Ben Jervey: OnEarth Editor

• Road to Copenhagen: Fears Arise Outside Closed Doors

  From all I can gather, the actual on-paper negotiations are moving this week, progressing in some way towards some kind of agreement. (We'll get to what kind of agreement soon.) But we wouldn't have much way of knowing, since proceedings largely disappeared behind closed doors this week. I've been told by plenty of folks--including two former US negotiators--that I shouldn't complain about the lack of access, because it's the closed-door meetings where things really get done. Still, it's frustrating that an institution that prides itself on openness seems to operate best through closed meetings. The American delegation does seem more confident at this stage that there's an agreement out there to be achieved. Whether that agreement will be anything close to what the science tells us is necessary is another question (hint: it won't be). And what form that agreement will take has become the story of the week. Will it be a "legally-binding" treaty that is enforceable by ...read full post

  
  
  Comments (2)  |  November 5, 2009

• Road to Copenhagen: No Senate Bill Before Copenhagen, What's Next?

  Well that's settled. There won't be a Senate bill before Copenhagen. Which means a lot of things: the US won't have concrete numbers on mitigation targets and finance commitments before COP15 convenes; the difficult job of the American negotiators just got even harder; the international community has even more cause to accuse the US of coming up short; the chances of a fair, ambitious and binding deal coming out of Copenhagen have taken a serious blow; and finally, any hope for the talks to succeed depends on a dramatic shift in how the State Department approaches the negotiations.

  A new (and very controversial) way forward?

  Up until now, the thinking was that the best course towards any sort of deal in Copenhagen was through a good bill ...read full post

  
  
  Comments (0)  |  November 4, 2009

• Road to Copenhagen: This Week's Tripping Points

  With the US still holding out on a couple crucial bits of information (mitigation targets and finance numbers) that make real progress on the Long-term Cooperative Agreement (LCA) track just about impossible, the UN talks this week in Barcelona are circling around a couple other troubling tripping points.

  First, there’s the question of what’s to become of the Kyoto Protocol. Many developing countries are accusing industrialized nations of sabotaging the agreement, which isn’t–as many believe–supposed to end in 2012, but requires new commitments to be agreed upon for a second phase that runs through 2020. Brendan Demille’s got a solid account of the fireworks the erupted Monday over this when 50 African nations “suspended” any further Kyoto Protocol talks until ...read full post

  
  
  Comments (0)  |  November 4, 2009

• Road to Copenhagen: Waiting for America

  As the last round of “intersessional” climate talks before Copenhagen opened today in Barcelona, all eyes were looking in the same direction they were when we left Bangkok three weeks earlier: at the United States. Without American numbers on mitigation (or emissions reductions) and finance (for developing nations to build their own clean energy economies, and also to adapt to the impacts of climate change), any real forward progress in the talks is just about impossible. “We need a clear target from the United States in Copenhagen,” urged Yvo de Boer, who’s trying to steer this UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) process to some kind of December resolution.” “That is an essential component of the puzzle.” The problem is that the U.S. isn’t putting anything out there. At least not yet. Not while the Kerry-Boxer bill limps through Senate subcommittees back on Capital Hill.

  And that’s really where De Boer’s comment–-and most ...read full post

  
  
  Comments (0)  |  November 2, 2009

• Road to Copenhagen: A Very Slow Dance

  The lesson from the first week in Bangkok was this: negotiations don’t go anywhere without U.S. numbers on the table. Meaning, everyone’s pretty much dancing around the real discussion until Pershing & Co. lay down a couple crucial bits of information–-namely, what America can offer in terms of emissions reductions and straight up cash for adaptation. Minus these corner pieces, there’s no way to start putting the puzzle together.

  In their absence, we’ve seen a lot of fidgeting over structure, fretting over language, and very little actual progress. From my perch-–and, granted, us “observer” organizations only have access to the public sessions, and there are all sorts of “informal” sit-downs behind closed doors where (hopefully) more could be getting done–-it seems as if the only real headway has been the consolidation of some text related to basic structural elements of how this thing is written. What do we talk about when we talk about ...read full post

  
  
  Comments (0)  |  October 7, 2009

• Road to Copenhagen: U.S. Makes Waves on Day One of Bangkok Talks

  Over the next three months, I'll be tracking the American positions in the international climate treaty negotiations for the Adopt-A-Negotiator project. Together, we're tracking the negotiators from twelve key countries up to and through the December COP15 meetings in Copenhagen.  

