BERLIN -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel has decided to attend the Copenhagen climate conference after leaders including President Obama buried hopes of a binding deal, her spokesman said Monday.

"I don't have to beat around the bush, of course yesterday's outcome did not exactly spark great euphoria," spokesman Christoph Steegmans told reporters in Berlin.

"This is partly why the chancellor decided to play an active role in ensuring that the bar is not set too low in Copenhagen, and that we try to make the most of it and not to let anyone off their responsibilities," he said.

Asia-Pacific leaders including Obama and China's Hu Jintao on Sunday shot down any remaining hopes that the Dec. 7-18 Copenhagen meeting would result in a binding international pact to combat climate change.

Instead they backed a face-saving proposal from Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen, who jetted in for hastily arranged talks in Singapore, aimed at forging a political statement.

Complex negotiations towards a legally enforceable successor to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which expires in 2012, would then continue to work out differences between rich nations and developing countries including China.

In a final declaration, the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) also dropped a proposal included in earlier drafts to slash their greenhouse gas emissions to half their 1990 levels by 2050.

World Wildlife Fund said the leaders had "missed a great opportunity to move the world closer to a fair, ambitious and binding agreement" and that "this does not look like a smart strategy" to battle climate change.

"The bar must not be set too low at Copenhagen. Copenhagen has to be an important milestone, and also of course a first step towards a binding agreement next year," Merkel's spokesman said.

"What the German government expects from the Copenhagen summit is an important step along the way to a binding agreement in the framework of the United Nations.

"The chancellor, together with her partners in the European Union, wants to make sure that the maximum possible is achieved there (in Copenhagen) towards this," Steegmans said.

Merkel would arrive on the evening of Dec. 17, Steegmans added.

Environment ministers from 44 key countries gathered Monday in Copenhagen for a two-day closed-door meeting to prepare for the conference.

The delegations taking part were from the United States, China, India, and Brazil as well as several island nations and African states that are among the poorest in the world.

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COPENHAGEN -- Environment ministers from 44 key countries gathered in Copenhagen on Monday for a two-day closed-door meeting aimed at preventing embarrassing failure at next month's U.N. conference on global warming.

Delegations included major greenhouse gas-emitters, including China, the United States, India and Brazil, as well as several island nations and African states that are among the poorest in the world and most vulnerable to climate change.

The Dec. 7-18 talks aim at reaching a post-2012 deal for slashing greenhouse-gas emissions and easing the impact of likely droughts, floods, storms, and rising seas unleashed by disrupted weather systems.

But after two years of haggling, the 192 members of the U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) remain badly deadlocked.

"We are going to discuss the difficult subjects that remain, such as financing and the goals to be reached," Danish Climate Minister Connie Hedegaard told AFP last week.

The meeting is "the chance to really get to the heart of the discussions, including the really difficult issues because we don't have much time left," she added in a statement.

Developing nations have called for wealthy economies to cut their emissions by at least 40 percent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels, and to provide around one percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) per year, or around 400 billion dollars, in finance.

So far, no rich country has come anywhere close to meeting such a demand.

They, in turn, are pressing emerging giants such as China, India, and Brazil to strengthen promises to tackle their own greenhouse-gas output.

According to a diplomatic source, Hedegaard will present a proposal for a "binding political agreement" next month.

The "five-to-eight-page" draft document establishes pledges that would be fleshed out in 2010, the source said.

It would notably spell out ways of sharing curbs on greenhouse gases.

Rich countries would identify their commitments for reductions "over the medium term," a timeframe usually meaning 2020.

Developing countries would also be urged to spell out their own intended roster of actions to tackle greenhouse gases.

Brazil on Friday became the first emerging giant to make a nonbinding promise of this kind, saying it would make a voluntary pledge to reduce its emissions by between 36 and 39 percent by 2020 as compared to anticipated trends.

Underpinning all commitments would be agreement that actions have to be transparent, measurable, and verifiable.

