I was idly reading this week's edition of The Economist magazine over breakfast this morning. As a one time table tennis player with a penhold grip myself, I'd just finished reading their obituary of Zhang Zedong when I noticed an advertisement on the facing page. It seems that on March 12th The Economist will be hosting "The Arctic Summit" at the Hotel Bristol in Oslo, Norway. According to The Economist the summit will present "A new vista for trade, energy and the environment" to:
Prompted by a conversation over on Neven's Arctic Sea Ice blog I happened to glance at the Department of Energy and Climate Change's shiny new web site this morning, and discovered evidence strongly suggesting that Ed Davey is suffering from selective schizophrenia.
According to the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change:c
Energy and Climate Change Secretary Edward Davey and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker will both be attending the second week of the COP18 negotiations in Doha, commencing on 3rd December
The second week of the "18th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC and the 8th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol" starts tomorrow at the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha, Qatar.
After an expensive and thoroughly negative campaign that failed to mention climate change at all, Barack Obama has been voted another four year term in charge of a nation that pumps a lot of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere. According to the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL for short):
Four years ago Barack Obama was President Elect. Here's a speech he gave at that time:
Notice his concluding remarks:
Once I take office you can be sure that the United States will once again engage vigorously in…. negotiations, and help lead the world towards a new era of global cooperation on climate change. Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all. Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high. The consequences too serious. Stopping climate change won't be easy and it won't happen overnight, but I promise you this. When I am president, any governor who's willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House. Any company that's willing to invest in clean energy will have an ally in Washington. And any nation that's willing to join the cause of combating climate change will have an ally in the United States of America.
Stopping climate change hasn't happened overnight, or over the last four years for that matter. The stakes are higher. The consequences more serious. Stopping climate change is now much harder. Whether as a result of Michael Bloomberg's last minute introduction of climate change onto the agenda or not, Mr. Obama has just been voted another four years in office by the U.S. electorate. Here's his 2012 acceptance speech:
Having spent some days blogging about the effects of Hurricane Sandy, I had intended posting today about some of Sandy's causes. That will have to wait for a while now though, since a post about the politics of climate change has suddenly risen to the top of my to do list. My headline today comes to you courtesy of Bill Clinton, via Michael Bloomberg.
Some more background information has come to light concerning the apparent confusion within the UK government about their renewables obligations. The Guardian has printed what it claims is a letter dated July 9th from George Osborne to Ed Davey discussing in particular a reduction in ROCs for onshore wind. Quoting from that letter:
We reported at the beginning of the month on the sudden demise of MF Global Inc. If you recall Jon Corzine, an ex "Democratic" governor and senator, and (coincidentally?) also an ex CEO of Goldman Sachs, presided over the seventh largest bankruptcy in U.S. history. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, one of the regulators charged with keeping an eye on shady dealings on Wall Street on behalf of U.S. taxpayers, has just released a long statement about the affair. Amongst other things CFTC Commisioner Scott D. O’Malia has this to say:
As the G20 leaders start their deliberations in Cannes today some more famous names have been putting their weight behind the campaign to introduce some kind of financial transaction tax. On Tuesday the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, joined Pope Benedict XVI in calling for the introduction of what he referred to in an article in the Financial Times as
