Why is Obama at Home Depot? To get cash for caulkers going.

President Obama’s stop at a Home Depot in northern Virginia on Tuesday was another step toward building the wide-ranging coalition he needs to build if he wants to realize his plans for a “green” jobs push. The Home Depot stop was in conjunction with a meeting between labor, manufacturing and small-business leaders the same day.

His program, which would be formally dubbed Homestar but called in some circles “cash for caulkers,” is aimed at spurring homeowners to retrofit their homes with energy-efficient technologies. The White House aims to offer $23 billion in incentives for everything from weatherization to new doors and windows.

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Watcha gonna do when AGW comes for you?

Must get the COP-15 puns out of my system now, but I welcome more puns from you all on this Conference of Parties — which has become a true Party of Conferences, with NGOs booted out of the Bella Center and forced to confer separately!

I’m not sure if COP-u-late works, but while it’s definitely not too a COP-too-late to avoid a climate catastrophe, it will be if COP-15 fails.  Then we’ll all be singing, What will you do when anthropogenic global warming impacts come for you?  [OK, not catchy lyrics, indeed, not lyrics anyone wants to catch.]

I’ve been schmoozing a bit with muckety-mucks — you know, your Al Gores and Tim Wirths and even your Dan Reichers [don't worry, there's only one of my former boss at DOE] — and I must say that the mood is not optimistic.  What nobody can yet tell is whether:

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This is a repost from the The Wonk Room.

President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, the first head of state to come to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, is here to save his nation of low-lying islands. Last month, Nasheed held a Cabinet meeting literally underwater to highlight the peril his nation faces from uncontrolled global warming. On Tuesday, he met with subnational leaders, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) and Gov. Jim Doyle (D-WI) to learn how the state governments have been taking action during the Bush years and are continuing to lead despite Congressional paralysis. The Wonk Room caught up with President Nasheed in the Bella Center:

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Will a deal to stop deforestation be the biggest success at Copenhagen?

Guest blogger Kari Manlove is a Research Associate at American Progress.

What source of greenhouse gas emissions was left out of the Kyoto Protocol and yet contributes roughly the same percentage of global emissions as transportation?

If you guessed deforestation, you nailed it. Opening an event sponsored by Avoided Deforestation Partners today in Copenhagen, Jeff Horowitz cited the statistic that every second of every day, the world loses a football field’s worth of forests.

To close the same event, US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack changed the frame and the mood. He announced that the U.S. will give $1 billion over the next three years to early actions in developing countries that develop REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) projects to build their countries’ capacity to slow and eventually halt deforestation. Sec Vilsack said the funding will support ‘ambitious’ REDD+ plans.

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The Wonk Room is blogging and tweeting live from Copenhagen.

Negotiations continue behind closed doors and the shape of a final agreement is coming together, as the political stakes are raised in Copenhagen by the arrival of 119 heads of state.

Voice Of The Future

During the opening of the high level segment of the Copenhagen conference, “approximately 30 international youth staged a sit-in” in the middle of the convention hall, “refusing to leave the talks until a fair, ambitious, and legally binding treaty was reached.” Youth from every corner of the globe — “Canada, Wales, Turkey, France, U.S., Denmark, Australia, Germany, China, Lebanon, England, Ireland, Kenya, Norway” — “began to read the names of the more than 11 million people who signed a petition demanding the same fair, ambitious, and legally binding agreement that is needed to avoid dangerous climate change and usher in a global clean energy economy.” As of 9 PM Copenhagen time, the sit-in continues, despite at least one youth being dragged out by security.

The People Are Locked Out

The hundreds of members of Friends of the Earth International, the largest global grassroots environmental federation in the world, were barred from entering the Bella conference center today, because United Nations officials believed some were planning to participate in an effort to help demonstrators into the center. The protesters outside — calling for a treaty commensurate to the scale of the climate crisis — were beaten and pepper sprayed by police as they pushed toward the conference. Representatives of indigenous peoples, whose voice is heard but influence is limited, were blocked in their attempt to join with the protesters.

