Howie Chong's blog

As Week Two began at the Copenhagen Climate Conference, confusion reigned as numbers exploded, positions entrenched and pressure mounted.

COP15 Stalls

Fresh from a weekend of an enormous peaceful climate march (where a minority, but sizable number of people were arrested) over the weekend, the conference talks continued to be stalled on key issues dividing rich and poor countries with two key issues of contension: whether or not to maintain keep or scrap the Kyoto Protocol after its 2012 expiry date; and how much industrialized countries should aid the developing world in financing the low-carbon transition.

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The biggest news out of Copenhagen on Monday did not originate in the Danish capital, but rather from Washington DC, where the US Environmental Protection Agency declared that Carbon Dioxide and the five other major greenhouse gas emissions are harmful to human and environmental health. The annoncement makes the creation of a binding global agreement more likely, even if it doesn’t occur at this summit.

Even with President Obama joining over a hundred leaders in the high-level talks starting next week, the entire world is fully aware that the climate change legislation currently making its way through Congress faces significant challenges in the Senate, where there are enough Republicans and Democrats in coal-producing states to scuttle any significant attempt at passing a strong bill.... Read more »