As Copenhagen prepares for December, a strange combination of Christmas lights, clean energy expos, evergreen wreaths, and security barriers have begun to crop up around the city. It's an exciting time to be in Copenhagen reflecting on a year of intense pressure, activity, and engagement around the world.

Over the past several months (and years), a growing movement has coalesced around the conference here next month and it's hard to believe it's finally almost here. In June, the sleepy German town of Bonn saw hundreds of activists descend in the rain upon the normally quiet Subsidiary Bodies negotiations at the UNFCCC's home. Thousands around the world participated in the September 21 Global Wakeup Call. Then in Bangkok in October thousands marched outside the UNESCAP building calling for climate action. October 24th saw the most widespread day of environmental action in the planet's history, spearheaded by 350.org, with over 5,000 events in 181 countries around the world.

And now, rumors of tens of thousands are looming on Copenhagen, including, by my count so far, at least 15 Heads of State who have committed to attending the talks (although Yvo de Boer said in Barcelona that he expects at least 40). [UPDATE: The AP is reporting a Danish official has suggested 65 Heads of State are planning on attending as of Sunday the 22nd of November.]

The last time I wrote, it was a dark and gloomy day in Copenhagen. But today was beautiful -- the sun was out, the weather warm, and the bustle on the street was electric.

The last time I wrote, I was convincing myself, and others, that all was not lost for December. Now, on this bright and sunny day, I'm as convinced as ever that world leaders can achieve an ambitious outcome in Copenhagen if they try.

Even in the past week, we've seen movement around the world. The Alliance of Small Island states continue to raise its collective voice of conscience against a weak outcome in Copenhagen. We've heard that the Chinese would be willing to bring a number to the table in Copenhagen. We've seen South Korea confirm a voluntary emissions reduction target of 30 percent below business as usual by 2020. The European Union has said that it would like a binding agreement in Copenhagen. France and Brazil came out with a "climate bible" -- an agreement between two nations to work together on climate change. This follows Brazil's previous announcement of voluntary emissions cuts of 36-39% by 2020 below business as usual in a "political gesture" some weeks ago.

Even the Danish government, which had caused so many hearts to sink with its proposal of a "politically binding" outcome in Copenhagen, seemed to change its tune ... if only just a bit. The Danish Minister for Climate and Energy, Connie Hedegaard (who will chair the negotiations in December), spoke in a press briefing at the close of the preparatory meeting last week, assuring the world that her aim is a legally binding outcome from the negotiations.

Finally, eyes continue to focus on the U.S. In the joint announcement between the U.S. and China, President Obama indicated his team could bring further commitments to the table in Copenhagen. As Copenhagen creeps towards December, the question remains, will Obama come to Copenhagen? And if so, will he come bearing gifts ... or a lump of coal?

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The U.S.-India climate ‘partnership’

A version of this post was originally published on the website of the Center for Public Integrity and is reposted on Grist with CPI's kind permission.

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It is said that borders don't matter to the atmosphere -- all nations have to work together to tackle the problem of climate change.

But the forces that seek to block that effort likewise know no national boundaries. They're rallying coal miners in Appalachia, stirring up aluminum workers in Australia, and slowing renewable energy in China. They're using their exalted position in Indian society to discourage the government from making international commitments. In Brazil, they're not giving up free rein over rainforest land without a fight.

Their handiwork will be evident as negotiators from 192 nations gather in Copenhagen this December to forge the most important environmental treaty ever. There is no question negotiators face a daunting task: to reduce the pollution from the burning of oil, coal, and gas that has fueled economic development since the Industrial Revolution. But their difficult job has been made overwhelming by the tactics wielded the world over by powers rooted in the economy of the past.

In the United States, there has been the well-orchestrated rallying of "grassroots" opposition to climate legislation. Coal millionaire Don Blankenship, chief executive of Massey Energy, is an outlier in the public debate as a vigorous global warming denier.  But his message at a West Virginia rally he organized, that "environmental extremists and corporate America are both trying to destroy your jobs," is a real factor on Capitol Hill. ­­The Senate bill now in play has no hope of passage without winning votes in the economically struggling coal states and coal-dependent industrial Midwestern states.

The message is strikingly similar in an Australian port town known both as a gateway to the Great Barrier Reef and a smokestack industry haven. Russian aluminum billionaire Oleg Deripaska, with a big stake in a refinery there, has lobbyists battling that nation's climate change plan as "destructive for jobs, destructive for new and existing investment." Such arguments helped defeat climate legislation in the Australia in August.  The business lobby has to be strong to slow climate policy in the hottest and driest inhabited continent, amid a years-long drought that contributed to deadly wildfires while it watches its climate-stressed tourism jewel, the Great Barrier Reef, on course to be "functionally extinct."

