1. A study published in the journal Science reports that the current level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere – about 390 parts per million – is higher today than at any time in measurable history — at least the last 2.1 million years. Previous peaks of CO2 were never more than 300 ppm over the past 800,000 years, and the concentration is rising by around 2 ppm each year.
2. The World Meterological Organization reported that 2000-2009 was the hottest decade on record with 8 of the hottest 10 years having occurred since 2000.
3. 2009 will end up as one of the 5 hottest years since 1850 and the U.K.’s Met Office predicts that, with a moderate El Nino, 2010 will likely break the record.
4. The National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that while a bit more summer Arctic sea ice appeared in 2009 than the record breaking lows of the last two years, it was still well below normal levels. Given that the Arctic ice cover remains perilously thin, it is vulnerable to further melting, posing an ever increasing threat to Arctic wildlife including polar bears.
5. The Arctic summer could be ice-free by mid-century, not at the end of the century as previously expected, according to a study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
6. Recent observations published in the highly respected Nature Geosciences indicate that the East Antarctica ice sheet has been shrinking. This surprised researchers, who expected that only the West Antarctic ice sheet would shrink in the near future because the East Antarctic ice sheet is colder and more stable.
7. The U.S. Global Change Research Program completed an assessment of what is known about climate change impacts in the US and reported that, “Climate changes are already observed in the United States and… are projected to grow.” These changes include “increases in heavy downpours, rising temperature and sea level, rapidly retreating glaciers, thawing permafrost, lengthening ice-free seasons in the ocean and on lakes and rivers, earlier snowmelt, and alterations in river flows.”
8. According to a report by the US Geological Survey, slight changes in the climate may trigger abrupt threats to ecosystems that are not easily reversible or adaptable, such as insect outbreaks, wildfire, and forest dieback. “More vulnerable ecosystems, such as those that already face stressors other than climate change, will almost certainly reach their threshold for abrupt change sooner.” An example of such an abrupt threat is the outbreak of spruce bark beetles throughout the western U.S. caused by increased winter temperatures that allow more beetles to survive.
9. The EPA, USGS and NOAA issued a joint report warning that most mid-Atlantic coastal wetlands from New York to North Carolina will be lost with a sea level rise of 1 meter or more.
10. If we do not reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the century, some of the main fruit and nut tree crops currently grown in California may no longer be economically viable, as there will be a lack of the winter chilling they require. And, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S. production of corn, soybeans and cotton could decrease as much as 82%.

Mark Lynas guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 22 December 2009

Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful “deal” so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.

China’s strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world’s poor once again. And sure enough, the aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all took the bait. The failure was “the inevitable result of rich countries refusing adequately and fairly to shoulder their overwhelming responsibility”, said Christian Aid. “Rich countries have bullied developing nations,” fumed Friends of the Earth International.

All very predictable, but the complete opposite of the truth. Even George Monbiot, writing in yesterday’s Guardian, made the mistake of singly blaming Obama. But I saw Obama fighting desperately to salvage a deal, and the Chinese delegate saying “no”, over and over again. Monbiot even approvingly quoted the Sudanese delegate Lumumba Di-Aping, who denounced the Copenhagen accord as “a suicide pact, an incineration pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries”.

Sudan behaves at the talks as a puppet of China; one of a number of countries that relieves the Chinese delegation of having to fight its battles in open sessions. It was a perfect stitch-up. China gutted the deal behind the scenes, and then left its proxies to savage it in public.

Here’s what actually went on late last Friday night, as heads of state from two dozen countries met behind closed doors. Obama was at the table for several hours, sitting between Gordon Brown and the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi. The Danish prime minister chaired, and on his right sat Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the UN. Probably only about 50 or 60 people, including the heads of state, were in the room. I was attached to one of the delegations, whose head of state was also present for most of the time.

What I saw was profoundly shocking. The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country’s foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself. The diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as was the practical implication: several times during the session, the world’s most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his “superiors”.

Shifting the blame

To those who would blame Obama and rich countries in general, know this: it was China’s representative who insisted that industrialised country targets, previously agreed as an 80% cut by 2050, be taken out of the deal. “Why can’t we even mention our own targets?” demanded a furious Angela Merkel. Australia’s prime minister, Kevin Rudd, was annoyed enough to bang his microphone. Brazil’s representative too pointed out the illogicality of China’s position. Why should rich countries not announce even this unilateral cut? The Chinese delegate said no, and I watched, aghast, as Merkel threw up her hands in despair and conceded the point. Now we know why – because China bet, correctly, that Obama would get the blame for the Copenhagen accord’s lack of ambition.