The 22,000 members of every non-governmental organization (NGOs) will be effectively locked out for the rest of the conference, with only 1000 allowed in on Thursday and 90 on Friday. “Their absence in the crucial final days of the conference will be a blow to poor nations who rely on NGO assistance to get their voices heard, the NGOs say, and it will keep out non-governmental experts who could quickly analyze any proposed deals, leaving the world hearing only the claims of politicians.”

‘If The Climate Was A Bank, They Would Have Already Saved It’

Heads of state from 119 countries have begun making statements at the plenary. Venezuela President Hugo Chavez condemned capitalism for “everything that’s wrong with the planet,” saying “if the climate was a bank, [the United States] would already have saved it.”

The speech by Australia’s Climate Change Minister Penny Wong — who represents the “umbrella group” of the United States, Canada, Japan and New Zealand — was interrupted by protesters yelling “climate justice now.”

Julian Wong: Seeing China Clearly

In the second week of negotiations, the two issues that continue to gain the most attention on China’s position on international financing and transparency. Our friends tracking the China delegation at ClimateProgress report that China is unambiguous about the fact that it is not “first in line” for access to international climate funds, but it does not disqualify itself from it entirely either.

On transparency, China is willing to go the whole nine yards on subjecting its climate change actions to international standards of verification (technically known as MRV, or measurable-reportable-verifiable), but only if such actions are supported by financial or technological assistance. So far, China has been able to self-fund its extensive climate actions. Instead, China promises to uphold transparency on unsupported actions through its own domestic system of auditing, supervision and assessment, or ASA. Are these two standards of transparency so different as to be irreconcilable? The drama will be played out in the next few days. Read more

Microsoft, Nike and Dow Chemical join the call for ‘significant near- and long-term emissions reductions targets.’

Guest blogger Tom Kenworthy is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Led by corporate powerhouses Microsoft, Nike and Dow Chemical, more than two dozen large U.S. businesses have urged President Obama to exert his leadership in securing a “robust international agreement” on global climate change in Copenhagen.

“We must put the United States on the path to significant emissions reductions, a stronger economy, and a new position of leadership in the global effort to stabilize our climate,” the corporations said in a letter sent to the president on Tuesday. “Our environment and economy are at stake.”

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This is a guest post by American Progress’s Tina Ramos, Special Assistant for Energy Policy.

Today Senator John Kerry (D-MA) delivered a major address at COP15, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, calling on global leaders to stop pointing fingers and acknowledge that  “no country individually, and none of us collectively, are doing enough” to combat catastrophic global climate change.  This is the third consecutive UN climate meeting in which Senator Kerry has publicly urged global leaders to work together toward a global climate agreement, proving him to be a crucial and influential facilitator of the negotiation process.  “That’s why we’re gathered here again: Because we know that, in one day, with one agreement, we can put the world on a safer path,” Senator Kerry said.  “And in the coming hours and days, the world expects us to get the job done.”

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Markey calls for a hearing on the deal

Exxon Mobil’s $41bn deal to acquire XTO Energy, the US natural gas producer, is the biggest energy deal of the year. It provides a decisive answer the question of whether Exxon needed a big strategic move to sustain its growth.

For Exxon, long the most sceptical of all big oil companies about climate change, the deal marks something of a U-turn. For just as last week’s round of bidding for Iraqi oilfields showed companies betting against a decisive outcome in the climate talks at Copenhagen, Exxon’s move for XTO is in part a play on the likelihood that that the US will make further moves to curb greenhouse gases.

It is not that Exxon is suddenly going all touchy-feely on us. Its decision-making is still as hard-headed as ever. The investment in research into biofuels from algae, for example, is a cautious long-term bet, in spite of all the glossy TV campaigns.

That’s the Financial Times reporting, headlined “Exxon’s $41bn XTO deal: a bet that Copenhagen climate talks will succeed.”

Who knew that the oil giant reads Climate Progress — see Game Changer, Part 1:  There appears to be a lot more natural gas than previously thought and Part 2: Unconventional gas makes the 2020 Waxman-Markey target so damn easy and cheap to meet?

