u.s.

The assessment, put together by dozens of the country’s top climate experts, makes clear that if we stay anywhere near our current emissions path, we are headed towards a devastating 9°F to 15°F warming over most of the United States (this century), with ever-worsening extreme weather, heat waves, deluges and droughts[read more]

By Daniel Goldfarb.  In the aftermath of China’s rare earth metals embargo to Japan, Europe and America, it is time to re-think how we get these crucial materials, reports the NY Times in a piece titled, “After China’s Rare Earth Embargo, a New Calculus.”  Currently, 95% of the world’s rare earth metal mining occurs in China....[read more]

Originally published at the Huffington Post Recent trade disagreements and Interior Department activities have brought to bear a crucial difference between China and America’s policy approaches to their respective clean energy industries; namely, that when America talks about providing capital, it is really only dealing with half...[read more]

While I continue to add post-Copenhagen article references to my post from just after the conference (see Post game), I will also highlight the most interesting items, like those below… China stands accused of wrecking global deal: China “systematically wrecked” the Copenhagen climate summit because it feared being presented with a...[read more]

Interesting information from a Senior Administration official of how the last-minute negotiations between the US, China, India, and Brazil went down. THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ For Immediate...[read more]

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...[read more]

Guest post by David Doniger, policy director, NRDC Climate Center, Washington, D.C. Co-authored with Barbara Finamore, NRDC’s China program director.  The Copenhagen climate summit is coming to its moment of truth, and all eyes will be on the United States and China. Together these two countries account for 42 percent of world...[read more]

American bombast and European Union snark were on full display at Day One of the UNFCC in Copenhagen today. U.S. Envoy Jonathan Pershing said "there is a deal to be done" in Copenhagen but relented that it would not be a treaty. He was a bit testy at the first U.S. delegation press event Monday. Scolding delegates and reporters that...[read more]

Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson is reporting on the scene from Copenhagen during the United Nations Climate Change Conference. The Tuvalu Protocol At this morning’s plenary session of the Copenhagen climate negotiations, the tiny island nation of Tuvalu called for strengthening the Kyoto Protocol to limit warming to 1.5 °C above pre-...[read more]

The European Union has proposed cutting its carbon emissions 30 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 if other developed countries reduce their carbon emissions 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. But Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said in Copenhagen that the European Union should proceed with its 30 percent reductions targets...[read more]

A series of groundbreaking deals are part of a drive to build 20 GWe by 2020 The visit to the U.S. of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the week before Thanksgiving was marked by a series of events related to India’s commitments to action on climate change and the use of nuclear energy to meet them.  At the same time, Singh...[read more]

Mount Hood, Oregon (image by Tony the Misfit, CC 2.0 licensed) The New York Times on Sunday reported about Solar World’s new solar panel plant in Oregon. The Germany company is making a big ($300 million) bet that the United States is the place to be if you are a solar panel manufacturer. The message for solar companies, Mr. Pichel says...[read more]

China is in some ways the mirror image of the United States. Whereas in the United States the most serious efforts to date to address climate change have been made at the state and local levels and in the private sector, in China the major initiatives have come from the national-level party and government and have often been blunted by...[read more]

From the newsletter published by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) (available ): Seventy-Five Nations Join New International Renewable Energy Agency The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) was founded on Monday in Bonn, Germany, and 75 nations have already signed a...[read more]

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press released a report yesterday stating that the economy was the number one policy priority according to Americans they surveyed.As Barack Obama takes office, the public’s focus is overwhelmingly on domestic policy concerns – particularly the economy. Strengthening the nation’s economy...[read more]