So how did Cash for Clunkers work out from an environmental standpoint? You don’t want to know.

The $3 billion federal program was kinda sorta supposed to send inefficient, high-polluting, belchy vehicles to an early grave. Instead it put a lot of new large, inefficient vehicles on the road, according to an AP investigation of new government records.

The most common deals swapped old Ford or Chevrolet pickup trucks for new pickups that got “only marginally better gas mileage,” the analysis found. Old Ford F-150 for new Ford F-150 was the most common exchange. Buyers were 17 times more likely to purchase an F-150 (rated at 16 miles per gallon) than a hybrid Toyota Prius.

At least 15 owners of large pickups cashed them in for new Hummer H3 SUVs that get only 16 mpg. Excuse me, but why did the government even send claims forms to Hummer dealerships? Government officials are "investigating" out how these deals squeaked through, the AP reports.

About 1 in 7 of all deals went for vehicles that got 20 mpg or worse. If you think about it, though, 20 mpg really isn’t such a bad rate ... for 1979.

There were plenty of signals before the one-month summer program began that it was a poor method for cutting pollution (note our roundup of early warnings). There’s also a lively debate on whether it made sense as economic stimulus.

"If we're looking for the environmental story here, we're going to be disappointed," Jeremy Anwyl, of analyst firm Edmunds.com, told the AP. "It might have started out from the perspective of improving the environment, but it got detoured as a way to stimulate the economy."

That pretty much nails it.

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Kay Hagan (D-N.C.)

Senate Democrats push climate bill through committee

Europe places outcome of Copenhagen squarely on Obama

WASHINGTON -- Senate Democrats on Thursday pushed through a sweeping climate change bill, maneuvering an end-run around opposition Republicans who continued their boycott of deliberations.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved the Kerry-Boxer bill by a vote of 11 to 1, with the seven Republicans on the committee absent from the discussion and vote.

The panel is among five other Senate committees which also will weigh in with their draft bills on slowing the pace of climate change before a bill receives a vote in the full chamber, possibly next year.

"We are pleased that despite the Republican boycott we have been able to move this bill forward," said committee chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) after the vote.

Republicans, who boycotted the deliberations for three consecutive days, said they would oppose the bill until they had a "comprehensive analysis" of the economic impact of the legislation from the Environmental Protection Agency.

But Boxer said further analysis by the agency was not necessary, and maintained that the EPA's environmental impact assessment of a similar bill approved in June by the House of Representatives was sufficient. "We found that, after questioning the EPA extensively, that the Republicans' demand for another EPA analysis now would be duplicative and a waste of taxpayer dollars," she said.

Committee rules require the presence of at least two members of the minority party, but Boxer sidestepped the boycott using parliamentary procedures that allowed her to pass the bill by a simple majority of members present, a tactic Republicans decried as a "nuclear option."

At a press conference earlier this week, she signaled the tactical maneuver ahead.

"What they're doing is highly unusual. And what we're doing in response is highly unusual," she said, adding that her actions were completely "by the Senate rules."

Meanwhile, the lone Republican at Thursday's vote, ranking committee member James Inhofe (Okla.), in a two-minute declaration said his party's position had not changed.  "We still are asking for the same thing," he said.

Republicans also criticized the Democrats' bill as doing too little to promote nuclear energy and said it's likely to lead to a spike in energy prices.

One Democrat, centrist senator Max Baucus (Mont.), who serves as chair of the Senate Finance Committee, broke with his party as the lone Democrat to vote against the bill, saying that its goals for reducing greenhouse emission levels were too ambitious.

The Senate legislation faces a long and contentious process ahead, and must be reconciled with a House bill that calls for cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, and by 83 percent by 2050.  The Senate's bill calls for a 20 percent cut by 2020.

Both bills would create a cap-and-trade regime, aimed at setting the total level of domestic emissions allowable and then allocating quotas to companies.  Firms that emit less than their quota would be allowed to sell their surplus allocation to others that exceed theirs. Those in excess could also face fines.