Here’s more on the deal:

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“The fact is the real energy innovation in the world is not happening in the United States although that’s where much of the technology came from.”

The Sierra Club’s Executive director Carl Pope was in line with me yesterday.  Here’s a F(lip) video interview on what would make “an effective international agreement” plus a bit on the state of climate science.

I did a second video on the state of the bipartisan climate and clean energy bill, which I’ll post next week.

It snowed a little in Copenhagen Tuesday.   That had some predictable — and unpredictable — impacts on my daughter, the deniers, and the Danish climate conference.  In reverse order:

THE UGLY:   Waiting in long lines that don’t move at the most incompetently managed event I have been to in my life gets even uglier when it starts to snow.  Fortunately, it was only a brief, light snow.  But as one of the fellow sufferers in line with me said, “Denmark has a lot of wind.  Great for clean energy.  Not great for standing in line outside in December.”  In fact, no planning organization in the world accredits 45,000 people for a venue that can only hold 15,000 — and then puts the accredidation line outside.

How ugly was it?  Even the press got screwed — this report was filed by the AP’s Seth Borenstein:

“You have no idea how important water and a bathroom is until you don’t have it,” he said after waiting 7 hours and 20 minutes to enter the Copenhagen climate talks.

How ugly IS it?  Click here for live video of protests of entry restrictions imposed by the UN.

THE BAD:  Of course, the anti-science crowd couldn’t wait to crow about the weather.  Newsbusters cited the Borenstein piece in their story, “Journalists Freeze Waiting To Get Into Global Warming Conference“:

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The Wonk Room is blogging and tweeting live from Copenhagen.

In an address to the conference just before high-level talks began in Copenhagen yesterday, former Vice President Al Gore said the outcome of the United Nations Climate Change Conference will answer a fundamental moral question — who we are as human beings. “Instead of forthrightly addressing a mortal threat to the future of civilization,” if we “allowed this process to fall into paralysis,” Gore argued, the next generation “would be justified in asking us: ‘Who are you?’”

If at some future date, the next generation faces the prospect of living in a world with steadily deteriorating prospects and no chance to reclaim the glories of this beautiful earth that we have enjoyed — if they look back at Copenhagen and ask, “Why didn’t you act? Why did you let this process fall into paralysis, and neither succeed or fail but become a symbol of futility? What were the arguments were again? You didn’t realize that we were at stake?“

Watch it:

However, he concluded his speech by saying he believes that those assembled can rise to this test of leadership, that the US Senate can pass legislation before Earth Day in April and the world can meet again to sign a binding treaty in July. “We can do it, we must do it, and as I have said many times, I believe political will is a renewable resource.”

Transcript:

I wish that I had the words to transfer directly from my heart to yours the passion that I feel for this issue. For me, it raises a fundamental question: Who are we as human beings?

Who are we?

If at some future date, the next generation faces the prospect of living in a world with steadily deteriorating prospects and no chance to reclaim the glories of this beautiful earth that we have enjoyed — if they look back at Copenhagen and ask, “Why didn’t you act? Why did you let this process fall into paralysis, and neither succeed or fail but become a symbol of futility? What were the arguments were again? You didn’t realize that we were at stake?”

If their conclusion was that the generation of human beings alive in the first years of the 21st century gathered together in Copenhagen with the leaders of virtually every nation in the world and instead of forthrightly addressing a mortal threat to the future of civilization, instead decided that the arguments were more important than the solution, that the compromises were just too difficult and allowed the process to fall into paralysis, thus condemning them to a life completely unlike what they deserve, they would be justified in asking of us:

“Who are you?

Didn’t you care?

Did you not feel any connection to us?”

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A view on climate and clean energy from the world’s largest democracy

One of my many (f)lip camera interviews from Copenhagen:

Courtesy of Marc Roberts (click to enlarge):

Didn’t Ping-pong once bring our two nations together?

This is a repost from Think Progress.