The deal would give the green light to "fast-start" funding to help poor countries switch to a low-carbon economy and fight the impacts of climate change. This would be the first step to a much larger inflow of funds.

Hedegaard met Sunday with her Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua and said the two held "constructive" talks.

China, she said, was "very interested in obtaining results in Copenhagen on all the important issues."

Forty heads of state and government have indicated their intention to attend the end of the Copenhagen showdown. They will include German Chancellor Angela Merkel, her spokesman said in Berlin on Monday.

"I think there's a lot of pressure on world leaders ... (especially) key countries, which know they can't come empty-handed to Copenhagen," Hedegaard said.

Facing green groups' criticism over the postponement of a legally binding deal, Hedegaard insisted the political agreement would be "substantial."

A legally binding accord would be in place in time for the expiry of the current roster of pledges under the Kyoto Protocol, she said.

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Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

The ol' Merkel smirkel. Image by א, Wikimedia CommonsBERLIN -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday she would only attend the Copenhagen climate conference in December if the U.S., China, and India first make clear their negotiating positions.

"The European Union has developed clear and unambiguous negotiating positions. We now want contributions from the U.S. and from countries like China and India," Merkel said in the first major policy speech of her second term.

"I will make a special personal effort to achieve this. And of course if it is successful, yes, I will go to Copenhagen," Merkel said.

She added:

A failure of the world climate conference in Copenhagen in December would set international environmental efforts back by years. We cannot afford this.

A substantial political agreement is indispensable in order to create conditions for a binding international protocol for after 2013. Time is pressing.

The aim of the Copenhagen summit is to hammer out an accord for 2013 onwards that will include emission cuts and aid to help poorer countries develop low-carbon economies and deal with the ravages of climate change.

Forty heads of state or government, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, have indicated they will attend the climax of the Dec. 7-18 talks in the Danish capital.

But with signs growing that the get-together will fall short of achieving a binding, historic pact, it is unclear whether other leaders, most notably President Obama, will show up.

Washington has been reluctant to declare its hand while a climate bill inches through Congress.

An E.U. summit in late October agreed that developing nations will need 100 billion euros ($146 billion) per year by 2020 to tackle climate change, but leaders from the 27 nation bloc failed to nail down how much it would give.

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WASHINGTON -- President Obama on Tuesday said it was "imperative to redouble our efforts" to combat global warming, as European leaders pressed Washington to take action on climate change ahead of next month's summit in Copenhagen.

Obama met top European leaders for an E.U.-U.S. summit here, shortly after German Chancellor Angela Merkel offered a heart-felt appeal for a climate protocol in a rare address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress.

"All of us agreed that it is imperative for us to redouble our efforts in the weeks between now and the Copenhagen meeting to assure that we create a framework for progress in dealing with [a] potential ecological disaster," Obama said after talks with European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso, E.U. foreign policy chief Javier Solana, and Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt of Sweden, who holds the E.U. presidency.

Merkel in her appeal compared the battle against climate change to the struggle to bring down the Berlin Wall two decades ago this week. She also backed Western calls for emerging nations to do more. "I'm convinced that once we in Europe and America show ourselves ready to adopt binding agreements, we will also be able to persuade China and India to join in," she said.

But even as she and Obama -- praised by Barroso for having "changed the climate on climate negotiations" -- stressed the need for a more concerted effort to solidify a framework agreement at Copenhagen, U.S. Republican lawmakers shunned a meeting on an Obama-backed bill to set the first U.S. requirements on curbing carbon emissions blamed for global warming.

Asked what impact Merkel's speech might have on the U.S. debate, Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.), the top Republican on the committee looking at the climate legislation, said: "None whatsoever."

Democrat Ben Nelson (Neb.) was similarly blunt, answering the same question with a simple "no."

Earlier Tuesday, Barroso said he was "worried by the lack of progress in negotiations" ahead of the Dec. 7-18 climate meeting, and acknowledged a binding pact would not be ready by then. The summit in the Danish capital has been set up to seal a treaty to succeed the landmark Kyoto Protocol, whose obligations to cut carbon emissions expire in 2012.