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The chief negotiator for the European Commission announced this afternoon in Barcelona that the failure of the U.S. Congress to pass legislation before December has doomed the chances for success in Copenhagen.

A climate protest at the Barcelona talks: World leaders with \'big heads\' moving cash from an aid money box to a climate money box. The stunt highlights rich country plans to use overseas aid money to pay for their climate finance commitments.Oxfam InternationalEurope now predicts that a legally binding treaty is impossible to expect in Copenhagen, and that it could take up to a full year beyond the global summit this December in order to reach a binding deal. 

Artur Runge-Metzger, the chief negotiator for the European Commission, told reporters today that, “It was highly desirable to have the [U.S.] numbers on the table in Copenhagen. There’s no doubt.”

Runge-Metzger confirmed that any chance of rescuing a deal in Copenhagen “depends then very much on President Obama himself, on how confident he feels [about] how far the process has moved forward, whether he can also put numbers on the table or not.”

“Everybody sees political realities particularly in Washington and we know that the process there is slowing down politically,” he said.  “So we need to be flexible. We cannot say that Copenhagen is the end.”

When asked whether Europe expected more rapid change from the Obama administration after eight years of Bush, Runge-Metzger said, “I have never expected the U.S. [position] changing totally. The interests in the different states are still the same as they were 5 years ago, 4 years ago, 3 years ago.”

“The reduction targets is really what, politically, is the most difficult issue, and certainly not something that is going to be decided by senior officials in a normal negotiation round. For that you will need to have ministerial blessing or heads of state coming together. We would hope that we can finalize that in Copenhagen,” Runge-Metzger said.

Runge-Metzger confirmed that, regarless of what transpires in Copenhagen, the E.U. plans to move forward with the implementation of policies to reduce European greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

That target is far lower than the 40 percent or more reduction demanded by Africa and the G-77 developing nations.

“Their [African and G-77] demands on developed countries to make deep emissions cuts, I don’t think that this gulf will be closed in the next week,” Runge-Metzger said.

Sudanese delegate Lumumba Stanislaus-Kaw Di-Aping, who heads the G-77-plus-China block, confirmed Thursday that Africa and the G-77 remain steadfast in their position that a so-called “politically binding agreement” is an unacceptable result in Copenhagen.

“We are totally against that,” he told me in the hallway of the Barcelona convention shortly after the G-77 cancelled its daily press conference in what Lumumba described as an “unfortunate” move based on a “joint decision” by the G-77 not to speak with the press at present. 

If a legally binding agreement cannot emerge from Copenhagen, then “we resolve to continue the negotiations in the future,” Lumumba said.

But Africa and the G-77 developing countries refuse to entertain anything less than a legally binding treaty. The African and G-77 delegations want a treaty that commits developed nations to reduce emissions by 40 percent or more below 1990 levels by the year 2020, a level which Africa feels is necessary to avoid death and destruction in vulnerable areas.

With the news that all bets are off on reaching a legally binding treaty in Copenhagen, delegates and observers in Spain are left wondering what could have been if the U.S. had acted sooner domestically. The U.S. Congress has failed the world, and developing nations will pay a steep price unless President Obama can personally rescue the Copenhagen talks.

That will depend on whether he even shows up in Denmark in December. Sorry Africa, don't hold your breath.

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Why developing countries cannot afford failure in Copenhagen

The African delegation insisted today in Barcelona that its decision to walk out on negotiations Tuesday was necessary in order to jolt the intransigent European Union and other developed nations to move forward with serious discussions, rather than obstruct progress by bringing only lofty rhetoric and no numbers to the negotiating table. The plan seems to have worked, albeit temporarily, as negotiations resumed today about how to extend the Kyoto Protocol and forge binding agreements with the West to slash emissions and provide cash to developing nations to deal with climate shocks and facilitate clean economic development.