Earlier this year, Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele ridiculed the notion that the Earth is warming, arguing instead that the world is actually “cooling,” citing the supposed examples of Iceland and Greenland:

STEELE: We are cooling. We are not warming. The warming you see out there, the supposed warming, and I am using my finger quotation marks here, is part of the cooling process. Greenland, which is now covered in ice, it was once called Greenland for a reason, right? Iceland, which is now green. Oh I love this. Like we know what this planet is all about. How long have we been here? How long? No very long.

“I’m embarrassed for the Republicans,” one Discover Magazine blogger wrote of Steele’s comments. [Last week], a reporter from the local Fox Tampa affiliate asked Steele how he knows the Earth is cooling. “I don’t!” Steele exclaimed:

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The Wonk Room is blogging and tweeting live from Copenhagen.

President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, the first head of state to come to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, is here to save his nation of low-lying islands. Last month, Nasheed held a Cabinet meeting literally underwater to highlight the peril his nation faces from uncontrolled global warming. On Tuesday, he met with subnational leaders, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) and Gov. Jim Doyle (D-WI) to learn how the state governments have been taking action during the Bush years and are continuing to lead despite Congressional paralysis. The Wonk Room caught up with President Nasheed in the Bella Center:

I was just speaking with the governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and also the governor of Wisconsin. A number of American states are offering much better than what the center [federal government] is offering. Once we do the maths — Let’s do the maths now, and see what these states — because energy is not a central government issue, it’s a state government issue.

Watch it:

State and local governments leaders have been an untold highlight of the Copenhagen conference. Also Tuesday, 80 mayors “from New York, Toronto, Buenos Aires and Copenhagen” and around the world “led city leaders in signing a resolution calling for ‘an ambitious and empowering deal’ on carbon-dioxide emissions cuts.”

In the Bella Center, the delegation office of ICLEI — Local Governments for Sustainability — has been a nexus of action since the conference began, with leaders in transport, planning, development, and infrastructure discussing practical efforts to create sustainable solutions — even as these issues are almost entirely ignored at the treaty-level negotiations.

A representative from an African nongovernmental organization gets information from the interactive climate wall at the Bella Convention Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, on December 14, 2009. It’s still unclear what the outcome of the talks will be, but the arrival of President Barack Obama and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao at the end of the week could be a decisive moment.  This is by guest blogger Tom Hilde.

In Copenhagen the story of the day on Monday””call it The Day of Confusion””was the G-77 developing countries, led in this case by an African Union acting as a union, “walking out” of the climate talks. In fact, it was a boycott in protest of the wealthy countries ostensibly moving toward abandonment of the Kyoto Protocol in favor of a one-track climate regime architecture, favored by some of the wealthy countries. Despite concerned murmurs around the Bella Center and some dramatic headlines during the day, the act was designed to underscore the responsibilities of the developed nations. The G-77 walked back in for the evening session, of course. No one can afford to simply walk away from these meetings.

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“measurable, reportable, and verifiable”

By Angel Hsu and Luke Bassett, part of Yale University’s “Team China” blogging from Copenhagen, re-posted from The Green Leap Forward.

Both Team China and Copenhagen are under the weather as a wet snowfall hit in the early afternoon.  We are starting to feel the palpable stress of country delegations to remove brackets and whittle down the negotiating text in preparation for the high-level ministerial meetings on Dec. 17-18, when 110 heads of states will participate. Additionally, the Bella Center is becoming celebrity central: today a member of Team China spotted Jet Li, who filled in for Climate Change Minister Xie Zhenhua at a side event off-site called ‘China’s pathway to a low carbon economy and society’ (Minister Xie and Jet Li = perfect substitutes?).  Li charged the audience to think globally, emphasizing that he is “100 percent made in China but a citizen of the world.”

Li’s words could not have come sooner, as we’re starting to wonder if the impasse between developed and developing countries we noted from Day 2 will be resolved before the heads of states sit down to dot the i’s and cross the t’s on a agreement that hopefully all Parties will agree to.  We’ll explore why this schism between developed and developing countries does not seem to be healing.

1. MRV – Three Little Letters with Big Implications
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