” he said.

A decision by the Obama administration to put a concrete 2020 target on the table could be the game changer for the world, he suggested.

According to a new report published by the Worldwatch Institute, global emissions caused by the “lifecycle and supply chain of animals raised for food”  are much higher than previously thought.   Environmental advisers Jeff Anhang and Dr. Robert Goodland, report previous estimates of greenhouse gases caused by livestock were in fact, underestimated.   

Time-traveling to 2010 reveals how some of Washington’s worst-kept secrets will catch up with President Obama and cripple his climate agenda.

Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed has told his cabinet members to get ready for an underwater cabinet meeting later this month.

Maldives is a collection of islands and atolls in the Indian Ocean that is less than 2 meters above sea level. Therefore, it is the first country expected to go underwater due to climate change.

Last month, I wrote about the world’s largest leather exporter leaving the Amazon. This week there is even bigger news. The world’s largest meat exporter is leaving.

After playing leader in global climate change negotiations, United States is now under pressure to respond to India and China’s announcements of mitigation measures.

The US Treasury gave another $550 million in stimulus funds for renewable energy this week. This brings the total to over $1 billion.

A new report released today says that if we shift our economy — to a greener, low-carbon economy — we will have more jobs, not fewer.

Earlier this week, Tony Blair (former prime minister of the UK) and the Climate Group reported that if we worked to avoid climate change we’d create 10 million new jobs by 2020 — worldwide. Another recent study by Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council says that such a shift could increase employment in the EU by 2.7 million jobs by 2030.

One more report, released today by the Global Climate Network (an alliance of nine influential think tanks) comes to similar conclusions.

As the world arrives at the UN ahead of Copenhagen, the US has more to lose than China in an escalating war of words over climate change leadership.