Pressure from old-line business interests may be more transparent in the United States and Australia, but forces also are determined to put on the brakes in the developing world. In China, for instance, wind turbines rising against Xinjian Province mountains have become an iconic image of a growing clean energy commitment. The government's goal is to achieve 20 percent renewable power by 2020, on the road to which it has doubled its installed wind power in each of the past four years. But China is also building coal plants so fast that it still gets just 1 percent of electricity from wind. Only one of the top 10 power companies-all state-owned enterprises-will meet the government's interim goal of 3 percent renewables by 2010. The power company executives, all quasi-governmental officials, have resisted proposals to help renewables by raising the price of coal. "There don't need to be ‘lobbyists' when discussions can happen directly through the Party," says Beijing-based political commentator Zhao Jing.

The approach is less subtle elsewhere. For example, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva recently offered to reduce the pace of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest -- one of the world's most important natural absorbers of carbon dioxide -- by 80 percent by 2020.  But Carlos Minc, Lula's environment minister, has faced an onslaught from the agriculture industry and its allies in elected office who balk at curbs on land use. One governor even threatened him with rape. "Many of those industries talk about zero deforestation, but when we press them they want to kill us," he says. "They call me to speak in the Senate or the House and I stay for five hours under a massacre. They're favorable to zero deforestation, provided it doesn't affect ... their own land."

The 1997 Kyoto treaty on climate change was marked by the decision that developing countries, where millions of people still lived without electricity, would not have binding obligations to reduce emissions. The burden of making cuts would fall first, instead, on the countries that grew wealthy in fossil-fueled economies. But the way Kyoto dealt with the rich-poor divide remains a political stumbling block in the United States. And since the International Energy Agency projects that 97 percent of the increase in global emissions between now and 2030 will come from developing countries, hopes have been high that negotiators of the successor treaty at Copenhagen would find a new way to bridge the gap between past and future engines of the climate problem.

But the principle that developing countries shouldn't have binding treaty obligations is dearly held by businesses that have the ear of government in those nations. In Delhi, India, Bharat Wakhlu, resident director of the powerful Tata Group -- that nation's largest business conglomerate with nearly 100 companies from power generation to autos -- says the company recognizes it has a role in addressing global warming. But, he added, "We believe in a ‘common but differentiated' approach, as we have to retain our competitiveness as well as ensure the planet is safe." In United Nations climate change lingo, "common but differentiated" is a shorthand reference to just one key differentiation -- only wealthy nations have obligations.

Juan C. Mata Sandoval, Mexico's top climate official and a negotiator for Copenhagen, is frank that one of the business lobby's chief concerns has been that his nation remain a "non-Annex 1" country-one without required emissions cuts. "We need to communicate with them constantly," he said. "The private sector also wants a voice and an opinion on how much is Mexico going to put on the table."

But in its own way, Mexico-like China, India, and Brazil -- is addressing climate change. Mexico has a national climate change plan with 86 specific goals it says will slow the growth of its carbon emissions. In absolute terms, Mexico's carbon output would still rise in the short term, but the country also has mapped out a long-term pathway to reduce its emissions-if it receives technical and financial support from developed countries.

Many see these types of developments as cause for optimism, even while conventional wisdom says the Copenhagen talks are on a path toward stalemate. "All the major economies are prepared to lay down significant low-carbon development plans," U.S. climate negotiator Todd Stern said at a recent U.S.-India energy forum in Washington. "This is big news. It's never happened before. It's important stuff."

But that headline hasn't registered. Instead, the prevailing view is much more likely to be that of Brian Flannery, climate guru for energy giant ExxonMobil. "The only way to get to these low [emissions] levels is for the whole world to act together with common targets and a common carbon price," he said in an interview at run-up negotiations in Bangkok in October, where he was a registered observer for the International Chamber of Commerce. "We're not going to have everyone with the same target, the same price on carbon ... It does raise fundamental questions about whether the negotiating process should aspire to unachievable targets and work in an area of confrontation and dismay, or try to work towards achievable targets."

It's hard to tell how much lower the targets need to go for fossil-fuel stalwarts. No developed country has set an unconditional goal of reducing emissions 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 -- the short-term target the U.N.-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said would be necessary to achieve stabilization.

Given the power of industry lobbying, advocates for climate progress see their best hope as the growing number of businesses that support action. Dan Reicher, director of energy initiatives at Google, who was a member of President Barack Obama's transition team, is confident a plan can gain support in the U.S. Congress, if it has plenty of business flexibility and opportunity. But he is under no illusions it will be easy. At a recent conference in Washington on energy efficiency -- a pursuit Google aims to advance by providing people real-time home electricity information -- Reicher summed up the climate change politics succinctly: "This is going to be an epic, epic struggle."