However, delegates from developing nations and climate campaign groups continue to report that progress has been too slow in Barcelona, setting the stage for inevitable failure in Copenhagen. Activist groups and developing world negotiators continue to press the West to pick up the pace immediately or risk failing to reach a legally binding agreement in Copenhagen next month.

Europe renewed its non-specific posturing today, at first suggesting that developed countries could still bring promises, if not numbers, to Copenhagen, but ultimately confirming that the Europe Union--and the U.S.--have no intention of entering a legally binding agreement in Copenhagen unless rapidly developing nations like China, India, and Brazil are also required to cut emissions and contribute funding to help poor nations survive as the climate deteriorates.

Copenhagen is the pinnacle in a series of negotiations stretching back two years over how to create a legally binding agreement that brings the United States into the fold on the international response to climate change, and simultaneously craft the next round of targets under the Kyoto Protocol. Since the U.S. failed to join the 1997 global treaty, negotiations have proceeded under these two tracks to ensure that work can continue on emissions reductions among Kyoto signatories, while the world grapples with how to hold the U.S. accountable internationally both on greenhouse-gas reductions and financial commitments to assist developing nations.

Sudanese delegate Lumumba Stanislaus-Kaw Di-Aping, who heads the G-77-plus-China bloc, challenged Europe and the industrialized world to get serious again Wednesday in order to move the fragile talks forward.
 
Lumumba, whose ability to articulate the urgency and necessity of the developing world’s pleas for action on climate change is unrivaled by any other delegate present at the talks, made clear once again today that the West must bring science-based targets and an indelible ink pen to the Copenhagen negotiation table, or else Africa, low-lying island nations, and indigenous peoples--the populations most vulnerable to climate change--will rapidly face death and economic ruin as the atmosphere cooks and sea levels rise. 

In the G-77 press conference this afternoon, I asked Lumumba whether he was concerned by the potential domino effect of additional developed countries adopting Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen’s position, reported by Reuters on Monday, that a “politically binding agreement” is more likely to emerge in Copenhagen rather than a legally binding agreement. The “politically binding” sentiment seems poised to snowball among other major industrialized nations, in spirit if not yet in the same exact words.

Lumumba, in his typically graceful fashion, calmly but sternly replied to my question stating, “I do not know of anything called a politically binding agreement. If there is anything that you know about politics and political manifestos is that they are worth very little. Tell me of any politician who delivered on his political manifesto. Is it Gordon Brown [UK]? Is it Kevin Rudd [Australia]?”

False promises of politically binding commitment without legally binding teeth will not be worth a damn to Africa and the rest of the vulnerable developing countries. As soon as one world leader from the West who signs onto such a wishy-washy agreement loses power, and their successor refuses to comply with such a non-binding agreement--an entirely possible scenario since there is no legal basis to follow through on such a commitment--the whole process would fail. Climate change would continue to punish the developing world, which would face many more years of delay while the negotiators reconvened to start over.

So only a legally binding agreement is acceptable in Copenhagen, or Africa and other vulnerable populations are doomed to death and destruction, Lumumba told me.

“What can we achieve in Barcelona? This is what we are asking developed countries. You have to live up to the ambition that saves the world. In Africa’s words, it is 40 [percent emissions reductions by 2020] minimum. Anything south of 40 means that Africa’s population, Africa’s land mass is offered destruction as the only alternative to choose from. And I think you can logically understand why the African states are very angry about that,” he said.

Yes we can, Mr. Lumumba. Yes we can.

Watch the G-77 press conference here. (I ask my question at the 8:15-9 minute mark and Lumumba responds beginning at the 16 minute mark)

Curious to hear the European response to the G-77’s clear call for a legally binding agreement, later today I asked the E.U. delegation to explain specifically what time frame would be acceptable to set legally binding targets if Copenhagen fails to produce solid results and instead ends with such a politically binding (i.e. hollow) agreement, or worse still, no agreement.