"Of course we are not going to have a full-fledged binding treaty, Kyoto-type, by Copenhagen," Barroso told reporters. "This is obvious. There is no time for that."

Barroso said a meeting next year in Mexico could finalize a treaty, but said Copenhagen needed to come up with the framework of the deal, and that the world's largest economy in particular should take a lead role.

"What we are asking is the United States to show leadership in this, such an important issue," Barroso said.

He warned against a protracted process of negotiations akin to the stalled Doha round of global trade liberalization talks. "I think it is important not to give up before, because if we start  ... now to speak about Plan B in Copenhagen we'll probably end in Plan F for failure. Let's not do to Copenhagen what has been happening with trade in Doha, where systematically every year we are postponing."

Sweden's Reinfeldt said the United States should at least agree on targets for cutting emissions and on financing for developing nations. "I said that we need to have a clear commitment on targets and on financing coming from the United States," Reinfeldt told AFP after talks with key senators. "We can understand if it's not possible to have everything in place exactly now. But we want a full agreement in Copenhagen and we are able to work through details in the months that come after Copenhagen."

He spoke as pre-summit negotiations were underway in Barcelona, Spain, where divisions again ran deep between key developed nations and emerging economies.

An E.U. summit last week agreed that developing nations will need 100 billion euros ($146 billion) per year by 2020 to tackle climate change, but failed to nail down how much it would give.

The U.S. role in Copenhagen is overshadowed by the debate in Congress. The House of Representatives in June narrowly passed a plan to curb carbon emissions, but the bill -- already criticized by other developed nations as not ambitious enough -- is bogged down in the Senate.

Some Republicans, like former president Bush, argue that action on climate change would be too costly to the economy and demand further commitments by emerging nations.

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Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Berlin wall. Photo courtesy GothPhil via Flickr WASHINGTON -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday urged the U.S. Congress to take action on climate change, likening the struggle against global warming to the Berlin Wall.

In a rare address to a joint session of Congress marking the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago, Merkel said next month's high-stakes climate summit in Copenhagen hinged on strong U.S. and European commitments.

"I'm convinced, just as we found the strength in the 20th century to bring about the fall of a wall made of concrete and barbed wire, we shall now show that necessary strength to overcome the walls of the 21st century," Merkel said.  She said those were "walls in our minds, walls of short-sighted self-interest, walls between the present, and the future."

The German leader reiterated Western nations' stance that any new climate treaty needed commitments from fast-growing emerging economies such as China and India.

"But I'm convinced that once we in Europe and America show ourselves ready to adopt binding agreements, we will also be able to persuade China and India to join in," she said.  "Then in Copenhagen we shall be able to overcome this wall separating the present and future in the interest of our children and grandchildren, and in the interest of sustainable development all over the world."

Merkel's remarks drew a standing ovation from lawmakers from Democrats, but some Republicans remained seated.

She spoke hours after a key U.S. Senate committee opened a critical debate on climate change with a boycott by most Republicans.

The House of Representatives in June approved the first-ever U.S. plan to mandate curbs on carbon emissions, but the bill is facing obstacles in the Senate, decreasing chances of passage before the Copenhagen summit.

Obama supports a so-called cap-and-trade system to mandate curbs in carbon emissions, a sharp change from his predecessor Bush, whose stance alienated European leaders.

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Negotiations among more than 190 countries meeting in Barcelona to address climate change continued today, but only on certain matters, as delegates from 50 African nations collectively shut down the talks about how to extend the Kyoto Protocol when the first phase of the agreement expires in 2012. Africa refuses to continue the negotiations until developed nations commit to reduce global warming emissions by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, a target that scientists say is necessary to avoid catastrophic impacts from climate change.

"Africa believes that the other groups are not taking talks seriously enough, not urgently enough," said Kabeya Tshikuku of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“People are dying now while those who are responsible historically are not willing to take action,” added Algerian delegate Kamel Djemouai.

