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Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday appointed a special envoy for climate change, vowing that the Obama administration would restore U.S. credentials and leadership in shaping environmental policy. Pledging that the United States would play a primary role in international efforts to stem global warming, Clinton named Todd Stern, a former White House assistant who was the chief U.S. negotiator at the Kyoto Protocol talks in her husband's administration, to the post. "American leadership is essential to meeting the challenges of the 21st century, and chief among those is the complex, urgent and global threat of climate change,"...

That didn’t take long. The big ruse during the transition was that so many of Barack Obama’s appointments were not as far left as he. This was supposed to prove that those of us who feared he might lurch left of left once in office were hysterical idiots. Well, this idiot likes to get his savant on and explain how things really are. There are just enough radical left components to President Obama’s vision for America to drag us so far that we’ll end up standing just to the left of Denmark in the New World Order class photo. Climate...

LONDON (Reuters) - A new advisory firm launched on Monday seeks to boost carbon emissions trading in sub-Saharan Africa and raise the continent's lagging profile in the $120 billion global carbon market. CarbonStream Africa, a joint venture between South African state-owned CEF Carbon SA (Pty) and Nordic company GreenStream Network Plc, offers advisory services for firms seeking to trade greenhouse gas offsets in Africa under the Kyoto Protocol. "Africa is really lagging behind, but I really believe it has the strongest potential," said Deven Pillay, CEO of CEF's carbon trading arm and chairman of CarbonStream Africa. "It's where we need...

We can expect a proliferation of new regulations that will reach into every area of American life and commerce. What do President-elect Barack Obama’s leadership picks tell us about the kinds of energy and environmental policies we can expect in the next four to eight years? On balance, they suggest we are in for a radical shift away from George W. Bush’s pro-market policies and back to the aggressive regulatory approach favored by the Clinton administration. Let’s take a look at Obama’s prospective appointees.Lisa P. Jackson Obama’s pick for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be the first African...

Kyoto Redux: Clinton Vows to Use Cabinet Position to Push for Climate Treaty Secretary of State nominee and Senate Foreign Relations Chair both call global warming a 'security threat.' \ Change we can all believe in? How about the same song and dance, but just a different day? In opening remarks at her confirmation hearing on Jan. 13, President-elect Barack Obama’s Secretary of State designate Hillary Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations committee she would use the office to shape foreign policy that would fight climate change “You Mr. Chairman [Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.] were among the very first in...

Rapid growth spurt leaves amount of ice at levels seen 29 years ago. Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close. Ice levels had been tracking lower throughout much of 2008, but rapidly recovered in the last quarter. In fact, the rate of increase from September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or downwards. [chart] The data is being reported by the University of Illinois's Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations...

When he was Candidate Obama, the President-elect promised to be The One to stop the rise of the oceans. Despite the fact that they do not vote in American elections and are not supposed to donate to American prsidential candidates, the rest of the world now want to hold The One to his promise to stop the mythical rise of the oceans. That translates into implementation of the Kyoto Accord. Implementation translates into severe damage to the American economy, especially the auto industry. How will the auto industry, its lobbyists and the legislators who shill for it oppose Kyoto after...

Continuing to staff his nascent administration with left-wing extremists, President-elect Barack Obama this weekend named John Holdren of Harvard University as his science advisor. Obama called Holdren “one of the most passionate and persistent voices of our time about the growing threat of climate change.” Commenting on Obama’s science and climate appointments, Todd Kent, a professor of political science at Texas University, said, “He doesn’t want the continual focus on the economy. I think he chose a Saturday address to focus on something else. I think what Obama is going to do is to use environment issues to keep the...

POZNAN, Poland (AFP) – George W. Bush's last hurrah in the global climate arena has met with a welling of disdain contrasting with the outsized expectations for his successor, Barack Obama. At the UN climate talks in Poznan, no farewell tears were shed for Bush, whose rejection of the landmark Kyoto Protocol in 2001 almost destroyed multilateral efforts to roll back global warming. "I don't know how to put this," top climate economist Nicholas Stern said mischievously at a dinner for businessmen and environmentalists, where he commented on Obama's election. "Relative to his prehistoric predecessor, it is something which we...

Al Gore has a competitor for title of America's climate crusader. His name is Barack Obama, and of all his immediate foreign policy changes none will mark as big a shift from the Bush administration as his approach to cutting carbon emissions, the leading cause of global warming. "President Obama will be like night and day compared to President Bush," Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., told reporters this week at U.N.-sponsored climate talks in Poznan, Poland.