China, backed at times by India, then proceeded to take out all the numbers that mattered. A 2020 peaking year in global emissions, essential to restrain temperatures to 2C, was removed and replaced by woolly language suggesting that emissions should peak “as soon as possible”. The long-term target, of global 50% cuts by 2050, was also excised. No one else, perhaps with the exceptions of India and Saudi Arabia, wanted this to happen. I am certain that had the Chinese not been in the room, we would have left Copenhagen with a deal that had environmentalists popping champagne corks popping in every corner of the world.

Strong position

So how did China manage to pull off this coup? First, it was in an extremely strong negotiating position. China didn’t need a deal. As one developing country foreign minister said to me: “The Athenians had nothing to offer to the Spartans.” On the other hand, western leaders in particular – but also presidents Lula of Brazil, Zuma of South Africa, Calderón of Mexico and many others – were desperate for a positive outcome. Obama needed a strong deal perhaps more than anyone. The US had confirmed the offer of $100bn to developing countries for adaptation, put serious cuts on the table for the first time (17% below 2005 levels by 2020), and was obviously prepared to up its offer.

Above all, Obama needed to be able to demonstrate to the Senate that he could deliver China in any global climate regulation framework, so conservative senators could not argue that US carbon cuts would further advantage Chinese industry. With midterm elections looming, Obama and his staff also knew that Copenhagen would be probably their only opportunity to go to climate change talks with a strong mandate. This further strengthened China’s negotiating hand, as did the complete lack of civil society political pressure on either China or India. Campaign groups never blame developing countries for failure; this is an iron rule that is never broken. The Indians, in particular, have become past masters at co-opting the language of equity (“equal rights to the atmosphere”) in the service of planetary suicide – and leftish campaigners and commentators are hoist with their own petard.

With the deal gutted, the heads of state session concluded with a final battle as the Chinese delegate insisted on removing the 1.5C target so beloved of the small island states and low-lying nations who have most to lose from rising seas. President Nasheed of the Maldives, supported by Brown, fought valiantly to save this crucial number. “How can you ask my country to go extinct?” demanded Nasheed. The Chinese delegate feigned great offence – and the number stayed, but surrounded by language which makes it all but meaningless. The deed was done.

China’s game

All this raises the question: what is China’s game? Why did China, in the words of a UK-based analyst who also spent hours in heads of state meetings, “not only reject targets for itself, but also refuse to allow any other country to take on binding targets?” The analyst, who has attended climate conferences for more than 15 years, concludes that China wants to weaken the climate regulation regime now “in order to avoid the risk that it might be called on to be more ambitious in a few years’ time”.

This does not mean China is not serious about global warming. It is strong in both the wind and solar industries. But China’s growth, and growing global political and economic dominance, is based largely on cheap coal. China knows it is becoming an uncontested superpower; indeed its newfound muscular confidence was on striking display in Copenhagen. Its coal-based economy doubles every decade, and its power increases commensurately. Its leadership will not alter this magic formula unless they absolutely have to.

Copenhagen was much worse than just another bad deal, because it illustrated a profound shift in global geopolitics. This is fast becoming China’s century, yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is not only not a priority, but is viewed as a hindrance to the new superpower’s freedom of action. I left Copenhagen more despondent than I have felt in a long time. After all the hope and all the hype, the mobilisation of thousands, a wave of optimism crashed against the rock of global power politics, fell back, and drained away.

Barack Obama stepped into the chaotic final hours of the Copenhagen summit today saying he was convinced the world could act “boldly and decisively” on climate change.

But his speech offered no indication America was ready to embrace bold measures, after world leaders had been working desperately against the clock to try to paper over an agreement to prevent two years of wasted effort — and a 10-day meeting — from ending in total collapse.

Obama, who had been skittish about coming to Copenhagen at all unless it could be cast as a foreign policy success, looked visibly frustrated as he appeared before world leaders.

He offered no further commitments on reducing emissions or on finance to poor countries beyond Hillary Clinton’s announcement yesterday that America would support a $100bn global fund to help developing nations adapt to climate change.

He did not even press the Senate to move ahead on climate change legislation, which environmental organisations have been urging for months.

The president did say America would follow through on his administration’s clean energy agenda, and that it would live up to its pledges to the international community.

