Marathon Negotiations Cap Climate Summit

(AP)  The historic U.N. climate talks ended Saturday after a 31-hour negotiating marathon, with delegates accepting a U.S.-brokered compromise that gives billions in climate aid to poor nations but does not require the world's major polluters to make deeper cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions.

Two weeks of wrangling at Copenhagen exposed sharp divisions between rich and poor nations - and even among major greenhouse-gas emitters like China and the United States - on how to fight global warming.

Yet in the end, nearly all 193 nations at the U.N. climate conference , which points toward deeper emissions cuts for rich nations but without mandatory targets that would draw sanctions.

Mr. Obama's successful 11th-hour bargaining Friday with China, India, Brazil and South Africa - the world's key developing nations - sets the stage for future cooperation between developed and developing nations. But the resulting "Copenhagen Accord" was protested by several nations that demanded deeper emissions cuts by the industrialized world and felt excluded from the major-nation bargaining process.

"The deal is a triumph of spin over substance. It recognizes the need to keep warming below 2 degrees but does not commit to do so. It kicks back the big decisions on emissions cuts and fudges the issue of climate cash," said Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam International.

The climate conference also failed to act on one issue many thought was near success here: A plan to protect the world's rain forests, vital to a healthy climate, by paying some 40 poor tropical countries to protect their woodlands.

Deforestation for logging, cattle grazing and crops has made Indonesia and Brazil the world's third- and fourth-biggest carbon emitters, after China and the United States.

Burning trees to clear land for plantations or cattle ranches and logging forests for wood is blamed for about 20 percent of the world's emissions - or as much carbon dioxide as all the world's cars, trucks, trains, planes and ships combined.

"No treaty means that forest destruction will continue unabated, forest-dependent peoples' rights will not be protected and endangered species will continue down the path to extinction," said Stephen Leonard of the Australian Orangutan Project.

Mr. Obama's day of hectic diplomacy in the snowy Danish capital, where more than 110 presidents and premiers had gathered Friday for a rare climate summit, that rich nations would provide $30 billion in emergency climate aid to poor nations in the next three years, and set a goal of eventually channeling $100 billion a year to them by 2020.

That aid aims to help nations build seawalls, cope with unusual droughts and storms, and deal with other impacts from climate change, as well as to develop clean energy sources and reduce their own emissions.

The accord includes a method for verifying each nation's reductions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases - a key demand by Washington, because China has resisted international efforts to monitor its voluntary actions.

Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol - rejected by the U.S. - 37 industrial nations were already modestly cutting back on their emissions of greenhouse gases. Under the new, nonbinding agreement, those richer nations, including the U.S., are to list their individual emissions targets, and developing countries must list what actions they will take to reduce the growth in their global warming pollution by specific amounts.

The overall outcome in Copenhagen was a significant disappointment to those who had hoped Mr. Obama could put new life into the flagging prospects for some kind of legally binding agreement this year. Instead, it envisions another year of negotiations and leaves myriad details yet to be decided. The next major U.N. climate conference is a year from now in Mexico City.

The Copenhagen Accord, initiated by five of the world's biggest greenhouse-gas polluters, was accepted only after it bogged down in an all-night debate early Saturday, when Bolivia, Cuba, Sudan and Venezuela traded barbs with Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen, who chaired the meeting.

Lumumba Di-Aping of Sudan, a spokesman for the world's developing nations, said the deal's temperature goal would condemn Africans to widespread deaths from global warming, comparing it to Nazis sending "6 million people into furnaces" in the Holocaust.

That language drew rebukes from other delegates, however, and the African Union backed the deal.

After a break around dawn Saturday, Loekke Rasmussen was replaced with a new conference president, Philip Weech of the Bahamas, who gaveled in a compromise decision to "take note" of the agreement, instead of formally approving it. Experts said that still meant the accord could go into effect.

"This conference really has been a roller coaster ride," U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer said in the final minutes Saturday. It's "an impressive accord, but not an accord that is legally binding."

"We have a deal in Copenhagen," said a visibly relieved U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who had made climate change his No. 1 priority when he took office three years ago. Ban said "this is just the beginning" of a process to craft a binding pact to reduce emissions.

The document says carbon emissions should be reduced enough to keep the increase in average global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since preindustrial times. But average temperatures already have risen 0.7 degrees Celsius (1.3 degrees Fahrenheit) since then.

The nations most vulnerable to climate change, including low-lying islands, believe the 2 degree Celsius figure is already too high.

Because the deal envisions emissions cuts no bigger than what countries pledged coming into Copenhagen, U.S. experts say the world's temperature is already on track to increase by 3.9 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, said team leader John Sterman of MIT.

Disputes between rich and poor countries and between the world's biggest carbon polluters - China and the U.S. - dominated the two-week conference. Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets and staged demonstrations to demand action to cool an overheating planet.

Mr. Obama met twice with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao - once privately and once with other leaders - in hopes of sweeping aside some of the disputes that had blocked progress.

The U.S. president argued that some kind of deal was better than none.

If the world waited to reach a binding deal, "then we wouldn't make any progress," Mr. Obama said, warning that could produce "such frustration and cynicism that rather than taking one step forward, we ended up taking two steps back."

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama called the deal "a major step forward," but German Chancellor Angela Merkel gave it only grudging acceptance, saying she had "mixed feelings" about it.