Politics: Barack Obama's apparent choice for Energy secretary is physicist Steven Chu. While there's no question about Chu's brilliance, his political activism is not what the country needs.Chu is a Nobel Prize winner. He's also a tree sitter. Not the kind who literally goes out on a limb in a childish fit of civil disobedience in order to stop loggers or developers from cutting down a tree. But Chu did plop himself on a California buckeye tree last year to pose for a photo for Vanity Fair's special "green" issue. The tree could be passed off as a meaningless prop...

Sen. Kerry expects swift new US policy on climate By ARTHUR MAX – 2 hours ago POZNAN, Poland (AP) — Sen. John Kerry said Thursday that a new draft treaty on global warming should be possible even if the United States does not impose mandatory limits on greenhouse gases before the next pivotal climate conference. Kerry said in an interview with the Associated Press that he expects the United States to have a climate policy in place within a year that will allow it to join the worldwide effort to combat global warming.

President Bush has been castigated by the environmental lobby for his refusal to participate in the Kyoto Protocol. But what isn’t brought up is that from 2000-2006, the United States “net greenhouse gas emissions fell 3%.” From 1997-2004, our emissions rose 6%. The nations participating in Kyoto? Not so good: …during the last decade the United States has had the best record among industrialized nations in restraining GHG emissions. Between 1997 and 2004, the last year for which comparative data are available: —global GHG emissions increased 18 percent; —emissions from Kyoto Protocol participants increased 21.1 percent; —emissions from non-Kyoto nations...

The U.N.'s own observations show no warming trend, but things may still get hot and bothered in Poznan. Ten thousand people from 86 countries have descended upon Poznan, Poland, for yet another United Nations meeting on climate change. It’s the annual confab of the nations that signed the original United Nations climate treaty in Rio in 1992. That instrument gave rise to the infamous 1996 Kyoto Protocol on global warming, easily the greatest failure in the history of environmental diplomacy. Al Gore himself descends on Wednesday to personally bless the conclave’s work product — which, based on past history, we...

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger told UN delegates locked in climate talks on Monday that the world economic crisis should not slow down the fight against global warming. "There are some people who say that we can't afford the fight against global warming while our economies are down, but the exact opposite is true," he told some 10,000 delegates in Poznan, Poland in a video message. "The green rules and regulations that will help save our planet will also revive our economies," he said. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is charged with hammering out for a new...

Three reasons why global climate change negotiations will go nowhere Delegates from 190 nations are gathering in Poznan, Poland to launch the latest round of global warming negotiations. Formally called the 14th Conference of the Parties (COP-14) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the climate negotiators face three huge challenges to completing a new international treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which is set to expire in 2012. First, the Kyoto Protocol itself is failing to cut the emissions of greenhouse gases. Second, a world entangled in a global economic meltdown will not readily accept the...

President-elect Barack Obama's pledge to restore the United States' international standing extends far beyond front-page topics such as closing Guantanamo and banning torture, into areas as diverse as nuclear testing, the rights of women and people with disabilities, and military and commercial activities in the world's oceans. As a candidate, Obama promised to seek Senate ratification of long-stalled treaties on a nuclear test ban, women's equality and the law of the sea, and to sign a U.N. convention on disability rights. He also vowed to reverse President Bush's policies on global warming and join negotiations toward a long-term treaty on...

When it comes to environmental wackiness, how far gone is the New York Times? Perhaps all we need to know is that in its editorial of today the Times calls the Kyoto Protocol: a modest first effort to control global greenhouse gas emissions. Modest? In terms of benefits, yes. According to Junk Science, it's widely acknowledged that the complete implementation of Kyoto would lead to a temperature saving of 0.07 °C by the year 2050. But there's nothing modest about Kyoto's cost. Junk Science estimates that to lower global temperatures by 1 °C would set the world economy back ....

Three US governors join forces with Indonesia and Brazil to keep carbon locked up in endangered tropical forests Though it didn't seems to make an enormous splash in the press, the deal reached this week between three US states, Indonesia and Brazil seems like a fairly big deal in terms of rainforest protection. The agreement was brokered at the climate summit convened by California's ecosavvy governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Along with fellow governors from Illinois and Wisconsin, Schwarzenegger signed an agreement that could see carbon credits earned from forest protection in Indonesia or Brazil incorporated into US emissions trading schemes. Partly,...