  The negotiations came to a head pretty quickly here in Bangkok. Late last Monday afternoon, the first day of meetings, the U.S. delegation tore straight into one of the most critical and contentious issues of the talks-how developed and developing countries should address mitigation. Things got a little ugly between the U.S. and India, and plenty of folks left the U.N. worrying that the talks could derail entirely.

  The spat was technically procedural--U.S. lead delegate Jonathan Pershing requested a new discussion sub-group on "mitigation elements common to all Parties." Outside of ...read full post

  
  
  Comments (1)  |  October 6, 2009

• Fear and Loathing on the Road to Copenhagen

  Over the next three months, I'll be tracking the American positions in the international climate treaty negotiations for the Adopt-A-Negotiator project. Together, we're tracking the negotiators from twelve key countries up to and through the December COP15 meetings in Copenhagen. 

  I wasn't in Bangkok for more than a day before the shame was sickening. I'm an American tracking the American position at these international negotiations where America stands clumsy and tall as the biggest obstacle to an effective agreement. An agreement which--it's no hyperbole to say--could mean the difference between a manageable future and utter climatic catastrophe.  An agreement that everyone with a shred of conscience wants to be fair, ambitious, and binding. Indeed, all of us trackers in this Adopt-a-Negotiator program, and everyone in the TckTckTck campaign ...read full post

  
  
  Comments (0)  |  October 5, 2009

• What's Happening: Ted Kennedy's Environmental Legacy, and more

  TOP STORY

  Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Champion of the Environment and Clean Energy, Dies at 77

  "He was a great champion of progressive causes, and his death is a great loss, particularly for health care reform...His legacy on “Protecting the Environment and Promoting Energy Efficiency” is below.  How many Senators would even mention “energy efficiency” among their achievements?" [Grist]

  RECOMMENDED READING

  More Sun for Less: Solar Panels Drop in Price

  "For solar shoppers these days, the price is right. Panel prices have fallen about 40 percent since the middle of last year, driven down partly by an increase in the supply of a crucial ingredient for panels, according to analysts at the investment bank Piper Jaffray."

  Water-Use Saga: The return of Glen Canyon

  "The 170-mile ...read full post

  
  
  Comments (0)  |  August 27, 2009

• What's Happening: Energy Sprawl, Saharan Solar for Europe, and more

  RECOMMENDED READING

  China Racing Ahead of U.S. in the Drive to Go Solar

  "President Obama wants to make the United States 'the world's leading exporter of renewable energy,' but in his seven months in office, it is China that has stepped on the gas in an effort to become the dominant player in green energy -- especially in solar power, and even in the United States...Backed by lavish government support, the Chinese are preparing to build plants to assemble their products in the United States to bypass protectionist legislation. As Japanese automakers did decades ago, Chinese solar companies are encouraging their United States executives to join industry trade groups to tamp down anti-Chinese sentiment before it takes root." [New York Times]

  Renewable Technologies Increase Energy Sprawl

  "Millions of hectares of land ...read full post

  
  
  Comments (0)  |  August 26, 2009

• What's Happening: Wolf Hunts, Climate Trials, and more

  RECOMMENDED READING
  

  Wolf Hunts May Kill Hundreds -- Spurs Demand, Ire

  Starting today, hunters can walk into any license vendor in Idaho and buy a tag to kill a gray wolf...Montana, another state with a growing wolf population, already approved a 75-animal quota for its wolf hunt, which gets underway September 15 and lasts until November 29. Both hunts come just months after the predators were removed from protection under the federal Endangered Species Act." [National Geographic News]

  New Clues in the Mass Death of Bees

  "In late 2006, something strange began to happen to America's honeybees. Colonies that were ...read full post

  
  
  Comments (0)  |  August 25, 2009

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