By drawing a line in the sand, African delegates hope to elicit specific plans from the European Union, Australia, and other countries bound by the Kyoto Protocol to slash carbon output. Developing nations demand that the West put forth detailed numbers on emissions-reduction goals as well as financial assistance for developing nations to spur clean technology deployment and adapt to unavoidable impacts of climate change.

Members of the G-77 plus China group expressed support for the African position today, and have asked the chair of the Kyoto negotiations to press developed countries for specific slash-and-cash targets. Until those targets are announced publicly, “we should refrain from engaging in such a wasteful exercise,” said Sudanese delegate Lumumba Stanislaus-Kaw Di-Aping, who heads the G-77 plus China block. 

The African and G-77 plus China delegates assert that an ambitious, science-based deal must be forged in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

“A weaker deal will lead to our death,” Di-Aping said plainly, alluding to the predicted fate of low-lying island nations and developing countries that are most sensitive to climate disruption.

Insufficient funding for developing countries would greatly reduce the ability of poor nations to recover from climate shocks in the near term, and weaken their resilience to ward off future disasters as climate change accelerates.

Meanwhile, negotiators from many developed countries continued Tuesday to try to steer expectations away from the prospect of reaching a legally binding agreement in Denmark this December. Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told Reuters yesterday that a “politically binding agreement” could emerge from Copenhagen, but the final legally binding decisions are outside the realm of possibility for this year. 

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon stated today that, “realistically speaking, we may not be able to have all the words on detailed matters," confirming that much work will be left unfinished at the conclusion of the Copenhagen summit.

In other words, while representatives from the developing world are calling for a strong, science-based treaty to combat climate change and save the poorest and most vulnerable nations from climate catastrophe, wealthy industrialized nations want to substitute lofty politic rhetoric for a commitment to action in Copenhagen.   

“Copenhagen isn’t about creating photo opportunities for politicians,” Tove Ryding of Greenpeace International told reporters Tuesday. “It is about getting an agreement that prevents climate chaos.”

Africa and the rest of the developing world could not agree more. 

The U.S. was largely below the radar screen in Barcelona today, but all that is likely to change tomorrow when delegates hear the news of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s speech pressing Congress to act on climate, and learn the result of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s attempt to mark up the Kerry-Boxer bill despite a GOP boycott.

Stay tuned for more on the fireworks (er, mostly duds) from Barcelona.

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Leaders of the world's richest and fastest-growing economies are pushing for climate action even though their citizens have yet to wake up to the scale of the problem. Above, national leaders pose at the most recent G8 meeting last June in Italy. (White House Photo).Something unusual seems to be happening in the struggle to wake the world up to the reality of climate change. Almost unprecedented for an environmental issue, national leaders appear to be out ahead of public opinion in their respective countries.

President Obama has made climate action one of his top priorities after health care. Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, is spending much of his time trying to lay the grounds for a successful deal at December's climate conference in Copenhagen, while his chief rival, Conservative Party leader David Cameron (expected to succeed him after national elections in the spring) has made combatting global warming a signature issue.

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, an unexpected environmentalist, is backing a carbon tax. The recently reelected German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has long been in the vanguard of moves to tackle climate change. The new Japanese prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, announced a stringent target for carbon cuts as one of his first acts after being elected last month. And Kevin Rudd, Australia's leader, has likewise radically overturned the obstructionist position of his predecessor.

Yet not one of these leaders has been under great pressure from their citizens to get serious about global warming. Though there is plenty of evidence that the majority of people in their countries accept climate change as a reality and think that something should be done to tackle it, there is little sign of an overwhelming demand for urgent action. Indeed, Gordon Brown and his ministers have often privately urged green NGOs to mobilize a mass campaign so as to give them the "political space" to act.