This story is part of The Global Climate Change Lobby, a project by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. ICIJ correspondents Christina Larson in Beijing, Fernando Rodrigues and Marcelo Soares in Sao Paulo, Marian Wilkinson in Sydney, and Kate Willson in Bangkok contributed to this report.

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This is really the first year since the launch in 2006 that the blog seems appropriately named!   AFP reports:

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Tuesday he will offer to reduce the pace of deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rain forest by 80 percent by 2020 when he attends December’s global climate talks in Copenhagen. Lula said his pledge will come during high-stakes talks in the Danish capital that aim to push 192 nations towards a climate deal to succeed the landmark Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

“We’re in the process of preparing our proposal for Copenhagen,” Lula said on his weekly radio program, Coffee with the President.  “I foresee that by 2020 we will be able to reduce deforestation by 80 percent; in other words, we will emit some 4.8 billion fewer tons of carbon dioxide gas.”

Brazil’s rain forest, the largest on Earth, is shrinking at the rate of some 12,000 square kilometers (or 7456.454 miles) per year because of deforestation.

The world appears to be coming together to finally address deforestation, one of the biggest single contributor to climate change:

This is going to cost money, of course, and the developing countries quite naturally expect the rich countries — which grew rich generating the overwhelming majority of cumulative GHG emissions and cutting down their own forests — and oftentimes directly or indirectly financing the deforestation of poorer countries:

Lula said he will also demand in Copenhagen that industrialized countries pay their fair share of the costs of reducing greenhouse gases. Proposals offered by developed countries should not only cover “initiatives to reduce their emissions, but all the other harm they already have inflicted on the planet,” the Brazilian leader said.

“We have to draw a line between rich countries, which have a had an industrial policy in place for more than 150 years, and the poor ones which only now are beginning to develop,” he said.

“With respect to global warming, the responsibility of the rich countries is much greater than that of emerging countries,” said Lula.

But, the good news is that stopping deforestation is one of the most cost-effective, near-term strategies for addressing climate change:

Another good piece of news is that the House climate and clean energy bill allocates a great deal of money to this international effort:

The key will be to ensure that the Senate bill — and the final bill that gets to Obama’s desk next year — keeps these provisions.

Kudos to Brazil for putting this strong commitment on the table.

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Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Tuesday he will offer to reduce the pace of deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rain forest by 80 percent by 2020 when he attends December's global climate talks in Copenhagen.

Lula said his pledge will come during high-stakes talks in the Danish capital that aim to push 192 nations towards a climate deal to succeed the landmark Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

"We're in the process of preparing our proposal for Copenhagen," Lula said on his weekly radio program, Coffee with the President.  "I foresee that by 2020 we will be able to reduce deforestation by 80 percent; in other words, we will emit some 4.8 billion fewer tons of carbon dioxide gas."

Brazil's rain forest, the largest on Earth, is shrinking at the rate of some 12,000 square kilometers (or 7456.454 miles) per year because of deforestation.

Lula said he will also demand in Copenhagen that industrialized countries pay their fair share of the costs of reducing greenhouse gases. Proposals offered by developed countries should not only cover "initiatives to reduce their emissions, but all the other harm they already have inflicted on the planet," the Brazilian leader said.

"We have to draw a line between rich countries, which have a had an industrial policy in place for more than 150 years, and the poor ones which only now are beginning to develop," he said.

"With respect to global warming, the responsibility of the rich countries is much greater than that of emerging countries," said Lula.

Related Links:

China, India, US Commit to Seal Copenhagen Deal

Chuck Norris on Copenhagen

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Dearest Readers,

Today brings news -- oh, and wildly spreading it is -- of an ad campaign in Brazil aimed at convincing people to save water by peeing in the shower. Here is the video, and here is the website, if you are seeking extra credit for your Portuguese skills (beware, it starts with a series of yes-or-no questions).

Great minds think alike: Just two weeks ago, I made a video advising shower-peeing as a water-saving, money-saving step (see below). And my whiz-dom extends even further back: it was a bit more than two years ago that I first addressed this trickly topic in my column.

So you see, dearest readers, the international impact of my gentle advice is untold. More to the point: Pee is the universal language! So don't be afraid to go with the flow.

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International climate negotiations often seem like some sort of cosmic science fair project -- an aquarium full of hamsters connected to rudimentary motors. There's a lot of frantic running, a lot of sweat and heat, but in the end, very little light.

