Copenhagen

After Copenhagen

Submitted by ecoscott on 12/23/09 1:10am

Copenhagen ended effectively on December 18 and the gavel came down the morning of the 19th. Give everybody 48 hours or so to get home, get through jet lag and wake up to look at the agreement that they all made with their advisors and other important folks on Monday and, you guessed it, Tuesday rolls around and it is the time to start complaining. The wire feeds are flooded with different countries complaining about this or that part of the agreement- nothing surprising, really, as something that takes 193 signatures from around the globe and has to be in consensus is going to be watered down, and anything that gets countries as disparate as the U.S. and the Bahamas, or Australia and Sri Lanka, or even China and say, Jamaica to sign their names to it has got to be full of concessions and compromises, not passion. Read more

Cheers to Copenhagen

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Submitted by ecoscott on 12/18/09 9:30pm

Cheers!Yesterday I talked about Obama needing to put on the S suit on the plane on the way over to Copenhagen- he did. While it’s nowhere near what everyone had been hoping for when Copenhagen started to gather steam earlier this year, it is in fact more than everyone had been expecting as the summit grew closer. With deadlocks around emissions cut commitments and monetary contributions from industrialized nations, Obama was walking into a snakepit. But he did it anyway. "This progress did not come easily and we know this progress alone is not enough ... We've come a long way but we have much further to go," said Obama. Read more

Will Obama Save the World?

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Submitted by ecoscott on 12/16/09 10:58pm

President ObamaWhen Superman needed to go from Clark Kent to the Man of Steel so he could save the world one more time, all he needed to do was find the nearest telephone booth and in a flash he went from nerdy guy to flying, invincible superhero. Copenhagen kind of needs Obama to do something along those lines- but you can’t do that in the age of cell phones! Obama is on his way to Copenhagen and nothing short of a gigantic S on his chest will change the outcome of the summit that seems lined with kryptonite and full of forces, both diabolical and strategic. Lots of good intentions with lots of politics leading on a green, leafy road to nowhere. The summit is, for lack of a better cliché, lost in the woods. Read more

Japan Draws New Lines Around Copenhagen

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Submitted by ecoscott on 9/5/09 2:59pm

DPJ on the Road to CopenhagenWith Copenhagen less than 100 days away, nations around the world are scrambling to define their positions, make the outlines of what their demands will be and dig their heels in around important issues- and no one wants to be left behind. The new government in Japan is no exception.

Last weekend Japan voted the untested Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) who took over for the sitting party that had been in power for more than 50 years. While they of course cannot change any of the commitments in place, but they are showing that they can play politics with the best of them out there. Read more

Politics as Unusual in Asia

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Submitted by ecoscott on 9/1/09 9:57am

Map of East AsiaOver the weekend Japan made an historic change in its governing- after over 50 years of virtually uninterrupted power, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was ousted by the most powerful political tool of all- a democratic vote. Changing a 5 decade ruling party is big- and so is North Korea sending a diplomatic delegation to China. Both are happening as this first week of September gets underway. Read more

Climate Change Politics: Congress and the U.N.

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Submitted by ecoscott on 8/15/09 2:25pm

U.N. BuildingJonathan Pershing, head of the U.S. delegation at U.N. climate talks, told Reuters that trade wars don’t seem plausible because of all the economic possibilities and opportunities that will result from clean energy developments.

"I think there will be questions about whether other countries are adequately acting. And there's going to be a question about competitiveness. But I wouldn't think there will be a trade war. It doesn't seem plausible.”

Doesn’t seem plausible? In the current economic climate that is gripping the world, who gets what development opportunities could be as contentious and debated as ever. The idea that this time around everyone will get an equal piece of the development pie is equally as implausible from my point of view. Read more

Are U.S. businesses too big to fail while island nations too small to care about?

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Submitted by ecoscott on 7/11/09 1:12pm

islandThis week’s G8 summit has been less than inspirational. The expected battles over numbers and responsibility are no shocker, but the emerging in vs. out crowd in who and what will be taken into account when the chips are down is revealing.

The Alliance of Small Island States is a UN-based group of 42 island countries. In some ways, small island countries have the most to worry about with climate change issues. Rising ocean levels threaten to take away much of their coastline, create extreme weather conditions, and in extreme cases completely flood over their island, like I wrote about for the Carteret Islands. Read more

The Road to Copenhagen: An Update

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Submitted by ecoscott on 6/30/09 8:40am

Europe and China both came out this week asking the U.S. to do more than what is in their landmark climate change bill. As countries around the world prepare for the Copenhagen summit where global powers are poised to make pivotal agreements around goals and standards for dealing with climate change, the major powers and emissions producers are clamoring for position and relevance. Politics are by no means reserved to the halls of Washington, and long gone is the time when Washington and the U.S. could think of itself as an island in the midst of the climate change debate. The idea of not participating in the effort to battle the global environmental problems or of not coming out of Copenhagen as part of the agreement the way we did with Kyoto is unacceptable. Read more

Copenhagen

After Copenhagen

Cheers to Copenhagen

Will Obama Save the World?

Japan Draws New Lines Around Copenhagen

Politics as Unusual in Asia

Climate Change Politics: Congress and the U.N.

Are U.S. businesses too big to fail while island nations too small to care about?

The Road to Copenhagen: An Update

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