The paradox is even more marked in some rapidly industrializing countries in the developing world, where there is even less sign of popular pressure. Yet, Mexico's president, Felipe Calderon, is preparing a detailed offer to cut the growth in his country's carbon emissions to place on the table in Copenhagen. Hu Jintao, meanwhile, chose to make the first-ever speech by a Chinese president to the UN General Assembly at last month's climate summit.

Even Manmohan Singh, prime minister of the hitherto somewhat recalcitrant India, has ordered a more internationalist approach, telling ministers: "We may not have caused the problem, but we must be part of the solution."

This leadership of the leaders is welcome, but it has its limitations, most obviously in the United States where the constitutional separation of powers makes senators responding to their respective states' interests prove a powerful obstacle. But other countries are not immune from political inaction. The embattled Gordon Brown is getting no measurable political uplift from his work on climate change, while a sympathetic Conservative backbencher says that support for David Cameron's sincere concern is "paper thin" in his parliamentary party.

Yet the leaders surely need not be isolated, for despite a vocal skeptic minority, solid majorities in developed countries, at least, understand that climate change is real, is caused by human activity and requires action.

Eighty-five percent of Britons, polls show, are convinced that global warming is already a threat or will become so soon. Sixty-seven percent of Australians back their government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, even though it has run into trouble in parliament. And 83 percent of Democrats and 53 percent of Republicans in the United States have told pollsters that they believe global warning is already happening.

So why does this not turn into intense political pressure? One reason seems to be that much of the concern is still relatively soft and has not been translated into action even on a personal level. In the United States, one survey found that just 18 percent of respondents were alarmed enough to be doing something in their own lives to address climate change (not bad compared to the 7 percent of outright deniers, but far short of overwhelming). In Britain, only about a third of those concerned said that they thought they did enough personally to address global warming.

Experts point to two apparently contradictory, but not mutually exclusive, reasons for this. The first is that most people do not realize how serious things are, partly because the scientists have not been yelling. "For long we have been reluctant to spell out clearly the true implications of our analysis, instead couching out conclusions as challenging but politically palatable," says Prof. Kevin Anderson of Britain's blue-chip Tyndall Centre for Climate Change. Prof. Clive Hamilton of the Australian National University adds: "There is a widespread belief in the scientific community that the public cannot handle the truth, and so it has been pulling its punches."

The second reason is that people are not sure what they can do, or if any actions will actually make a difference. But there is mounting evidence that changes in behavior come when people get information from a trusted source on what needs to be done, and why it is worthwhile.

National leaders, of course, do know they can make a difference and have been briefed on the true extent of the climate crisis. That may explain why they have leapt out front on this issue. Their countrymen now urgently need to be brought up to speed.

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Angela MerkelPhoto: Bertelsmann StiftungThe climate bill being debated today in the U.S. House represents a "sea change" and "points to the fact that the United States [is] very serious on climate," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel during a visit to the White House this morning. "I wish you every success. ... I would not have thought [it] possible a year ago," she continued.

Speaking at a joint press conference after private talks with Obama, Merkel said the president's work on climate change is laying the groundwork for successful climate-treaty negotiations later this year in Denmark: "I'm very gratified to note that the president feels 100 percent committed to this issue, which has become apparent in all of our talks. He wants to see to it that Copenhagen becomes a success."

Obama reiterated his support for the House climate bill at the press conference: "I think that this legislation that we are seeking to pass indicates enormous progress from where we have been ... I'm very proud of the progress that's being made ... If we can get that framework in place, I'm confident the United States can be an important partner in this process" of international climate negotiations.

From Obama's opening statement:

From Merkel's opening statement (through a translator):

At Obama's press conference earlier this week, the U.S. press corps didn't bother to ask a single question about climate and energy. But at today's event, a German reporter stepped up to the plate with a climate question (also via a translator):

Obama's response:

Merkel's response:

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President Obama was asked a question today on global warming at his press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel:

Q:  And another political issue, if I may. Madam Chancellor, climate change. Germany, Europe are putting concrete targets on the agenda, concrete reduction targets. Will America in the post-Kyoto process be willing to commit itself to concrete reduction targets? Or are you pursuing a different kind of approach, Mr. President, similar to you predecessor in office?