“We have charted our course, we have made our commitments, and we will do what we say,” Obama said.

But in the absence of any evidence of that commitment the words rang hollow and there was a palpable sense of disappointment in the audience.

Instead, he warned African states and low island nations who have been resisting what they see as a weak agreement that the later alternative — no agreement — was far worse.

“We know the fault lines because we’ve been imprisoned by them for years. But here is the bottom line: we can embrace this accord, take a substantial step forward, and continue to refine it and build upon its foundation,” he said.

“Or we can again choose delay, falling back into the same divisions that have stood in the way of action for years. And we will be back having the same stale arguments month after month, year after year – all while the danger of climate change grows until it is irreversible.”

He also took a dig at China, drawing attention to its status as the world’s biggest emitter and reinforcing America’s hardline on the issue of accountability for greenhouse gas emissions.

The lacklustre speech proved a huge frustration to a summit that had been looking to Obama to use his stature on the world stage – and his special following among African leaders – to try to come to an ambitious deal.

The president was drawn into the chaos within minutes of his arrival at Copenhagen, ditching his schedule to take part in a meeting of major industrialised and rapidly emerging economies.

Responding to Obama’s speech, a British official said: “Gordon Brown is committed to doing all he can and will stay until the very last minute to secure a deal… but others also need to show the same level of commitment. The prospects of a deal are not great.”

Tim Jones, a spokesman for the World Development Movement, said: “The president said he came to act, but showed little evidence of doing so. He showed no awareness of the inequality and injustice of climate change. If America has really made its choice, it is a choice that condemns hundreds of millions of people to climate change disaster.”

Friends of the Earth said in a statement, “Obama has deeply disappointed not only those listening to his speech at the UN talks, he has disappointed the whole world.”

The World Wildlife Fund said Obama had let down the international community by failing to commit to pushing for action in Congress: “The only way the world can be sure the US is standing behind its commitments is for the president to clearly state that climate change will be his next top legislative priority.”

The extent of crisis in the talks has taken leaders by surprise. The Brazilian leader, Lula da Silva, told the conference that the all-night negotiating sessions took him back to his days as a trade union leader negotiating with his bosses.

Suzanne Goldenberg and Allegra Stratton in Copenhagen

guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 December 2009 12.53 GMT

By DAVID A. FAHRENTHOLD and JULIET EILPERIN
The Washington Post
Friday, December 18, 2009

What the heck is all this?

This is a United Nations-run conference that was — originally — supposed to produce a new global agreement to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions because what happens after 2012 under the Kyoto Protocol is uncertain. There is a legal agreement in place, but it has no specifics in it, and countries would have to agree to a new round of targets. But the idea of a new global agreement was scotched before the conference even started. Now, countries say they’re trying to produce a “political agreement.” In U.N.-speak, that means a deal that settles some key issues, like climate targets for major greenhouse gas emitters and the amount of money that rich nations will pay to poor ones to adapt to climate change, and establishes a framework for inking a formal treaty next year.

Key issues remain unsettled, so the talks’ final outcome are uncertain.

What’s with those demonstrators?

Many of them feel the Copenhagen conference doesn’t take the problem of climate change seriously enough. For days, demonstrators outside the Bella Center in Copenhagen — the site of the talks — have battled with Danish police wielding tear gas and truncheons. Others have held nonviolent demonstrations in the city (and in Washington, where Thursday morning Greenpeace used fake police tape to cordon off the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, labeling it a “Climate Crime Scene” because they believe the chamber is trying to slow progress toward emissions cuts). The goal of most of them is to push the delegates toward more stringent, ambitious cuts in emissions. But there are also skeptical groups, who believe that climate change is not happening in the way that mainstream science believes, or that tackling it would impose vast costs on the world’s economy.

What’s the deal with “two degrees”?

It’s a statement about the world’s thermostat. This summer, world leaders gathered in Italy pledged to prevent the earth’s average temperature from warming more than two degrees Celsius, which is about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, from pre-industrial levels. This conference was supposed to work out the stickier question of how to accomplish that goal. Many vulnerable countries have called for the world to aim for curtailing global temperature rise even more, by establishing an upper threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.

For now, the world seems to be on pace to miss the goal. A consortium of U.S.-based scientists recently found that, even if all the world’s countries fulfill the emissions-cutting pledges they’ve made so far, temperatures will rise about 3.6 degrees Celsius (6.8 degrees Fahrenheit).

