Copenhagen Bust - A Retrospective | 49 comments (48 topical, 1 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Copenhagen Bust - A Retrospective (4.00 / 2)

Get a grip, people. Milk yer innerboobs...

AMY GOODMAN: We are back in New York, but the climate summit in Copenhagen did come to a close on Saturday, when Democracy Now! was still there, with the world's nations reluctantly agreeing "to take note of," but not endorse, a non-binding accord President Obama announced Friday night. Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework for Climate Change, described the deal as a, quote, "modest success" and a "letter of intent."
In a recorded speech Friday night, President Obama declared that an agreement had been reached after a closed-door session with the leaders of Brazil, China, India and South Africa.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Today we've made meaningful and unprecedented--made a meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough here in Copenhagen. For the first time in history, all major economies have come together to accept their responsibility to take action to confront the threat of climate change.
AMY GOODMAN: The twelve-page agreement seeks
to limit global warming to a maximum of a two degree Celsius rise in temperature. But it does not specify targets for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
During a brief question-and-answer period restricted to the White House traveling press corps, President Obama defended the non-binding nature of the agreement.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: It will not be legally binding, but what it will do is allow for each country to show to the world what they're doing, and there will be a sense on the part of each country that we're in this together, and we'll know who is meeting and who is not meeting the mutual obligations that have been set forth.
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LUCIA GREEN-WEISKEL
BEORGE MONBIOT

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Mon Dec 21st, 2009 at 03:52:12 PM EST
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Re: Copenhagen Bust - A Retrospective (4.00 / 3)

Face it.

European Union carbon-dioxide allowances for delivery in December 2010 declined 8.3 percent to close at 12.45 euros ($17.82) on the European Climate Exchange in London. Today was the first day of trading since the summit concluded Dec. 19....
Today's decline for permits in the EU, which runs the world's largest cap-and-trade system, extends last week's drop of 6.8 percent and left prices at the lowest since March 31. Allowances for delivery in December 2010 have fallen 24 percent this year as the lack of progress on climate talks and recession reduced demand.
Second-Biggest Market
The UN's Certified Emission Reductions credits for delivery next year fell 7.2 percent, the biggest one-day fall since Feb. 20, to close at 10.98 euros in London. The credits, which trade in the world's second-biggest carbon market, are down 20 percent this year....
Projects are now approved on a case-by-case basis and must show they need credits to be feasible. That approval process has produced a backlog, with 66 percent of 5,641 of the proposed projects that the UN received since 2003 waiting as of Dec. 4, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The proposal for industry baselines would have meant more credits, traders said.
"I find it incredibly frustrating" that countries can spend days discussing potential technological solutions to climate change such as synthetic trees while they "punt critical issues like standardized baselines" to a technical working group for a year, Carnahan said.

This CDS circus is worthless if rest of world refuses to assume 100% of the risk.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Mon Dec 21st, 2009 at 04:34:45 PM EST
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Copenhagen Bust - A Retrospective | 49 comments (48 topical, 1 editorial, 0 hidden)