General Discussion

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(RTTNews) - US President Barack Obama will make his way to Copenhagen next week to address the most significant climate change summit in more than a decade.

While hopes for reaching a global treaty with binding targets have already been dashed, 65 world leaders are expected to agree on a 2010 deadline for a successor to the expiring Kyoto Protocol, which was ratified without the support of the US or China.

Obama arrives in Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Conference on December 9th, before moving on to Oslo where he will collect the Nobel Peace Prize the next day.

Some environmental groups have criticized the timing of Obama's Copenhagen pit stop, which comes at the start of the conference and not during the high level talks of the 16th and 17th of December.

Reports have surfaced suggesting that a number of Obama's counterparts from major nations will adjust their visits to coincide with that of the American president.

For climate change advocates, the active participation of the US delegation is a major turning point in the fight to reduce emissions thought to contribute to global warming.

Last month, Obama pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by around 17 percent of 2005 levels by 2020, and has recently engaged emerging giants India, China and Brazil on the issue.

The Obama White House said its proposal to cut emissions "demonstrates a significant contribution to a problem that the US has neglected for too long."

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Canadians should be forgiven for feeling confused about Prime Minister Stephen Harper's views on the climate change file, especially in the days leading up to the Copenhagen summit. First he's not going to the 12-day event beginning Dec. 7, then, presumably because U.S. President Barack Obama has decided to attend, so too is Harper.

Even so, his ambivalence on the file lends itself to a healthy amount of skepticism as to whether Harper is going for reasons of optics or because he truly believes there is a possibility of something constructive coming out of Copenhagen and that without his presence Canada's voice won't be heard as loudly.

That's not to denigrate the voice or abilities of federal Environment

Minister Jim Prentice, who will also be joined by several prominent players from Calgary's energy sector, but given that Obama is attending the summit, as well as China's Premier Wen Jiabao, it would look rather poor if the leader of one of the world's most important energy players was absent.

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COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - The biggest climate talks in history must deliver an ambitious, sweeping agreement to capitalize on pledges by countries to fight global warming, the United Nations said on Sunday.

World  |  Green Business

A day before the two-week talks in the Danish capital formally begin, the U.N. climate chief said time was up to agree on the outlines of a tougher climate deal after troubled negotiations have deepened splits between rich and poor nations.

"I believe that negotiators now have the clearest signal ever from world leaders to draft a solid set of proposals to implement rapid action," Yvo de Boer told reporters.

"Never in the 17 years of climate change negotiations have so many different nations made so many firm pledges together. Almost every day countries announce new targets or plans of action to cut emissions," he said.

Much is at stake at Copenhagen.

Scientists say the world is heating up because of greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels and massive deforestation.

The United Nations says the world needs a tougher climate pact to brake rapidly rising carbon pollution.

Failure to do so would mean triggering dangerous climate change such as rising seas, melting ice caps and greater weather extremes that could disrupt economies and force millions to become climate refugees.

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Copenhagen climate summit: 1,200 limos, 140 private planes and caviar wedges

    Copenhagen is preparing for the climate change summit that will produce as much carbon dioxide as a town the size of Middlesbrough.

On a normal day, Majken Friss Jorgensen, managing director of Copenhagen’s biggest limousine company, says her firm has twelve vehicles on the road. During the “summit to save the world”, which opens here tomorrow, she will have 200.

And the total number of electric cars or hybrids among that number? “Five,” says Ms Jorgensen. “The government has some alternative fuel cars but the rest will be petrol or diesel. We don’t have any hybrids in Denmark, unfortunately, due to the extreme taxes on those cars. It makes no sense at all, but it’s very Danish.”

How can anyone take it seriously when the Elite clowns act like this.

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 The EPA on Monday found that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases threaten public health, a strategically timed action that is likely to resonate internationally as the world begins talks on a climate change treaty at a U.N. summit in Copenhagen.

The so-called endangerment finding triggers a requirement that the federal government regulate fossil fuel emissions under the Clean Air Act (PL 101-549) and puts new pressure on Congress to enact climate change legislation.

"The message to Congress is crystal clear: Get moving," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the point-man in efforts to write a bipartisan Senate global warming bill.

The White House has held the threat of the endangerment finding over the heads of Congress for months, and it rolled out the announcement on the first day of international climate change negotiations in Copenhagen.

With climate change legislation stalled behind the health care debate, the announcement gives President Obama something tangible to demonstrate that the U.S. is serious about following through on promises to cut carbon emissions. That could have a profound impact on the outcome of the climate negotiations -- which, in turn, could give momentum to prospects for a climate bill in the Senate.

"This is the price of admission," said Kevin Book, managing director of research at ClearView Energy Partners, a strategy and consulting firm. "We can't credibly negotiate with other countries unless we do something. Today, legally speaking, we will have done something. The final endangerment finding means that we will have committed irrevocably to action. And the first and most likely response is that Congress will pass a new law. This is a checkmate for Congress."