Last weekend was a good one for climate-change deniers. A hacker stole and released scores of documents, including personal e-mail exchanges, from a server at Britain’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, a premier climate-change research center. “This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud,” proclaimed one skeptic.

Not quite. Assuming the documents are genuine — the authenticity of all has not been confirmed — critics are taking them out of context and misinterpreting at least one controversial e-mail exchange. None of it seriously undercuts the scientific consensus on climate change. But a few of the documents are damaging for other reasons….

Many — including us — find global warming deniers‘ claims irresponsible and their heated criticism of climate scientists unconvincing….

By our reckoning — and that of most scientists, policymakers and almost every government in the world — the probability that the planet will warm in the long term because of human activity is extremely high, and the probability that allowing it to do so unabated will have disastrous effects is unacceptably large. The case that governments should hedge against that outcome is formidable enough.

So the Washington Post opines today in an editorial, “Climate of denial.”  I’m not posting this because of their analysis of Hackergate, although they come to the same big-picture conclusion Reuters did (see Reuters: “ANALYSIS-Hacked climate e-mails awkward, not game changer”).

No, what’s of interest to me is two other points.  First, while some in the blogosphere are decrying anybody who uses the term “denier” — The Post editorial board uses it a whopping 5 times in 5 paragraphs, the two above and these three:

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This guest post is by Julian L. Wong, senior policy analyst at the Center for American Progress

Yesterday, the chances improved for meaningful progress at Copenhagen, the UN conference on climate change that is less than two weeks away.

President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have signed a series of cooperation agreements in the launch of a U.S.-India “Green Partnership” on energy security, climate change and food security.  These agreements come just a week after the United States and China have entered into a similarly impressive range of agreements (see previous guest posts “U.S. and China announce “positive, cooperative and comprehensive” plan for collaboration on clean energy and climate change” and “Announcements of U.S.-China cooperation create a path to Copenhagen success“).

There are three features of the U.S.-India announcements that are compelling:

1. Commitment to a strong outcome in Copenhagen, grounded in “full transparency”

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The White House has announced that President Barack Obama will participate in the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 15) in Copenhagen, Denmark on Wednesday, December 9th, before accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. He will commit the United States to achieving greenhouse gas reductions of “in the range of 17% below 2005 levels in 2020,” essentially a return to 1990 levels of emissions.

The U.S. delegation will include a large number of Cabinet-level (in the language of international diplomacy, “ministerial level”) officials. U.S. delegates “will keynote a series of events highlighting actions by the Obama Administration to provide domestic and global leadership in the transition to a clean energy economy.” The following keynote events and speakers are currently scheduled:

– Wednesday, December 9th: Taking Action at Home, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson
– Thursday, December 10th: New Energy Future: the role of public lands in clean energy production and carbon capture, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar
– Friday, December 11th: Clean Energy Jobs in a Global Marketplace, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke
– Monday, December 14th: Leading in Energy Efficiency and Renewables, Energy Secretary Steven Chu
– Tuesday, December 15th: Clean Energy Investments: creating opportunities for rural economies, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack
– Thursday, December 17th: Backing Up International Agreement with Domestic Action, Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley and Assistant to the President Carol Browner

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose envoy Todd Stern is in charge of U.S. climate negotiations, was not part of the announcements.

By the end of 2009, there will have been a 50% drop in the levelized cost–i.e. the lifetime cost per kWh before subsidies–of solar power, and a 10% reduction in the levelized cost of other sources of renewable energy sectors compared to the end of 2008.  This prediction is a result of detailed quarterly research by New Energy Finance.

“So far this year, the steady decline in the cost of equipment in sectors like solar and wind has been largely offset by the increasing costs of financing,” said Michael Liebreich, chairman and CEO of New Energy Finance. “By the end of this year, however, as capital markets loosen up and equipment prices continue their decline, we will see the levelized costs decline, finishing the year 10% below the end of last year across the board and far more than that in solar.”

So begins a Monday news release from New Energy Finance, whose “global network of 125 analysts” provides “industry information and analysis to investors, corporations and governments in clean energy.”  I had reported a similar prediction back in August (see “Solar panels drop sharply in price“).  Looks like solar PV is going to become competitive sooner than expected.  Guess we won’t need that massive government program to generate breakthroughs to make solar energy cost-competitive after all.

Here’s the rest of the release:

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Gavin Schmidt has done a wonderful job at RealClimate patiently explaining the context of the stolen emails. He’s made it perfectly clear that the claims of scientific malpractice are without foundation. He must be doing a really good job, because the Competitive Enterprise Institute intends to sue him.

That’s computer scientist Tim Lambert aka Deltoid explaining (here) the latest tactics the anti-scientific disinformers are pursuing to stifle real climate scientists from communicating with the public.  The CEI, of course, runs ad campaigns aimed at destroying the climate for centuries; generally spreads disinformation (see “Santer, Jones, and Schneider respond to CEI’s phony attack on the temperature record“) and embraces the efforts of other groups to sow confusion (see “Deniers go ape for Scopes climate trial“).

But CEI’s current tactics, which they proudly announce here, have become truly extemist in nature:

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UPDATE:  Today’s White House’s news release, which includes the U.S. emission target for Copenhange, is reprinted in full at the end.

U.S. President Barack Obama will go to Copenhagen for a U.N. climate change meeting on December 9, hoping to add momentum to an international process despite slow progress on a domestic bill to cut carbon emissions. Obama planned to make a visit at the beginning of the climate negotiations in Denmark, an administration official told Reuters on Wednesday, before picking up the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in neighboring Oslo.

Despite the myriad incorrect predictions on the matter in the status quo media, this is no surprise to Climate Progress readers — see my October 9 post Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize in part because “the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting.” Looks like he’ll be going to Copenhagen after all!

Still, the media can always find something to criticize Obama about.  Reuters adds:

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