Flickr A happy, healthy and prosperous new year from Enviromental Capital.
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Pundits everywhere are passing judgment on the climate-change deal reached in Copenhagen early Saturday. The market is too—and it isn’t mincing words. The climate-change conference in the Danish capital of Copenhagen is in disarray after some 130 developing countries walked out of the confab on Monday. That’s led to at least a temporary suspension of the conference while rich-world delegations try to convince developing nations to rejoing the talks. Fundamentally, the walkout seems to be a “put up or shut up” message from poor countries to rich ones. Crude oil futures fell below $69 a barrel, the ninth straight day of declines, as disappointing economic data spark worries over global demand for oil, in Bloomberg . China formally opens today a new gas pipeline through Turkmenistan, the latest chapter in the reshaping of Central Asia’s place in the global energy puzzle, in Reuters. The Copenhagen climate summit is in disarray after developing nations walked out of the conference early Monday, reports BBC Now that the big Copenhagen climate conference has an actual draft agreement to fight about—rather than the unofficial drafts that caused such a kerfluffle in the opening days—a lot of the attention will be focused on the headline numbers for global emissions cuts. Those aren’t the only crucial numbers There’s plenty of interesting stuff in the latest paper in Nature Geosciences about the growth in global greenhouse-gas emissions—that the growth is overwhelmingly concentrated in developing countries, for example, or that natural carbon “sinks” such as oceans appear to be less effective at absorbing carbon dioxide than in years past. (More on the paper here and here .) Associated Press Right back at you But one thing in particular stands out: The role played by the rich world’s “offshoring” of manufacturing emissions to the developing world, especially China. King Coal is dead, long live King Coal. For all the talk of a clean-energy, low-carbon future, U.S coal producers might not have such a black future. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has drawn plenty of flak for wading into the debate over national energy and climate policy We mentioned yesterday the International Energy Agency’s outline of what the world’s energy future would look like over the next 20 years if it took serious steps to tackle climate change, rather than continuing on a business-as-usual course. In a nutshell, the IEA’s vision of the next two decades would make T. Boone Pickens crow: Wind power and natural gas are the two big winners under the IEA’s climate-change scenario. Dealing with climate change is undoubtedly becoming big business . But that big business depends on governments—the push to curb greenhouse-gas emissions or boost clean energy is inextricable from government targets and mandates |
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