It was the last question the E.U. delegation took from the press today, and provides all the clarity that Africa and the developing countries can expect from the industrialized world for now. 

Artur Runge-Metzger, the chief negotiator for the European Commission, sitting next to the nodding Swedish delegate (Sweden currently holds the E.U. presidency), responded simply, “It should be as quickly as possible after Copenhagen.” (Full stop, microphones cut, end of press conference.*)

In contrast to the developing world’s clear, specific position, the E.U. seems to act as if these negotiations just started, as if talks haven’t been going on for years since Kyoto. Europe seems to project the image that it is suddenly being asked to answer this fundamental question.

In reality, Europe and the rest of the developed world have had more than ample time over the past decade to develop a clear position. But when pressed on specifics now, just weeks before the world expects a concrete treaty, they are still flailing around like fish out of water.

Much work remains to be done, and 99 percent of the burden rests on the E.U. and U.S. to show the rest of the world they understand the severe implications of any further delay in responding to the climate crisis. The anger from Africa and the rest of the developing world will continue to grow, as will the carbon emissions responsible for climate change.

Europe and the U.S. must stand up and be counted.

*The E.U. press conference is not online yet, but will be here tomorrow.

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Senate Democrats push climate bill through committee

WASHINGTON - The United States will not agree to targets
cutting greenhouse-gas emissions unless developing countries, particularly
China, make similar moves, U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern warned Wednesday.

"No country
holds the fate of the Earth in its hands more than China," Stern told the House Foreign Affairs Committee, weeks
before a major climate change summit in Copenhagen.

Stern said new
climate rules could include exemptions for developing countries to ensure that
growth is not hampered, but emerging giants like China, India, and Brazil
should pull their weight.

"What we do
not agree with, though, is that we should commit to implement what we promise
to do, while major developing countries make no commitment at all," he
said.

His comments
come as divisions between developed and developing countries threaten to prevent a Copenhagen climate deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

"We have 32
days left before the beginning of the Copenhagen conference and there is still
a lot of work to do," Stern said.  "It's fair to say that the progress has been too slow, especially
in the formal U.N. negotiating track. The developed-developing country divide
that has run down the center of climate change discussions for the past 17
years is still, I'm afraid, alive and well."

But Stern said
the situation was not all gloomy. "Paradoxically, while the negotiations
are in a difficult state, it's also true that we are at a moment in history
when more countries, including China, Brazil, and South Africa, are taking
stronger actions or are poised to take stronger actions than ever before to
combat climate change."

He addressed
members of Congress as they debate a bill aimed at reducing greenhouse-gas
emissions in the United States, which many see as a prerequisite to a deal at
Copenhagen.

Climate talks in
Barcelona resumed on Wednesday after an angry spat,
but negotiators admitted chances for sealing a hoped-for U.N. treaty on global
warming by year's end were vanishing. 

On Tuesday, African countries boycotted the Barcelona climate talks. The bloc of 50 nations accused rich counterparts
of backsliding on promises to curb human-made carbon emissions blamed for
global warming, demanding they slash their pollution by at least 40 percent by
2020 over 1990 levels.

The squabble
blocked talks among countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the
cornerstone pact of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The twin-track
process was launched in Bali in 2007 with the goal of concluding a post-2012
treaty among the UNFCCC's 192 parties at a Dec. 7-18 showdown in Copenhagen.

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Senate Democrats push climate bill through committee

Now it's out in the open. Key government leaders and U.N. officials are finally, publicly admitting what they have long privately believed: there is no chance of concluding a new climate treaty in Copenhagen next month.

For a full two years the world has been committed to finalizing a new agreement to succeed the present provisions of the Kyoto Protocol, with negotiations in the Danish capital set to cap off the process. But the slowness of the cumbersome U.N. negotiations (there's still no concise proposed text for a new treaty!) and the likely failure of the U.S. Senate to pass a climate bill this year have almost certainly put paid to that.