President Bush is unhappy the conversation between him and President-elect Barack Obama has been cast as a trade-off between Bush signing a second stimulus package in exchange for congressional passage of the Colombia Free Trade Deal, administration officials told FOX News on Tuesday.

Investment in low-carbon technologies is suffering its first reversal after several years of record growth, as the financial crisis dims the sector's prospects. ...But many clean technology companies are at an early stage, and have found it more difficult to raise funds. Longer established companies have suffered less, but some have found it harder to find funds and credit for expansion.

BERLIN (Reuters) - The United States after Barack Obama becomes president must work closely with Europe to fight climate change, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Thursday. "The world needs a 'new green deal'," Germany's Vice Chancellor said in a speech opening a two-day conference "Climate Change as a Security Threat." Steinmeier has warned climate change is a cause of friction and a threat to peace. Germany long has been a leading critic of U.S. President George W. Bush's resistance to cuts in greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. President-elect Obama said in his acceptance speech on Tuesday that...

PARIS (AFP) – The UN climate chief said Wednesday he was "very encouraged" by Barack Obama's stance on global warming, and said he hoped the US president-elect would join in key talks in December before taking office. "It is impossible to advance on this important topic without the full engagement of the United States," Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, told AFP by phone. "I am very encouraged by the stated commitment of Senator Obama to the issue of climate change, and I really hope that he or his representatives can come to...

In reporting the speech by Gov. Sarah Palin in Ohio today, CNN’s Political Ticker tried to spin her question about Obama’s coal comment as old news when it clearly isn’t. Palin asked why we are just now finding out about the interview where Barack Obama said he had hoped to bankrupt the coal industry but CNN termed this interview and Obama’s startling admission as “months-old coal comments” in an attempt to soften the blow to Ohio and Pennsylvania voters. The Political Ticker said that since the San Francisco Chronicle had these comments on its website for nine months, the news...

Kimberley Strassel's If the Cap Fits: Why our CEOs are warming to Kyoto shows that the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP or CAP for short) includes many companies that seek corporate welfare in the form of government-mandated purchases of their services or products. Many of USCAP's members do not, in fact, even claim to produce a product or service, and are dependent on donations or grants. The recent performance of USCAP's portfolio also suggests that the Climate Action Partnership is Wall Street's Oscar the Cat: a harbinger of bankruptcy, desperate mergers, and generally poor business performance. ...While several of CAP's...

It's not just income taxes that might trash the dreams of Joe the Plumber. Ready or not, Joe and the rest of us are also about to get mugged by the commissars of climate change. On this, I've got a bipartisan beef, since both John McCain and Barack Obama have bought into the panicked Al Gore storyline that the earth has a man-made "fever." Both candidates are promising to meet it with dramatic and costly new forms of government control. This comes even as Europe, after its fling with the Kyoto treaty, is backing off from grand pledges to cut...

Environmentalists, journalists and politicians say tough climate legislation is a moral imperative. Global warming science is settled, the United States is out of step with other nations, America must follow Europe’s lead to prevent climate chaos. It’s great rhetoric. But which European lead should we follow? And how is it morally responsible to enact climate legislation that kills jobs and punishes families and businesses, to reduce global temperatures by perhaps 0.2 degrees? There is no “consensus” on the “problem” or “solution.” Over 32,000 scientists, including hundreds of climate scientists, vigorously disagree with the assertion that human carbon dioxide emissions will...

The recent economic downturn could push the European Union to adopt more modest ambitions in its fight against climate change. Although the European Commission has said it wants to cut greenhouse gases by 20 percent by 2020, business leaders oppose the use of fines to oblige industry to reduce its emissions -- especially in the current economic crisis. The cost to industry is estimated at some 44 billion euros per year between 2013 and 2020, with a tonne (1.1 US tons) of C02 costing 30 euros. Business leaders have denounced the policy as a "tax", threatening to take their investments...

We literally feel our readers' pain for today's 504 point drop in the DJIA because of Lehman Brothers' impending collapse on the stock market, because it impacts our own investments. However, we will shed no tears for Lehman Brothers itself, and we are not particularly surprised that it is going south. Furthermore, even if Lehman Brothers disappears tomorrow, it will in no way affect the United States' remaining ability to create genuine wealth. Henry Ford told us long ago that there are exactly three ways to create wealth: mine it, grow it, or make it, but Lehman Brothers apparently had...