Faith in the UN climate process has dimmed. Joe Romm calls it a "dead man walking." The Copenhagen talks in December are generally discussed with the same dissonant mixture of urgency ("You have to do it in Copenhagen," says UNFCCC chair Yvo de Boer) and fatalism ("There is no movement," says German environment minister Sigmar Gabriel) as the last dozen rounds of international talks.

The Obama administration knows the danger of sclerosis and is working on several fronts to regain a sense of momentum. A good bit of that work will happen during this busy week, which will take the president to Russia to meet with President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin; he'll deliver a major speech on U.S.-Russia relations today. On Wednesday, he heads to Italy for the latest meeting of the G8 countries (US, France, UK, Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada). On Thursday, on the sidelines of the G8, Obama will convene a meeting of the Major Economies Forum (the G8 plus Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa). On Friday he'll head to Ghana and on Saturday he'll deliver a major speech on development and democracy.

At all these events the issue of climate change will play a role. All will reveal something about the Obama administration's approach to international climate negotiations.

The Grand Plan

International climate negotiations have primarily been channeled through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, but many in the international community are losing faith in that process, or at least in its monopoly on negotiations. Getting 192 countries to sign on to a meaningful treaty is nigh impossible; the lowest common denominator among 192 wildly diverse countries turns out to be pretty damn low.

Oddly, it was the Bush administration that first saw a way around the thicket. In May 2007 it announced a series of Major Economies Meetings on climate and energy security. The idea was that the largest greenhouse gas emitters could more easily find areas of agreement working directly with one another, and that what consensus they could find would help break the logjam in the UNFCCC process.

The sincerity of Bush's effort was widely doubted -- he (in)famously advocated for purely voluntary measures -- but the basic wisdom of the strategy is apparent to, among others, the Obama administration. In fact Obama seems to be taking it even farther, working not only with smaller groups like the Major Economies Forum (MEF) and the G8, but bilaterally with other large emitters. What shape these smaller deals take could vary, from shared targets to technology R&D agreements, but again, the idea is to show that big emitters are finally acting, taking real steps. This will, it is hoped, cut through the Gordian you-go-first knot sure to bedevil the Copenhagen climate talks.

The strategy began with Todd Stern's initial efforts in China, but "you can definitely say we are looking for other partners," an administration official said.

Russia

Most members of the international community had written Russia off when it comes to climate change. It grudgingly ratified Kyoto back in 2004, serving as the crucial final signatory needed to put the treaty into effect. But since then it's focused on nothing but often dirty and inefficient means of expanding its economy. Just last month, in what many interpreted as a thumb in the eye of the UN process, it announced a "climate plan" that would increase its greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2020.

The reason Russia, a Kyoto signatory, can grow its emissions so heedlessly is that emission baselines for the UN process were set at 1990 levels. Of course in 1992 Russia's economy cratered, and with it the country's emissions. The damage was so great that the economy would need to grow substantially to meet a target of 10-15% below 1990 levels by 2020 -- and that's what it plans to do.

Most observers expected Obama to focus exclusively on arms control and the financial crisis when he goes to Russia, since progress on climate seems so hopeless. But as The Guardian reports, the administration fully intends to forge a deal on joint climate action. It's been pulling its ideas from a new report from the Center on American Progress.

The goal is to coax Russia into accepting strong sticks (mandatory targets at the Copenhagen talks) by offering it carrots. One is help entering carbon trading markets. The country is thought to be sitting on some 1.9 billion euros worth of carbon credits -- one of the main reasons it signed Kyoto -- but the government does not have the capacity or infrastructure to monitor emissions and approve projects. The U.S. could help with that, since it has considerable experience with such markets.

The other carrot is efficiency. Russia's energy intensity -- energy use per unit of GDP -- is twice America's, and the highest among the world's high energy consuming countries. Targeted exchange of efficiency technology and know-how could not only bend Russia's emissions curve but make its economy more productive. It's a win-win, but again, the government needs help. (Interestingly, Russia just announced that it will ban some incandescent lights by 2011.)

No big U.S.-Russia agreements on climate are expected this week, but Monday saw the introduction of a working group on energy, formed as part of a high-level bilateral commission created out of the summit. Steven Chu will chair the group on the US side.

G8 + MEF

The MEF is a smaller group of countries than the full UNFCCC, but it's still large and diverse, and there are enormous challenges in the way of getting a substantive agreement this week. Here are a few:

China + India

The overwhelming short-term priorities for developing countries are poverty reduction and economic development, driven in part by coal-based power. That's why China and India have both recently signaled that they will not commit to any binding GHG reduction targets. No, seriously, they won't. Says Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh, “India will not accept any emissions targets -- period. It is the bottom line; a non-negotiable stand. This is not something that India is going to budge on, under any circumstances." OK then!