So those who have been driving most forcefully to settle everything in Copenhagen are now instead focussing on working out how just much they might be able to achieve in the six and a half weeks remaining until the conference ends. They are hoping, instead of finalizing a treaty, to draft a legally binding agreement on a "political framework" for one, leaving the detailed provisions of a Kyoto successor to be hammered out later and approved at another giant conference next year. And they are ready to provide their own text, if the formal negotiations should fail to produce one fast enough.

Last weekend the Danish government, which, as hosts, will chair the climate conference in December, convened a little-publicized, two-day crisis meeting in Barcelona, just before the last session of pre-Copenhagen negotiations opened in the Spanish city. Ministers and senior representatives from 23 crucial countries -- including the United States, the main European nations, China and South Africa -- attended the "informal talks."

They discussed a three-page "framing paper," presented by Connie Hedegaard, the Danish Minister of Energy and Climate Change. The document noticeably opened by calling for "a successful agreed outcome in Copenhagen," rather than a treaty, and asked them to "provide guidance" on "possible ways forward" to "address ... contentious issues."

"The Danes are getting desperate," the head of one of the most important developing country delegations told Grist. After the meeting, Hedegaard said that participants had "a very constructive discussion" and had "got into the core of the deal." But she admitted: "We will not solve every single detail in Copenhagen."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was blunter. "It is realistic to say that in Copenhagen we will not be able to conclude a treaty," she said. "Copenhagen was supposed to be a post-Kyoto regime. Now we are talking about a political framework, and negotiations will drag out longer until we get a treaty."

Her verdict has particular impact since, as Germany's environment minister in the 1990s, she was one of those who did the most to bring about the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and has, since becoming head of her government, done more than any other world leader to push for a successor.

And, as if to settle the matter, Yvo de Boer, the UN official in charge of the Copenhagen negotiations, accepts that it is now "physically impossible, under any scenario, to complete every detail of a treaty in Copenhagen." But he adds that the conference "must deliver a strong political agreement and nail down the essentials."

So what are those essentials? The framing document before the ministers spelled them out. The "outcome," it said, "must be comprehensive, balanced, ambitious, effective and fair." And it must include "ambitious commitments and actions to reduce emissions," and "significant new" financial and technical help should be "made available to support developing country actions."

In other words, the political agreement would need to contain all the main elements of the planned treaty: strong commitments by developed countries to emission reduction targets; action by developing ones to cut the rate of growth of their pollution; and a big, new fund to help the poorest tackle such emissions and adapt to the dire effects of climate change. That is still a tall order.

What is more, the Danes are determined that the key elements of the agreement must be legally binding, a view shared by Ed Miliband, the British Energy and Climate Change Secretary, who says he will "not sign up" to an inadequate deal. And both are anxious to keep up the pressure, even though a full treaty is not unlikely to be sealed this year.

Denmark has indicated that it is ready to produce its own text, and has made it clear that it will resist any attempt to slow things down. "The world can wait no longer," says Hedegaard.

Miliband adds: "The most important commodity that we have is momentum. Things will go down to the last day at Copenhagen, I know. However, if we have to spend Christmas there, then we will."

--

Read more about the Barcelona and Copenhagen climate talks.

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Senate Democrats push climate bill through committee

WASHINGTON -- President Obama on Tuesday said it was "imperative to
redouble our efforts" to combat global warming, as European leaders pressed
Washington to take action on climate change ahead of next month's summit
in Copenhagen.

Obama met top European leaders for an E.U.-U.S. summit here,
shortly after German Chancellor Angela Merkel offered a heart-felt appeal
for a climate protocol in a rare address to a
joint session of the U.S. Congress.

"All of us agreed that it is
imperative for us to redouble our efforts in the weeks between now and the
Copenhagen meeting to assure that we create a framework for progress in
dealing with [a] potential ecological disaster," Obama said after talks with
European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso, E.U. foreign policy chief Javier
Solana, and Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt of Sweden, who holds the E.U.
presidency.

