Guest Writers's Climate Chronicles

Fifty-five scientists from the Netherlands released the following open letter about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and errors discovered in its 2007 report on climate change.

In the letter, they explain how the IPCC works, and how the errors drawing so much attention "do not alter the key finding that human beings are very likely changing the climate, with far reaching impacts in the long run."

By Marianne Lavelle
and M.B. Pell
Center for Public Integrity

The next round of the battle over climate change policy on Capitol Hill will involve more than the usual suspects. Way more. Watch soup makers face off against steel companies. Witness the folks who pump gas from the ground fight back against those who dig up rock. And watch the venture capitalists who have money riding on new technology try to gain advantage in a game that so far has been deftly controlled by the old machine.

In short, even though President Obama pledged to the world at Copenhagen that the United States is committed to action on global warming, the domestic politics are only growing “curiouser and curiouser,” as Alice might say from Wonderland.

Negotiators made scant progress Wednesday toward a global climate treaty that any nation, large or small, could agree to. In fact, after two years of work and nearly two weeks of intense negotiations, they backslid, officials from Oxfam, WWF and Greenpeace said.

“The meeting fell into disarray and they put brackets around the text, which means the whole thing is under question,” said Oxfam Executive Director Jeremy Hobbs.

Is Canada considering giving its oil and gas industries — particularly the tar sands — more leeway on greenhouse gas emissions?

A draft document obtained by CBC News and reported last night suggests the idea was to be proposed to Prime Minister Stephen Harper ahead of this week’s climate summit. That report inspired a “lie-in” today by Canadian youth at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, where international climate negotiations are under way.

Negotiators for African countries halted the Copenhagen climate negotiations in protest on Monday, accusing wealthy nations of trying to kill the Kyoto Protocol and not living up to their promises.

The talks resumed after about five hours, but the gaps in negotiating positions were still wide, particularly in how much money should be offered and how ambitious emissions cuts should be.

By Mark Pagani, John Wettlaufer, Jeffrey Park and David Bercovici

This week begins the United Nations Climate Change conference in Copenhagen, following the controversy of stolen emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Center. Both events have inspired a flood of news stories, editorials and blogs.

Although climate change remains one of our most urgent contemporary issues, it is wise to step back and view the big picture of what scientists do and do not understand about the Earth’s climate system and future climate change.

By Ben Wessel, SustainUS.org

COPENHAGEN — Fifty young Americans took over a climate denier conference hosted by a prominent conservative organization this evening in Copenhagen, rushing the stage and telling the live TV audience that a clean energy future is the real road to prosperity in America.

By Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers, and Michael Peck of Gamesa

Once, when asked why he was so good, hockey icon Wayne Gretzky replied, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”

The world is skating toward multiple clean sources of energy in a carbon-free future. The question is whether the United States has the political will to become a leader in the largest industry of this century, or whether we are willing to accept the economic and climate consequences of failing to act.

By David Cush and Mindy Lubber

As the Congress considers historic climate change legislation and diplomats prepare for December's U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, it is time that the domestic airline industry stops trying to fly above the debate over how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

While air travel only contributes 2 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, according to the International Air Transport Association, the U.S. aviation sector emitted 124 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalents in 2003 alone — equal to a year's worth of driving by 23 million cars.

Other sectors have acknowledged their impact on the climate and revised their business plans accordingly, but the domestic airline industry has in large part sought to postpone meaningful action.