Obama:  In terms of climate change, ultimately the world is going to need targets that it can meet. It can’t be general, vague approaches. We’re going to have to make some tough decisions and take concrete actions if we are going to deal with a potentially cataclysmic disaster. And we are seeing progress in Congress around energy legislation that would set up for the first time in the United States a cap and trade system. That process is moving forward in ways that I think if you had asked political experts two or three months ago would have seemed impossible.

So I’m actually more optimistic than I was about America being able to take leadership on this issue, joining Europe, which over the last several years has been ahead of us on this issue.

As I told Chancellor Merkel, unless the United States and Europe, with our large carbon footprints, per capita carbon footprints, are willing to take some decisive steps, it’s going to be very difficult for us to persuade countries that on a per capita basis at least are still much less wealthy, like China or India, to take the steps that they’re going to need to take in controlling carbon emissions.

So we are very committed to working together and hopeful that we can arrive in Copenhagen having displayed that commitment in concrete ways.

Obama understands that the rich countries must act first — as we agreed in the Rio Treaty of 1992 negotiated by Bush’s father and ratified by the Senate unanimously:

Accordingly, the developed country Parties should take the lead in combating climate change and the adverse effects thereof.

But he also understands we need to get some sort of a deal with China before Copenhagen, which is why he has had his top climate, energy, and science experts negotiating with the Chinese for many months (see “Exclusive: Have China and the U.S. been holding secret talks aimed at a climate deal this fall?“)

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BERLIN, Nov 26 -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged the EU Wednesday not to water down its climate protection goals in the face of a global recession and called for a worldwide deal on slashing CO2 emissions.

"I say here very clearly that I do not believe it would be right to sacrifice the well-founded climate goals of the European Union," Merkel told parliament during a debate on the federal budget.

The EU has fixed an ambitious triple objective for itself to achieve by 2020 the so-called 20-20-20 goals: a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels, bringing renewable energy use up to 20 percent of the total, and an overall cut of 20 percent in energy use.

Merkel originally launched the climate change/energy plan during Germany's EU presidency last year.

"That was our goal and that remains our goal," Merkel said.

A compromise on a binding deal may be reached on the issue during an EU summit in Brussels in mid-December.

The current text calls for some energy-intensive industries to pay for pollution rights starting in 2013.

Nearly 10,000 European firms currently benefit each year from free emissions rights when they exceed authorised pollution levels and some have called for diluting the EU plan until the economic crisis has passed.

Making companies pay for those rights is particularly contested in Germany, which is still home to several heavy industries, in particular the chemicals sector.

An unpublished economy ministry report leaked to the German press Tuesday said Germany could lose more than 100,000 jobs if the EU makes industries pay for pollution rights that are free at present.

Merkel acknowledged that Europe should not hobble itself in international competition considering that "outside Europe there is no (emission-rights) certificates system on a major scale".

"This must be negotiated... so jobs are not endangered," she said.

She said Germany was "pleased" that US president-elect Barack Obama "makes the impression that he is more open to climate protection" than President George W. Bush.

"We will have many opportunities to test that out this year and next year but we of course need an even playing field worldwide," she said.

The Polish city of Poznan will host a UN climate conference from December 1-12 to prepare the ground for talks in Copenhagen in December 2009 to complete a draft international treaty on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

The aim of the international accord, which will be the most complex and ambitious environmental deal ever attempted, is also to channel funds, technology and expertise to poor countries bearing the brunt of climate change.

Copyright 2008 -- Agence France-Presse

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Is Bill McKibben right to be angry with Obama?

From mayors to heads of state, politicians the world over are going green. Check out our list of top achievers, then tell us which political leaders you'd nominate in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

Arnold Schwarzenegger
The Governator has truly pumped up environmental action in California. He made the state a global leader on climate change by signing into law the landmark Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which commits the state to cut its greenhouse-gas emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. He's also done some heavy lifting to clean up new cars and trucks sold in the state, instituted a program to track levels of chemicals in Californians' bodies, and, with other West Coast governors, pledged to protect the health of the Pacific Ocean. It's enough to make us forget Junior -- almost.