Merkel in her appeal compared the battle against climate
change to the struggle to bring down the Berlin Wall two decades ago this
week. She also backed Western calls for emerging nations to do more.
"I'm convinced that once we in Europe and America show ourselves ready to
adopt binding agreements, we will also be able to persuade China and India to
join in," she said.

But even as she and Obama -- praised by Barroso for
having "changed the climate on climate negotiations" -- stressed the need for
a more concerted effort to solidify a framework agreement at Copenhagen, U.S.
Republican lawmakers shunned a meeting on an Obama-backed bill to set the
first U.S. requirements on curbing carbon emissions blamed for global
warming.

Asked what impact Merkel's speech might have on the U.S. debate,
Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.), the top Republican on the committee looking at
the climate legislation, said: "None whatsoever."

Democrat Ben
Nelson (Neb.) was similarly blunt, answering the same question with a simple
"no."

Earlier Tuesday, Barroso said he was "worried by the lack of
progress in negotiations" ahead of the Dec. 7-18 climate meeting, and
acknowledged a binding pact would not be ready by then. The summit in the
Danish capital has been set up to seal a treaty to succeed the landmark
Kyoto Protocol, whose obligations to cut carbon emissions expire in
2012.

"Of course we are not going to have a full-fledged binding
treaty, Kyoto-type, by Copenhagen," Barroso told reporters. "This is obvious.
There is no time for that."

Barroso said a meeting next year in
Mexico could finalize a treaty, but said Copenhagen needed to come up with
the framework of the deal, and that the world's largest economy in particular
should take a lead role.

"What we are asking is the United States to show
leadership in this, such an important issue," Barroso said.

He warned
against a protracted process of negotiations akin to the stalled Doha
round of global trade liberalization talks. "I think it is important not to
give up before, because if we start  ... now to speak about Plan B in
Copenhagen we'll probably end in Plan F for failure. Let's not do to
Copenhagen what has been happening with trade in Doha, where
systematically every year we are postponing."

Sweden's Reinfeldt said the
United States should at least agree on targets for cutting emissions and
on financing for developing nations. "I said that we need to have a clear
commitment on targets and on financing coming from the United States,"
Reinfeldt told AFP after talks with key senators. "We can understand if it's
not possible to have everything in place exactly now. But we want a full
agreement in Copenhagen and we are able to work through details in the months
that come after Copenhagen."

He spoke as pre-summit negotiations were
underway in Barcelona, Spain, where divisions again ran deep between key
developed nations and emerging economies.

An E.U. summit last week
agreed that developing nations will need 100 billion euros ($146 billion) per
year by 2020 to tackle climate change, but failed to nail down how much it
would give.

The U.S. role in Copenhagen is overshadowed by the debate in
Congress. The House of Representatives in June narrowly passed a plan to
curb carbon emissions, but the bill -- already criticized by other developed nations as not ambitious enough -- is bogged down in the
Senate.

Some Republicans, like former president Bush, argue that
action on climate change would be too costly to the economy and demand
further commitments by emerging nations.

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Europe places outcome of Copenhagen squarely on Obama

Photo: AMagill WASHINGTON -- When it comes to the debate in the United States over what to do about climate change, cash has clouded the issue.

Lobbying groups for both the energy and environmental sides have boosted their spending this year, but the energy sector is still vastly outspending the greens.

Science and specifics are hard to find in the barrage of ads and messages about green jobs, alternative energy, and the dangers of pollution.

Energy-sector groups spent a total of $300 million through the third quarter of 2009 and were on pace for a record spending year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks lobbyist spending.

From January to September, some of the biggest energy-lobby spenders included oil and gas ($120.7 million), electric utilities ($108 million), and alternate energy, which showed a 40 percent boost over last year with $23 million.

Environmental groups, which tend to press for reforms that the energy sector opposes, were far outspent at $16 million during the same period, a 14 percent increase from last year.