Annie Petsonk, international counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund, called the U.S.-led climate deal "a stepping stone on the path to a new climate treaty. The next stone must be a bill enacted by the U.S. Congress."

Legislation to impose the first caps on U.S. carbon dioxide emissions has been moving slowly through the Congress. The resulting tentativeness of the U.S. commitment - to relatively weak emissions cuts by 2020 - complicated efforts this year to negotiate a firmer global agreement on emissions.

Mr. Obama upended his schedule Friday to reach the deal, turning a 9-hour trip to Copenhagen into a 15-hour negotiating whirlwind. Besides critical meetings with the leaders of the developing world, Mr. Obama and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton held talks with European leaders, including Merkel, Britain's Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The $100-billion-a-year climate aid goal set for 2020 falls below estimates made in some expert studies, including by the World Bank, which foresee a need for hundreds of billions of dollars each year to combat global warming as seas rise, species go extinct, farmlands go dry and storms become more severe.

[bubbadubba]

Hey if you folks want to attack global warming that makes sense but to attack Obama is irrational since no matter who won the election we would be right where we are.
CONCORD, N.H. -- In his final push for a primary victory, Senator John McCain arrived here this afternoon and made a pitch that might have surprised voters: He cast himself as the environmentalist of the presidential campaign.

"I will clean up the planet," McCain said. "I will make global warming a priority."

[MidwestGreen]

I am for conserving power, not polluting etc. I am not for giving money to third world dictators through phony carbon trading deals. Let Al Gore and company make money the way they used to. Lobbying.
Global Warming now aka Climate Change is a money and power grab with trumped up science.
Obama did nothing in Copenhagen to make the world better, he should have stayed in the US and conserved the carbon.

[bubbadubba]

CONCORD, N.H. -- In his final push for a primary victory, Senator John McCain arrived here this afternoon and made a pitch that might have surprised voters: He cast himself as the environmentalist of the presidential campaign.

"I will clean up the planet," McCain said. "I will make global warming a priority."

[FP1970]

That Obama is just brilliant. Throwing billions of dollars at 3rd world countries to help them reduce emissions is bound to work. Just like all the billions in aid that have been sent to the 3rd world for poverty, health care, development, etc... Where did most of that money end up? In the pockets of 3rd world leaders or in their Swiss bank accounts anyway. Why would this be any different? Are they going to send special dollars that can't be misappropriated? Or better yet, will someone at the corruption-plagued UN be in charge of it?

[FP1970]

That Obama is just brilliant. Throwing billions of dollars at 3rd world countries to help them reduce emissions is bound to work. Just like all the billions in aid that have been sent to the 3rd world for poverty, health care, development, etc... Where did most of that money end up? In the pockets of 3rd world leaders or in their Swiss bank accounts anyway. Why would this be any different? Are they going to send special dollars that can't be misappropriated? Or better yet, will someone at the corruption-plagued UN be in charge of it?

[jimmyc1955]

GREAT - The Obama plan for bankrupting the nation in less than 1 year is back on track!

[ToolMangler1]

This is just like the healthcare bill in the USA. The one party said 'No' the oether party said 'Yes' but nothing would have been done if Obama hadn't kept pressing and talking. Is the Healthcare right for America??? We now have a chance to find out. If Obama hadn't twisted some arms, "NOTHING WOULD HAVE BEEN DONE".
Is the Climate agreement the right thing for the world???? We now have a chance to find out.
Give Obama two thumbs up for getting the ball rolling, now all we have to do is 'guide' it to the target...

[sjc_1]

Helping developing countries develop more cleanly misses the point. China and the U.S. MUST use less coal and use it more efficiently. IGCC plants are more efficient and natural gas combined cycle are even MORE efficient. They cost more initially but cost less over time from efficiency.

[ToolMangler1]

Then get the environmentalists to stop trying to kill Nuclear energy plants in the nation. Start buying hybrids or Hydrogen cars.

[ToolMangler1]

Gas, Oil, Coal and Wood are all finite resources. That mean they are non-renewable (In time to help us).
Nuclear power is the "ONLY" option we have at this time. Let me tell you a short Fable.

"Once upon a time there was a planet that had a thriving civilization. the inhabitants were very intelligent but somewhat short sighted. The industrial moguls were a bit on the greedy side and only looked at the bottom line and not very far into the future. The peoples of this world worked hard and learned everything they could about the world around them. As they advanced, their need for power grew exponentially and they searched the entire planet for more resources of energy but one day, they realized that the reserves were exhausted and they became frantic because no more liquid energy could be found. At this same time, the planet was racked by devastating events like droughts, earthquakes, extreme temperature changes and all forms of illnesses. Water was in such short supply that individuals were being killed and the water recovered from their bodies was sold by robber barons and other gangs. You might ask what happened to the water and receive this answer. "the energy companies pumped it into the ground to take the place of the liquid fuels they were extracting so that the surface of the world would not crash into the gaping holes left when the world was sucked dry."
Now the planet is so parched that nothing can grow. Billions have already died and now they have only a few hundred left to propagate the species. Then they all boarded the only means of escape and rocketed into the skies hoping against hope that the third Planet might be able to provide a place to live. They all vowed with one voice to "Never destroy their world again". God slumped and said to himself,"WANNA BET! and a tear fell as he looked at Mars and saw the red dust covering all he had made for them?"