What progress has been made so far?

Some, but there’s a real question of whether it’s enough. The most encouraging news has come on the subject of the funds that rich countries will pay to poor ones, both to help them adapt to climate change and to reduce the greenhouse gases they emit. On Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that the United States would help mobilize $100 billion in annual financing by 2020 (although Clinton did not say, specifically, how much the U.S. would contribute). And, on Wednesday, there was a key signal from the other side, as Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said poorer countries would accept a smaller amount of short-term funding in exchange for a bigger long-term package. Zenawi said his side had agreed to take $10 billion a year in the next three years, if that amount rose to $100 billion by 2020.

Also, before the conference began, both the United States and China made pledges to tackle their greenhouse-gas emissions. In the U.S. case, President Obama offered to reduce them “in the range of” 17 percent, as measured against 2005 levels, by 2020. China pledged they would reduce their carbon output relative to the size of their economy by between 40 and 45 percent compared to what it otherwise would have been over the same period. Many experts said this is less ambitious than it seems, since China’s economy is bound to get more energy efficient in the coming decade as it develops and relies on cleaner technologies. Some say that China’s existing policies will lead to carbon output reductions in the 40 to 45 percent range and that they need to be more ambitious than that. Many countries have criticized the U.S. target as well, saying that it represents just a 3 percent cut below 1990 levels, the benchmark used under Kyoto.

What role is the United States playing?

No longer the villain, but not quite the hero, either. The Obama administration has been praised in Copenhagen for pledging to make emissions cuts, which was a break from the Bush administration’s approach. And, over the last couple of days, U.S. officials have proposed funding for poor countries, a breakthrough credited with keeping hope of a deal alive. But U.S. negotiators were criticized by some developing countries for taking so long to act and for demanding that major developing countries subject their emission cuts to international scrutiny. The U.S. delegation is likely to be cautious in any emissions-reductions it promises — mindful that climate legislation is stalled in the U.S. Senate, and that an angry Senate refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol under President Bill Clinton.

Obama will arrive in Copenhagen on Friday. What he says, and whether he’s able to bring bickering blocs of countries together, will likely be the best-remembered story of the U.S. involvement there.

Wait, didn’t “Climate-gate” show that climate change isn’t happening after all?

No. The “Climate-gate” scandal involved a trove of electronic files stolen from a climate-change research center at a British university. The e-mails showed climate scientists fretting over problems in their data, and scheming to keep researchers who disagreed with them out of scientific journals. They certainly raised questions about whether the leading experts on the subject tried to make their field appear less messy, and the science of climate change more unanimous, that it really was.

But there was nothing in them that showed that the basic conclusions of climate science — that earth’s temperatures are warming, and that man-made pollutants appear to be trapping unusual amounts of heat in the atmosphere — are wrong.

Where do the delegates still disagree?

On a few key points. Countries have made little progress on how an agreement would capture the climate targets they’ve put on the table. They also disagree over how — or whether — third- party countries can check to see if countries are meeting their promises to reduce emissions.

Also, it was only Thursday that countries formally agreed on just what they were negotiating over here. Poorer countries want the next deal to be considered a formal sequel to the Kyoto accords, since they held industrialized countries to strong emissions cuts. A group of developed countries wanted to start with a clean slate, but on Thursday they gave up that bid.

How is this all going to end?

At the last possible moment. Though international negotiators have had two weeks to work out their differences in Copenhagen, it’s likely they will follow custom and pull off a deal on the conference’s last day. The arrival of heads of state, including Obama, may speed that along, since they have authority to make deals that lower-level negotiators do not. For now, however, it seems like the hardest issues of dealing with climate change — how deeply to cut emissions, how to make sure other countries are keeping their promises — will be left unresolved, to be handled at another conference (with many of the same players) next year.

(CNN) — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Copenhagen early Thursday morning amid concerns that time is running out at the climate change summit for world leaders to agree a deal to combat global warming.

Yvo de Boer, the U.N.’s top climate official, admitted Wednesday evening that negotiations had unexpectedly stalled and said that the next 24 hours would be crucial.

The conference’s Danish hosts had been expected Wednesday to table a text intended to establish a basis for further negotiations. But de Boer said he did not know if the Danish text had been tabled.

“The cable car has made an unexpected stop,” De Boer told journalists. On Monday he had said that the “cable car” was halfway up the mountain and that the rest of the ride would be “fast, smooth and relaxing.”