 Benny Pieser’s CCNet brings our attention to this Globe and Mail item today. In it, the authors note some of the repercussions to Europe’s own energy strategy from Russia’s bloody Georgian gambit, which is the latest move in its expanding play to recover lost influence through energy (read this book for a discussion of how the Bolshies actually did the same thing to solidify their initial, not-so-dissimilar coup into a recognized nation-state). The impacts go further, as I detail in a forthcoming Energy Tribune piece. Without spoiling it: Brussels’ Kyoto agenda demands that Poland, the Czechs, and everyone else with very...

Sign Kyoto – fund a war Mark Henderson August 11 2008 New Zealanders are starting to get nervous about what might happen to the money they are paying the Russians for failing to meet their Kyoto targets. As reported in our feature on New Zealand and Kyoto, the poor kiwis are paying the Russians 4.1 billion dollars by 2012 to purchase carbon credits to offset the increase in CO2 emissions beyond mandated Kyoto targets. Kiwiblog is reporting that there is no mechanism for New Zealand to avoid handing over this money even if it is used to fund the war...

It's always amusing when Canadian politicians and pundits confidently predict what our American neighbours are about to do. The current conventional wisdom from those who don't get out of Ottawa much is that the United States is poised to roar out of years of climate change denial under President George Bush, the moment Barack Obama or John McCain replaces him. Indeed, our prognosticating eager-beavers inform us, the Americans are about to zoom light years ahead of us in the battle against global warming, and we'd better get on board if we don't want to choke on their coal dust, economically...

The hole in Kyoto's 'cap' Why taxes and the cost of consumer goods go up and carbon emissions don't come downLast week we looked at the leaky foundation at the base of the Kyoto accord, known as carbon credits. Today, let's examine the holes in its roof -- its so-called "cap" or "hard cap" on carbon emissions, linked to man-made global warming. In reality, there is no "cap", either in the Kyoto accord or the "cap-and-trade" markets and carbon taxes it has spawned. In addition, while politicians like to pretend it's easy to create a cap-and-trade market or institute a...

Environment: When Barack Obama brought up global warming during last week's Berlin speech, his lecture resonated with the audience — but not with the truth."As we speak," said Obama, "cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya." He followed that up by suggesting that the world "reduce the carbon we send into our atmosphere" with "the same seriousness of purpose as has your nation," apparently unaware that CO2 emissions in Europe, to which he was appealing, grew 2.1% from...

I DEVOTED six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector. FullCAM models carbon flows in plants, mulch, debris, soils and agricultural products, using inputs such as climate data, plant physiology and satellite data. I've been following the global warming debate closely for years. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old...

A former global warming alarmist and creator of the model that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol says that while global warming is real, there is no evidence that the main cause is carbon emissions. David Evans says that C02 emissions play - at most - a minor role. Evans writes in The Australian newspaper that if global warming was caused by C02, scientists would have found hot spots about six miles up in the earth's atmosphere over the Tropics. Evans describes those hot spots as the signature of the greenhouse effect. He says scientists have been trying to...

Russian scientists deny that the Kyoto Protocol reflects a consensus view of the world scientific community. As western nations step up pressure on India and China to curb the emission of greenhouse gases, Russian scientists reject the very idea that carbon dioxide may be responsible for global warming. Russian critics of the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for cuts in CO2 emissions, say that the theory underlying the pact lacks scientific basis. Under the Theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming, it is human-generated greenhouse gases, and mainly CO2, that cause climate change. “The Kyoto theorists have put the cart before the horse,”...

Russian scientists deny that the Kyoto Protocol reflects a consensus view of the world scientific community.As western nations step up pressure on India and China to curb the emission of greenhouse gases, Russian scientists reject the very idea that carbon dioxide may be responsible for global warming. Russian critics of the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for cuts in CO2 emissions, say that the theory underlying the pact lacks scientific basis. Under the Theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming, it is human-generated greenhouse gases, and mainly CO2, that cause climate change. “The Kyoto theorists have put the cart before the horse,” says...

One of the mysteries of the universe is why President Bush bothers to charge the fixed bayonets of the global warming theocracy. On the other hand, his Administration's supposed "cowboy diplomacy" is succeeding in changing the way the world addresses climate change. Which is to say, he has forced the world to pay at least some attention to reality. That was the larger meaning of the Group of Eight summit in Japan this week, even if it didn't make the papers. The headline was that the nations pledged to cut global greenhouse emissions by half by 2050. Yet for the...