Both countries (India; China) have also recently expressed ostentatious outrage about the possibility that the United States will impose "carbon tariffs" on imported goods. (A border adjustment provision was inserted in the Waxman-Markey bill before it passed the House.) Developing countries warn of an incipient trade war. Of course, as John Kemp points out, the provisions in the bill are not actually carbon tariffs but "carefully structured as import permits specifically to ensure they are consistent with World Trade Organisation rules." And sure enough, the WTO has signaled that the import permits are legal. China and India fear them.

Obama has spoken publicly against the border adjustments, but as Brad Plumer notes, it's helpful to have that stick in hand to make the carrots look better. (Todd Stern didn't have it when he went to China early last month.)

Of course China is hardly sitting on its hands. It's green stimulus package was both larger and greener than America's. Just this month it boosted its renewable energy targets to 15% by 2020. It looks set to swamp the U.S. in both wind and solar investment this year; between now and 2020, it's expected to spend more on renewables and nuclear than on oil and coal.

The central government has established the State Council's Expert Panel on Climate Change Policy to work on energy development plans that will involve trillions in investment. "Roughly, we need to spend an extra 1 trillion yuan every year to raise energy efficiency," said panel member Bai Quan. Just as importantly, maybe more so, it announced that regional government officials will be judged by reductions in carbon intensity instead of purely by economic growth. Getting career bureaucrats on board is essential to making sure the central planners' schemes become reality. The green shift is dispersing into rural areas as well.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke will head to China later this month to talk turkey. Says Chu, "It's in our interest and China's to explore ways to cooperate for our mutual benefit--by promoting renewable energy, encouraging energy efficiency and cutting pollution." Chu's assistant secretary David Sandalow is hosting a high-level discussion on engaging China on CCS this Thursday in D.C.; a second, focused on finance and political barriers, will happen soon thereafter.

You can imagine Chu announcing a splashy post-combustion CCS development project, or an investment in solar thermal projects, in exchange for back-channel agreements on a timeline for the country to accept hard emission reductions targets (and back off on border adjustment fussing).

What's next

Japan and Brazil are among the other countries with which Obama may pursue bilateral deals, possibly before Copenhagen. The big sticking point with Brazil is avoided deforestation. They don't want it paid for via carbon credits, through the Reduced Emissions through Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) program -- they want it paid for with cold hard cash (so old-fashioned!). So far, no one except Norway is biting.

If all goes well -- an enormous if, of course -- the U.S. negotiating team arrive at Copenhagen with a web of bi- and multi-lateral side deals on clean energy technology sharing, adaptation research, development assistance, trade deals, and more. The world's biggest polluters will arrive with agreements in hand. Developing countries will see signs of real movement on the part of developed nations and soften their rigid opposition to targets.

And out of it all will come a stronger, more robust climate treaty, scaffolded by the self-interest of the many countries invested in side deals premised on continued international action.

That's the hope anyway. Needless to say: domestic achievements notwithstanding, if Obama can pull it off he'll be assured of a place in history.

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Big media struggles with how - or even whether - to explain to the public that the increase in extreme weather we are seeing is precisely what scientists have been predicting would occur because of human-caused climate change (see, for instance, "CNN, ABC, WashPost, AP, blow Australian wildfire, drought, heatwave "Hell (and High Water) on Earth" story - never mention climate change").

But the AP and the Washington Times has explained quite well (here) the likely source of Brazil's double punch - brutal drought followed by brutal flooding, Hell and High Water:

Across the Amazon basin, river dwellers are adding new floors to their stilt houses, trying to stay above rising floodwaters that have killed 48 people and left 405,000 homeless.

Flooding is common in the world's largest remaining tropical wilderness, but this year the waters rose higher and stayed longer than they have in decades, leaving some fruit trees entirely submerged.

The surprise isn't just the record flooding, it's that the flooding followed record droughts:

Only four years ago, the same communities suffered an unprecedented drought that ruined crops and left mounds of river fish flapping and rotting in the mud.

Experts suspect global warming may be driving wild climate swings that appear to be punishing the Amazon with increasing frequency.

The BBC also got the story right last month, "Experts say global warming may be behind the wild climate swings that have brought periods of unprecedented droughts and flooding to the Amazon in recent years."

Interestingly, the same exact swings in extreme weather hit Louisiana in 2005, as I wrote in my book Hell and High Water:

While the U.S. suffered a record-smashing hurricane season that deluged southern Louisiana with rain in the summer of 2005, "the eight months since October 1, 2005 have been the driest in 111 years of record-keeping" in southern Louisiana, the U.S. National Climatic Data Center reported in July 2006.