And the difference is apparent in the size of the lobbyist armies that descend on Capitol Hill each day. Overall, energy-related companies hired 2,225 lobbyists so far this year, compared to environmentalists who hired just 465.

Washington is blanketed with energy advertisements in the bus stops and Metro subway, from big oil companies touting individuals who conserve energy in small ways to dire warnings from green groups about the dangers of doing nothing.

One advertisement that ran on television in October proclaimed that "C02 is Green," denying its effects on global warming and calling carbon dioxide "Earth's greatest airborne fertilizer."

Leighton Steward, a retired Texas oil man who is spokesman for the group that ran the ads and set up a website to support the claims, said his aim was to stop U.S. lawmakers from implementing costly regulations.

"We are getting ready to spend a couple of trillion dollars to try and reduce atmospheric [carbon] dioxide which I don't believe is having any significant effect on climate change," he told AFP.  "It is clear, it is odorless, it is tasteless, it is a total benefit," he said, adding that "thousands of research papers have been written on the benefits of additional carbon dioxide."

A coalition of environmental groups led by the Alliance for Climate Protection, which was launched in 2006 by former vice president Al Gore, is launching its own ads this week along with an online "wall" where people can express their support for clean energy.

"We believe that this effort, with nearly 200 organizers in 23 states, as well as the wall, will obviously have an impact in showing the support for action now and in the near term," said the group's president, Maggie Fox.

"This is intended to move us forward in the broadest sense."

The group's appeal for support reads: "I support clean energy policies that will create millions of jobs and solve the climate crisis."

However, there is no mention of the stickier concepts that have bogged down lawmakers, such as a cap-and-trade system to punish polluters, or how to capture carbon emitted by the coal industries that produce cheap energy.

There's a reason for the vagueness of the lobby-fueled debate, according to Bob Perkowitz, president of consumer research group EcoAmerica, which studies mainstream Americans' beliefs on environmental issues.

"When they hear 'cap and trade,' they think of baseball. If you ask them what alternative or renewable energy means, they can't describe those," Perkowitz said. "The way most Americans are with global warming, they end up getting superficial information from different sources and forming some sort of vague opinion about it."

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Berlin wall. Photo courtesy GothPhil via Flickr WASHINGTON -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday urged the U.S. Congress to take action on climate change, likening the struggle against global warming to the Berlin Wall.

In a rare address to a joint session of Congress marking the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago, Merkel said next month's high-stakes climate summit in Copenhagen hinged on strong U.S. and European commitments.

"I'm convinced, just as we found the strength in the 20th century to bring about the fall of a wall made of concrete and barbed wire, we shall now show that necessary strength to overcome the walls of the 21st century," Merkel said.  She said those were "walls in our minds, walls of short-sighted self-interest, walls between the present, and the future."

The German leader reiterated Western nations' stance that any new climate treaty needed commitments from fast-growing emerging economies such as China and India.

"But I'm convinced that once we in Europe and America show ourselves ready to adopt binding agreements, we will also be able to persuade China and India to join in," she said.  "Then in Copenhagen we shall be able to overcome this wall separating the present and future in the interest of our children and grandchildren, and in the interest of sustainable development all over the world."

Merkel's remarks drew a standing ovation from lawmakers from Democrats, but some Republicans remained seated.

She spoke hours after a key U.S. Senate committee opened a critical debate on climate change with a boycott by most Republicans.

The House of Representatives in June approved the first-ever U.S. plan to mandate curbs on carbon emissions, but the bill is facing obstacles in the Senate, decreasing chances of passage before the Copenhagen summit.

Obama supports a so-called cap-and-trade system to mandate curbs in carbon emissions, a sharp change from his predecessor Bush, whose stance alienated European leaders.