Clinton is among dozens of senior-level figures joining the negotiations in the final days in an effort to push the summit towards a global deal limiting carbon emissions to replace the Kyoto Protocol. U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to join the talks Friday.

“The Secretary and the President decided that she could play a useful role in helping close gaps in our climate talks there by traveling to Copenhagen and personally participating,” a spokesman for the U.S. State Department said.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was among world leaders to arrive at the summit Wednesday. He told reporters aboard his flight to Denmark that he intended to assert China’s “sincerity and determination” to work with the international community to tackle climate change,” according to the official Chinese government Web site.

“I hope the meeting, with joint efforts made by various parties, will yield fair, reasonable, balanced and achievable results,” he said.

Japan became the latest country to pledge climate aid to developing nations Wednesday, offering $15 billion by 2012 to help vulnerable states mitigate against the impact of global warming. Earlier in the week the European Union pledged $9.4 billion for the same purpose.

Climate change activists attempted to disrupt the summit Wednesday, resulting in around 250 arrests. Protesters had hoped to get inside the Bella Center, where the talks are being held, to set up a “people’s assembly” but police used pepper spray and dogs to contain the demonstrations.

A spokesman for the Copenhagen police told CNN that the majority of arrests had taken place outside the center but there had been no serious injuries.

While the protests were going on outside, inside it was being announced that Danish minister Connie Hedegaard had resigned as president of the U.N. climate change summit.

“The resignation is essentially procedural,” CNN’s Phil Black said, “and she’ll be replaced by the Danish prime minister. It’s a reflection of the fact that the talks are now at the high-level phase, and it was deemed appropriate that the PM should now take over.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama heads to Copenhagen on Thursday to help secure a U.N. climate pact, staking his credibility on an as yet elusive deal that has ramifications for him at home and on the world stage.

Obama is expected to arrive in the Danish capital on Friday morning, joining about 120 other world leaders to finish a complicated process of reaching a political agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight global warming.

The time is short and the stakes are high. With his top domestic priority of healthcare reform legislation percolating in Washington, the president plans to stay in Copenhagen less than a day.

That may or may not be enough time to overcome persistent disagreements between developed and developing nations that have marred two weeks of talks, but Obama’s presence and contribution could be a potential deal-maker.

The United States has proposed to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in the range of 17 percent by 2020 compared with 2005 levels. That corresponds to a 3 percent reduction from 1990 levels, the baseline used by the European Union and others.

Obama is unlikely to propose a more aggressive emissions reduction target, which many countries have demanded. His goals are based on a bill that passed the House of Representatives but has yet to go through the Senate before it can become law.

Still, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama hoped to help break a deadlock around outstanding issues surrounding developed countries’ emissions targets and disagreements about financial support for poor countries dealing with climate change.

“I think leaders representing developing and developed nations all over the world coming to Copenhagen gives … an opportunity for some of those issues to be resolved and a breakthrough to happen,” Gibbs said on Wednesday.

“The president is … hopeful that his presence can help that, and hopeful that, again, we leave Copenhagen with a strong operational agreement, even as we work toward something even stronger in the future.”

RISKS ON ALL SIDES

Environmentalists say Obama could turn the talks around by pledging his strong support for the Senate climate bill, which has a more aggressive 20 percent emissions reduction target, and by putting his full efforts into the issue once healthcare reform is finished.

He could also ease conflicts over funding by promising to ask Congress for more money in the U.S. budget for fiscal 2011 to help poor countries adapt to climate change.

His visit is fraught with risks. If the president, a Democrat, puts a more aggressive offer on the table, he could face criticism from Republicans who charge the United States is going too far without getting enough in return from big developing economies such as India and China.

If he is more cautious and the talks end up faltering, he would be connected to that failure and his efforts to pass domestic climate change legislation could suffer along with his credibility among other international leaders.

“He’s sort of damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t, and (so) he might as well do the thing that’s right,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, urging Obama to push the talks forward.

“This is the kind of thing that, if you think about it, he ran for president to do. The kind of thing he got awarded his Nobel Prize because of the potential to do,” Meyer said.

Obama has been making phone calls to other world leaders this week to discuss the process before his arrival.

There is some speculation Obama would also sign an updated pact with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to reduce nuclear arms stockpiles during his short European trip, but the White House played down the chances a deal on that issue would be reached in time.

(Editing by Peter Cooney)