What makes the AP and the Washington Times story on Brazil so unusual is not only that the Times is a right-wing newspaper, but that the story continues with an extended discussion of the climate issue:

It's "the $1 million question," said Carlos Nobre, a climatologist with Brazil's National Institute for Space Research.

While a definitive answer will take years of careful study, climatologists say the world should expect more extreme weather in the years ahead. Already, what happens in the Amazon could be affecting rainfall elsewhere, from Brazil's agricultural heartland to the U.S. grain belt, as rising ocean temperatures and rainforest destruction cause shifts in global climate patterns.

"It's important to note that it's likely that these types of record-breaking climate events will become more and more frequent in the near future," Mr. Nobre said. "So we all have to brace for more extreme climate in the near future: It's not for the next generation"...

"Something is telling us to be more careful with the planet. Changes are happening around the world, and we're seeing them as well in Brazil," President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said this month on his radio program....

"I think we should be preparing for this to become more the norm, and there's a need to look at what the future Amazon will look like," said Daniel Nepstad, a tropical forest ecologist and chief program officer for the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation's environmental conservation program.

Of course, no story would be complete without some "balance," some reply to the climate scientists:

"We are used to floods and droughts and know how to coexist with them, but we are not used to them happening so swiftly and lasting so long and causing so much damage," said schoolteacher Gleicimeire Freire, who distributes aid with the Roman Catholic Church. "This is what is scaring us."

In southern Rio Grande do Sul state, bordering Argentina and Uruguay, many farmers say the driest weather in 80 years has withered their corn and alfalfa. Winter grass for cattle couldn't be planted, and milk production has suffered, said Darcisio Perondo, a congressman who represents the state.

"In some villages there wasn't enough water for people to drink, and in some towns they had to get water from the large rivers and tote it by truck for the cattle," Mr. Perondo said.

He called the situation a calamity, but isn't sure whether global warming is to blame.

"Anyone who reads the Bible knows that floods and droughts are cyclical," he said. "I just don't know if global warming is causing this."

Still, this is an excellent story overall. Kudos to the AP and the Washington Times for informing the public as to what we face on our business as usual emissions path.

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City preps and countries posture ahead of Copenhagen talks

These boots are made for ... trampling the rainforest? A lot of eco-minded folks these days generally know where their food comes from. They'd never walk into a supermarket and plunk an anonymous ribeye into their cart. They understand the tremendous greenhouse-gas footprint of beef; if they consume it at all, they do so sparingly, buying directly from nearby farmers who manage their land well.

But what about shoes? What about dog chew toys--and car interiors? Leather furniture? Food is only one part of our material culture that comes from agriculture. And these other agricultural products, too, emerge from processes that are hidden from view for a reason: if we knew where the stuff came from, if we understood its impact on the Earth, we'd reject it.

That's the point of an excellent new Greenpeace report on cattle production in the Brazilian Amazon.

Titled "Slaughtering the Amazon," the report is really about the perils of using state policy to prop up global, corporate-dominated trade. Three clear themes emerge:

• The expansion of cattle production in Brazil drives Amazon deforestation--and deforestation in turn drives climate change. "The cattle sector in the Brazilian Amazon is the largest driver of deforestation in the world, responsible for one in every eight hectares destroyed," the report states. " Moreover, "globally, tropical forest destruction is responsible for around 20% of global GHG emissions."

• The Brazilian government and the World Bank actively support the expansion of the nation's cattle sector. Brazil already boasts the globe's largest cattle herd and the highest share of beef exports, and is tied with China as the number-one leather exporter. As part of its policy of promoting export-led growth, the government hopes to see its share of the global beef-produtcs market double within the next decade, Greenpeace reports. And it's backing that goal with cash:

In July 2008, Brazil's president lula announced the 2008/2009 Agricultural and livestock plan, which made available $41 billion in credit lines to boost agricultural and livestock production. 85% of this credit was designated for corporate agriculture.

Moreover, the government invested $2.65 billion between 2007 and 2009 in three gigantic beef processors that Greenpeace has found to buy cattle from illegal operations on deforested rainforest land.

Meanwhile, the World Bank's International Financial Corporation gave a $90 million loan to one of those processors, Bertin, to expand a slaughterhouse "in one of the most high-risk regions of the Amazon," Greenpeace states.

Both the World Bank and the Brazilian government deplore deforestation and trumpet measures to stop it. The official line is that the nation can dramatically expand cattle production without mowing down another inch of rainforest. The Greenpeace report exposes that ideal as a fantasy. Indeed, before doling out the $90 million loan, a World Bank auditor declared that the project "poses a grave risk to the environment and to the Bank's reputation," Greenpeace reports. Evidently, the ideology that "developing nations" like Brazil must gear their economies to export-led growth trumped those concerns.