Wangari Maathai
Maathai plants seeds both literally and figuratively as the founder of the Green Belt Movement, which promotes peace and good governance through environmental protection and has inspired Kenyans to plant 30 million trees since it began in 1977. A member of the Kenyan Parliament and one-time presidential candidate, she is best known as winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for "her contribution to sustainable development, democracy, and peace."

Ken Livingstone
The left-wing London mayor known as "Red Ken" has a new color in his palette. Aiming to make his city the greenest in the world, he's levied a tax on vehicles entering the city center during normal weekday work hours, cracking down especially hard on SUV drivers. Under his Climate Change Action Plan, London will get 25 percent of its power from more-efficient, local sources and reduce carbon emissions 60 percent within 20 years; in addition, he's pledged about $90 million in the 2008 budget for programs to fight climate change. And that's just the wonky stuff -- Livingstone has also announced plans for a housing development in East London that will produce no carbon emissions.

Helen Clark
Clark, the prime minister of New Zealand, has pledged to make Kiwiland the first carbon-neutral country by reducing emissions and offsetting the rest. New Zealand has started working toward that goal by increasing biofuel production and neutralizing the emissions of six government departments. The race is on!

Marina Silva
Born to a family of rubber tappers in the Brazilian Amazon, Marina Silva went on to graduate from university, found the independent trade-union movement, and gain election to Brazil's federal senate. In 1996, she won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for her activism on behalf of the rainforest and the rubber tappers who make a sustainable living from it. Today, she is Brazil's environment minister and an avid protector of the Amazon. Due in part to her efforts, deforestation of the Brazilian rainforest has decreased by nearly 50 percent in the past two years.

David Cameron
British Conservative Party leader Cameron is challenging the green cred of the more-traditionally environmental Labor Party with his ambitious policy recommendations, which include binding annual targets for cutting carbon emissions, energy decentralization, and "frequent flyer" taxes aimed at restricting aviation. His personal life is nothing to sneeze at either: He rides his bicycle to the House of Commons and grows organic carrots in his garden.

Peter Garrett
Garrett, former frontman for outspoken Australian rock band Midnight Oil, still rocks -- and is still outspoken -- as a member of the Aussie House of Representatives and shadow minister for climate change, environment, heritage, and the arts. His previous gigs will also strike a chord with greens: he spent 10 years as president of the Australian Conservation Foundation and two years on the international board of Greenpeace, and was a founding member of the Surfrider Foundation, an ocean-advocacy group.

Greg Nickels
As mayor of Seattle, Nickels initiated the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, a group of 496 municipal leaders (so far) who have pledged their cities to meet the Kyoto Protocol target of a 7 percent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2012. Participating mayors, who together represent more than 64 million Americans, also urge climate action on the national level. Nickels' local goals include increasing the number of trees in the Emerald City and improving bike and public-transportation options.

Margot Wallström
As environment minister of the European Union from 1999 to 2004, Wallström aggressively sought to boost standards for chemical safety, improve air and water quality, and create detailed action plans on climate change, biodiversity, and resource preservation. She was a leader in convincing every last E.U. member to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in 2002, and an outspoken critic of the U.S.'s failure to ratify. Now, as a vice president of the European Commission, she has been active in creating sustainability reporting guidelines and figuring out how to market Europe's high environmental standards to the rest of the world. Plus, she blogs!

Stephane Dion
Canada's other Dion, the recently elected leader of the Liberal Party, has pledged to unite the quest for a better environment, social justice, and economic growth into a holistic vision of sustainability. Called by one blogger "the environmental candidate for the non-environmentalist," Dion will be in the running to become prime minister of Canada when the nation holds its next election, expected sometime this year. He has proposed tax credits for energy efficiency and pledged to make a concerted effort to meet Kyoto Protocol goals; in fact, he loves Kyoto so much, he named his dog after it. No, really!