. . . In other words, the G-8 signed on to what has been the White House approach since 2002. The U.S. has relied on the arc of domestic energy programs now in place, like fuel-economy standards and efficiency regulations, along with billions in subsidies for low-carbon technology. Europe threw in with the central planning of the Kyoto Protocol -- and the contrast is instructive. Between 2000 and 2006, U.S. net greenhouse gas emissions fell 3%. Of the 17 largest world-wide emitters, only France reduced by more. So despite environmentalist sanctimony about the urgent need for President Bush and the...

You would think that this story is right out of science fiction. But the facts appear to be that the US Democrat-controlled Congress intends to destroy the Republican middle class with $11 per gallon gasoline.

It all boils down to one simple question: will cows be taxed for burping and farting?The complex debate about the introduction of an emissions trading scheme to tackle climate change is causing panic among farmers. The release of the Garnaut report yesterday only served to increase their fears. Ross Garnaut's report acknowledges the initial difficulties of measuring gas emissions on Australia's 155,000 farms, but says a broad-based scheme should include agriculture at some stage. The only question now is whether it will be included in the initial 2010 version of the scheme or introduced at a later date. Every major...

Every attempt so far to get emissions under control turns out to be about money. Let's examine an important question. Are the major schemes created by global politicians to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, ostensibly to combat global warming, effective? The answer is no, because they aren't about addressing global warming. They're about making more money for governments and large corporations. Let's start with the Kyoto accord. Will it be effective in lowering global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions? No. It wasn't meant to be. Kyoto, a United Nations treaty, exempts the developing world -- 143 of 180 nations which ratified it...

Lawmakers from G8 rich countries and five emerging economies including China agreed on Sunday that developed countries should pledge to cut CO2 emissions by 25-40 percent by 2020. They said developed countries should commit to reducing by at least 60-80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 and called on poorer countries to do their bit by taking "appropriate" national actions, in a framework being negotiated to fight global warming after 2012. The proposal will be passed to G8 summit host Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.

Want to save the polar bear? According to one expert, don’t think you’re going to do it by making significant lifestyle changes in order to reduce your carbon footprint. In May, the Interior Department listed the polar on its threatened species list because of the risks of shrinking sea ice. But Bjørn Lomborg, a Danish author and professor at the Copenhagen Business School, told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on June 25 that the threat is exaggerated and wouldn’t go away even if every country in the world signed and followed the Kyoto Protocol. Lomborg, author of “Cool It: The...

China consumes more than double what its natural resources can supply... China uses 15 percent of the world's total biological capacity—resources such as water, land and timber... "In the next 10 to 20 years, China's consumption will likely continue to pose threats to China's own ecosystems and place increasing pressures on global biocapacity," Water and electricity are priced below their market value in China, causing it to be inefficiently used ...

Could Prime Minister Stephen Harper or Environment Minister John Baird please explain what they mean when they say Canada continues to be a participant in the Kyoto accord? How can we be a participant when the PM has said we cannot do what Kyoto requires of us -- lower our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by an average of 6% below 1990 levels between now and 2012? We're 29.1% above our Kyoto target. Achieving that target is the point of Kyoto. So what, exactly, are we participating in? Yes, the Liberals are hypocrites for ratifying Kyoto and then doing zilch to...

Just say it: Kyoto's a crock Stephen Harper should call the environmental accord what it is -- a train wreckCould Prime Minister Stephen Harper or Environment Minister John Baird please explain what they mean when they say Canada continues to be a participant in the Kyoto accord? How can we be a participant when the PM has said we cannot do what Kyoto requires of us -- lower our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by an average of 6% below 1990 levels between now and 2012? We're 29.1% above our Kyoto target. Achieving that target is the point of Kyoto. So...

"In terms of renewable fuels, ethanol is the worst solution," Patzek says. "It has the highest energy cost with the least benefit."Ethanol is produced by fermenting renewable crops like corn or sugarcane. It may sound green, Patzek says, but that's because many scientists are not looking at the whole picture. According to his research, more fossil energy is used to produce ethanol than the energy contained within it. Patzek's ethanol critique began during a freshman seminar he taught in which he and his students calculated the energy balance of the biofuel. Taking into account the energy required to grow the...

KOBE, Japan (AP) -- Under pressure to boost talks on a new global warming pact, Group of Eight environment ministers on Monday endorsed slashing greenhouse gas emissions in half by mid-century, but failed to agree on much more contentious near-term targets. The three-day meeting in Kobe was dominated by calls from the U.N., European countries and developing nations to move forward on setting targets for cutting emissions by 2020. Scientists say those targets are needed to avoid the worst effects of global warming. But the ministers from the U.S., Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Canada, Italy and Russia, in a carefully...