• The real beneficiaries of such policies are not Brazilians. Indeed, labor conditions on Amazonian cattle farms are harrowing--and often tantamount to slavery, Greenpeace shows. Rather, it's the companies that buy the products cheap and sell them dear. Greenpeace demonstrates that rainforest leather ends up in the high-end luxury cars of automakers Honda, Toyota, and BMW; in the shoes of Clark's (of which I own a pair), Timberland, and Nike; in the high-fashion products of Prada and other Italian design houses; and in the furniture of Ikea.

There is a role for consumer choice in stopping this process. But we also need new ideas at Washington-based institutions like the World Bank and the IMF. The idea of of constructing a global economy based on large-scale, corporate-led trade is looking increasingly discredited. Building economies that work for people in places like Brazil would decrease pressure on the rainforest--and slow the pace of global warming.

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The U.S. Chamber needs to get its story straight

Dr. Bill Chameides is the dean of Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He blogs at HuffingtonPost.com and his own GreenGrok.com, which is certainly worth reading.

He just posted “Impressions from National Academies Climate Summit,” in which he drops a bombshell quote from Eileen Claussen, head of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. But Chameides treats the quote as if it were just another piece of the puzzle, rather than a stunning revelation of a lack of understanding of climate science — assuming the quote is accurate. Here is what he blogged:

“Binding targets for the developing nations is [sic] out of the question.”

– Eileen Claussen, President, Pew Center on Global Climate Change

Without emission policies in the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), it will be impossible to keep the CO2 concentration below 650 [parts per million].”

– Lorents Lorentsen, Chief, Environment Directorate, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

(Note that many scientists believe that CO2 concentrations must be held at or below 450 ppm.)

“How we [Americans] move [on climate] will determine the international direction. To lead, we must act.”

– Eileen Claussen

Addressing the problem of climate change requires virtually every nation to curb their greenhouse gas emissions, but international action is unlikely without U.S. action. Yet, for many U.S. lawmakers, international commitments are essential before the United States acts.

Chameides’s final paragraph lays out the political dilemma that I named Chapter Nine of my book after: “The U.S.-China Suicide Pact on Climate.”

But Claussen’s first quote is a bombshell — completely untenable from a policy or scientific perspective, assuming she means to include China in “developing nations.” And if she meant binding targets for the developing nations are out of the question at Copenhagen this year, then Chameides needs to say so. Indeed, as written, the quote really makes no sense since it gives no timeframe whatsoever, suggesting that developing countries could never agree to binding targets, which is patently fatal to human civilization.

Dr. Chameides: I do not grok Claussen’s quote — literally!

From a scientific perspective and a climate policy perspective, one can make a some strong and unequivocal statements. From a scientific perspective, we have no chance to stabilize CO2 concentrations anywhere near 450 ppm (let alone 350), if China does not agree to cap its carbon emissions by 2020 (see “Must-read IEA report explains what must be done to avoid 6°C warming“). Indeed, China must agree to a CO2 cap by 2020 that is not at levels that represent simply a continuation of their CO2 growth rate in the first part of this decade (see “China announces plan to single-handedly finish off the climate“).

Every single major international policymaker — and China’s leaders — must come to understand that and quickly.
Yes, the United States and the rich countries are responsible for the vast majority of cumulative emissions and must agree to reduce their CO2 emissions by 80% to 90% by 2050, with real cuts starting no later than 2020. But all that action would be utterly vitiated by China’s inaction.

Brazil and Indonesia don’t need binding targets anytime soon so much as they need a global deal to generate enough funding to stop their deforestation. And India may eventually catch up to China’s rapacious pace of emissions growth and will eventually need a binding target.

But nobody could have imagined China’s staggering rate of growth in coal use and CO2 emissions this decade. That growth makes China nothing like traditional developing countries like South Africa or Kenya — and it must be treated differently if humanity is to avoid self-destruction. As I wrote in Salon (click here):

China is in a special category by itself. It has announced plans to spend more than half a trillion dollars on an economic stimulus and infrastructure plan. It is a hyper-developing country, with vast amounts of capital in key advanced technologies, including wind and solar.

As a matter of U.S. politics, if China won’t agree to some sort of a binding target, then there is zero chance of getting 67 votes in the U.S. Senate for a global treaty — and little chance of even getting 51 votes (see “Should Obama push a climate bill in 2009 or 2010? Part I, Does a serious bill need action from China?“).