Angela Merkel
German chancellor, former environment minister, and current leader of the G8, Merkel is an outspoken advocate for action against climate change. She was a driving force behind a recent E.U. green-energy pact, which established a union-wide goal of using 20 percent renewable energy and cutting carbon emissions 20 percent by 2020, and she pushed with all her might to get George W. Bush to say the U.S. would "consider seriously" a goal of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions 50 percent by 2050. She also acts on her principles by using compact fluorescent light bulbs in her home (though her comment that they're "not quite bright enough" might not have helped the cause).

Barbara Boxer
The chair of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has called climate change "the greatest challenge of our generation" and is a cosponsor of one of the strongest climate bills in Congress. The California Democrat has long been an environmental champion in the Senate, coming out swinging to prevent drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, coauthoring a 2001 law to help clean up and redevelop contaminated industrial land, and leading the charge against toxic gasoline additive MTBE.

Xie Zhenhua
Xie, the Chinese vice minister of state development and reform and the former environment minister, has been a key player in pushing to make China greener. He has promoted environmental protection as a national policy and sustainable practices for China's rapidly expanding economy. His work was honored with the United Nations' Sasakawa Environment Prize in 2003, a monetary award that Xie invested in environmental education in some of the country's poorest areas.

Stavros Dimas
As the European commissioner for the environment, Greece's Dimas has forged plans to cut airline emissions and push new clean-air rules. He also presided over the adoption of REACH, the European Union's groundbreaking chemical regulation system, and he doesn't shy away from criticizing the United States for obstructing action against climate change. Other political leaders have pressed him to stem the steady flow of environmental legislation, but Dimas pushes on.

Rocky Anderson
A green mayor in a "red" state, Salt Lake City's Rocky Anderson has remade his municipality during two terms in office. Anderson outlined a plan to lower the city government's carbon dioxide emissions 21 percent between 2001 and 2012, and met those targets six years ahead of schedule. Salt Lake now has an improved public transit system, including light rail, and requires that new and renovated city-owned or -managed buildings be certified under the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED program.

Eliot Spitzer
Since taking office as New York's governor in January, Spitzer got right to work greening the place up. He's started with a complete retrofitting of the 39-room governor's mansion, overhauling everything from the light bulbs to the lawn mowers, and has his sights set on more state buildings for the next round of greening. Prior to his election, he spent eight years crusading for environmental protection as New York's attorney general, suing the Bush administration numerous times over failure to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions, mercury pollution from power plants, pesticide use in public housing, and efficiency standards for appliances.

Bob Brown
This Australian senator is the leader and co-founder of the Aussie Green Party and has long been a rabble-rouser down under for environmental issues and human rights. In 1983, he was arrested while protesting a dam, spent 19 days in jail, and was elected to the Tasmanian Parliament on the day of his release. More recently, he is involved in a lawsuit against Gunns Limited, an Australian forest-products company seeking to build a pulp mill in Tasmania.

Michael Bloomberg
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled a comprehensive, 25-year sustainability plan on Earth Day this year, aiming, among other things, to reduce the city's greenhouse-gas emissions 30 percent by the year 2030. His numerous green initiatives include switching the city's taxi fleet to hybrids and supporting installation of the world's first free-flow tidal-power turbines off Roosevelt Island. Will the Big Apple soon be known as the Green Apple?

Henry Waxman
This California representative is championing the toughest climate bill in the U.S. House: the Safe Climate Act, introduced in mid-March, which calls for an emissions freeze at 2009 levels and gradual reductions through 2050 to bring the U.S. to 80 percent below 1990 levels. Waxman's been a consistent leader on environmental issues, fighting for pesticide regulations, the Clean Air Act, the Lead Contamination Control Act, and communities' rights to know about pollution levels.

Tell us which green leaders you'd vote for in comments below.

Kate Sheppard contributed to this list.

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