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Senate Democrats push climate bill through committee

African negotiators at the U.N. climate talks in Barcelona refused to continue formal discussions about all other issues until wealthy countries live up to their legal and moral responsibility to commit to deep emissions reductions. Rich countries (also called “Annex 1 countries”) have ground negotiations to a halt by failing to agree to their new targets under the Kyoto Protocol, driving developing countries to put their feet down. This walkout is significant and opens up political space -- it means many of the countries in Africa just stopped one half of the U.N. climate
negotiation process until rich countries say how much they will reduce
their carbon.

We’re down to the wire: just four negotiating days left before the big agreement in Copenhagen is supposed to go down. We've now seen a taste of the breakdowns to come. While rich countries continue to undermine commitments for the Kyoto Protocol (one of two negotiating tracks for Copenhagen, it's supposed to be renewed for a second commitment period of Annex 1 targets), the spin has already taken hold: they’re blaming Africa for their own delay-mongering. Oy vey.

In response, movement and civil-society organizations held a demonstration at the U.N. building in support of African delegates' insistence that developed countries commit to new, strong, binding targets. Delegates and observers were invited to join a human shield against the killing of Kyoto targets (complete with an Annex 1 grim reaper) and urged to promote at least 40 percent emission reductions with no offsets by 2020.

Kamese Geoffrey of NAPE/Friends of the Earth Uganda warned, "Rich countries are attempting to dodge their legal and moral responsibilities to reduce emissions. Developing countries and communities have historically had practically no fault in the creation of climate change, yet they will be the first to face the devastating impacts of climate change."

Many of us have longstanding criticisms of the Kyoto Protocol, particularly its market mechanisms. But here’s why Kyoto is important:
It contains a few core provisions and basic justice frameworks that the U.S. and other Annex 1 countries are trying to avoid.

1) Compliance. This means the international community evaluates whether or not you’ve come through on your commitments, set to a specific time period.

2) Overall targets (AKA top-down target setting). This means the international community decides what the targets for CO2 reduction are, and then divides up responsibilities accordingly. Equity and science decide. The U.S. wants the opposite -- each country consulting with industry to see what it thinks it can muster, and then we just see where we land.

3) “Common but differentiated responsibilities.” This is the most important framework to save. It means that the industrialized countries caused the problem of global warming, and the Global South is dealing with the worst of the impacts first (droughts, floods, famines, hurricanes, etc. are all hitting the equator now in ways that will only come to the rest of the world later). In order for the Global South to reduce emissions, they need finance and technology from industrialized countries or else we are robbing them of their right to develop -- there just isn’t space for everyone to follow the North’s dirty development path. “Ecological debt” is one way to think about it. This is the most basic framework of justice, which is what people mean when they say “the North must lead,” and why the idea that both Annex 1 and G77 countries “need to act together” is actually a deeply corrupt and unjust framework.

The idea that we can somehow replace a legally binding instrument with a voluntary pledge system is insanity. In 1997, when the Kyoto Protocol was first ratified, it had been watered down tremendously in the hopes of getting the U.S. to sign. The U.S. didn’t sign (though it remains party to the convention). Yet under the Bali Action Plan, agreed to in December 2007, the U.S. is required to take on comparable efforts to other Annex 1 countries under Kyoto -- which means that in theory, the rest of the world could continue the Kyoto Protocol, and the U.S. would have to come along whether it signs or not. Instead, we’ve seen a race to the bottom -- other Annex 1 countries hiding behind U.S. inaction and refusal to sign, claiming the world cannot make an agreement without the U.S. on board.

So the shit is hitting the fan. And Africa isn’t taking it. We should applaud their courage, and be skeptical anytime the media tries to shift the blame for the breakdown of negotiations onto G77 countries. Make no mistake, these talks have been polluted by self-interested corporations and governments, and all roads lead back to Annex 1 (and the U.S. in particular).

It’s a myth that Kyoto expires in 2012 -- only the first commitment period of Annex 1 greenhouse-gas emission reductions ends. We need to support the basic frameworks of a legally binding treaty, and need to ensure there is a second Kyoto commitment period. Period.

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