Leaders from different longitudes and latitudes will make the trip to Copenhagen for the climate change summit from December 7th through the 18th, but many of them are coming empty-handed. The latest comes from India’s Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh who won’t be bringing his treaty-signing pen, “There is no question of India accepting a legally binding emission reduction cut.” This comes a day after Australia’s Senate rejected its Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, its emissions trading program, for the second time. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had hoped to take this to …
For those who thought the exposed emails from Britain’s University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit would come and go without much play, think again. Surely the skeptics and even the agnostics wouldn’t miss an opportunity to jump on such devastating revelations, but the fact is ClimateGate is having immediate and possibly long-lasting effects all over the world. In Australia, the emails could literally shift political powers in the land down under: “Australian Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull has been replaced by a climate sceptic, Tony Abbott, after ten of its …
Next month, global leaders will gather in Copenhagen to demonstrate their commitment to reducing carbon emissions and creating ecologically sustainable solutions to power our economy in the 21st century. Indeed, a moment has arrived when the world is looking to the United States to set the tone and serve as a model worthy of emulation – to be, as it were, a carbon-free city upon an ever-green hill. That is, if we can keep the lights on. America’s economic strength was forged on the back of abundant, affordable, carbon-intensive energy. …
Before Barack Obama accepts his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, the White House announced that the president will swing by the climate change summit in Copenhagen to outline the country’s climate goals. The AP reports: The president will lay out his goals for reducing the United States’ carbon dioxide emissions, pledging to cut heat-trapping pollution by about 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020. That target reflects the still-unfinished climate legislation on Capitol Hill.” This comes immediately after President Obama agreed to a green partnership with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan …
1,000 emails and more than 3,000 other documents from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University in the United Kingdom publicly revealed by a hacker, or allegedly an inside whistleblower, are rekindling the flame to the global warming debate just weeks before the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference where the United States will propose an emissions reduction target. A sample of what the emails exposed, which date back 13 years, includes: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a …
On June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin and said: “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” On November 9, 1989, just two years after Reagan made his Brandenburg Gate speech, the people of Germany did tear down “this wall” and in so doing they freed hundreds of millions of people from …
International expectations went through the roof one year ago today with the election of Barack Obama. The United Stated had elected the man whom many across the globe expected to be the anti-Bush. As controversial abroad as President Bush’s stance on the long war against terrorism had been, just as euphoric was the reaction to the election of the Democratic presidential nominee. The jubilation reflected a belief that as president, Obama would think less like an American and more like the rest of the world – however that was defined. …
President Obama and Mrs. Obama have done it again — demonstrating, that is, that personal appeal only goes only so far when it comes to public diplomacy and international relations. The couple just about blew the Danish media away with their emotional and personal appeals for the 2016 Olympics to come to Chicago. “Top Grades for Obama” read the headline in the daily paper Berlingske Tidende, whose reporter had interviewed a communication expert who commended the duo for a synchronized performance of extraordinary elegance and eloquence.”They get a 10 on …
For even more Fox lies… This is how the White House capped off a “Reality Check” on their website earlier today responding to commentary on the Fox News Network regarding the President’s trip to Copenhagen to lobby for the Olympics to come to Chicago in 2016. Rahm Emanuel, the Chief of Staff famous for storming across the House floor to condemn Congressman Joe Wilson calling the President a liar, is ultimately responsible for the website’s content, so is this the case of selective civility? Of course.
Yesterday, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon hosted a climate summit in New York designed to improve the chances that the December U.N. Copenhagen Climate Conference would produce a substantive treaty that would cap and cut carbon emissions. The Copenhagen agreement would replace the Kyoto Protocol that was rejected by the United States Senate 95 – 0. But as the Washington Post reports, even President Barack Obama’s star power failed to move nations towards meaningful carbon reductions: Initially, many climate activists had hoped this year would yield a pact in …