I also think it is rather obvious that if China simply refuses to agree to any strong emissions constraint sometime during Obama’s (hopefully) two terms in office, than even assuming we do pass a domestic climate bill in the next year, the political support for the kind of carbon dioxide prices needed to achieve meaningful reductions by 2020 would just fade away.

I do not want to be misunderstood here: It is more than reasonable to argue, as I have repeatedly, that the US should work hard to pass a bill first — and such a bill may be the key to unlocking Chinese action. But whether or not Obama needs some action by China to get a U.S. bill passed, his entire presidency and the fate of the planet rest on whether he can in fact get a China deal (see “What will make Obama a great president, Part 2: A climate deal with China“). Absent a binding Chinese target, you can plan to buy beachfront property in Baton Rouge.

So I think Claussen and/or Chameides need to clarify what she said and what she meant.

As an aside, the comments of Lorents Lorentsen, Chief, Environment Directorate, OECD are a tad worrying. Is he seriously thinking that humanity can tolerate 650 ppm? And does he really believe that it is even possible to stabilize at 650 ppm — that such warming won’t destroy much of the tundra and lead to amplifying carbon cycle feedbacks that quickly take us to 1000 ppm? If so, he should read “An introduction to global warming impacts: Hell and High Water.”

Note to Lorents: It is 350 to 450 ppm — or bust!

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

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What struck me in Frances Moore Lappé's piece at Yes! on Belo Horizonte, Brazil -- the city that ended hunger -- was how simple the solution was:

And the cost? $10 million for a city of 2.5 million. Granted, that figure isn't adjusted for US purchasing power -- but it represented a mere 2 percent of the city budget (and Belo probably has a much smaller/simpler budget than NYC). Also, note the focus on school lunches (sound familiar?) and the way the city directly subsidized purchases of fruit and vegetables.

Granted, Belo's efforts focus on malnutrition, while we in the developed world must attack the two-headed monster of hunger AND obesity. On the other hand, Belo's policies would likely conquer both. Still, this Brazilian city provides hard evidence that you can address underlying social ills when you localize urban food systems and promote healthy eating. That is very good news indeed.

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WASHINGTON—The World Bank said Thursday it has approved $1.3 billion for environmental and climate projects in Brazil, focused on fighting deterioration of the Amazon rain forest and renewable energy sources.

The World Bank said its board of directors approved Thursday the 1.3 billion dollar loan to the Brazilian government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in support of pro-environment efforts.

The program is aimed at “supporting Brazil’s ongoing efforts to improve its environmental management system and integrate sustainability concerns in the development agenda of key sectors such as forest management, water and renewable energy,” the Washington-based development lender said in a statement.

The initiative also was intended to integrate the South American giant’s climate change agenda across sectors, it said.

The loan will be disbursed in two installments: $800 million immediately and $500 million on condition the program meets evaluation criteria through 2010.

“This will promote the sustainable management of agricultural lands, forests and water resources; reduce deforestation in the Amazon; reduce the environmental degradation of land, water and other resources which are key determinants of the well-being of the poor; and promote renewable energy,” the 185-nation institution said.

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Working to save Brazil’s rainforests, as well as its land, air, and water is a dangerous pursuit, putting at least 260 environmental and human-rights activists at risk of assassination, according to a new report by the Catholic Land Commission. The report’s release coincides with the 20th anniversary of the assassination of activist Chico Mendes, who worked to preserve Brazil’s rainforests and unionize rubber tappers.

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BRASILIA, Dec. 1, 2008 (AFP) -- The Brazilian government on Monday announced a plan under which it would cut deforestation of the Amazon by 70 percent over the next decade.

It is the first time Brazil, home to the largest area of tropical woodland on the planet, has set a target for reducing the damage wreaked by illegal loggers and ranchers.

Environment Minister Carlos Minc unveiled the initiative in the presence of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and said it would be formally presented at a U.N. climate change conference underway this week in Poland.

"Just in terms of avoided deforestation in the Amazon, the plan foresees a reduction of 4.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide that won't be emitted up to 2018 -- which is more than the reduction efforts fixed by all the rich countries," Minc said.

The minister said Brazil hopes to use the plan to "increase the number of contributors to the Amazon Fund" launched last August which aims to collect money from around the world to fight deforestation.

Copyright 2008 -- Agence France-Presse

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A mob of some 3,000 people trashed a government office in Paragominas, Brazil, on Monday to protest the government's crackdown on illegal logging. Environment Minister Carlos Minc says the riot will not deter anti-logging efforts.

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A new $5 billion hydroelectric dam now under construction on a tributary of the Amazon River in Brazil will seriously mess with the area's unique environment and wildlife and displace thousands of indigenous residents, critics say. Up to 3,000 families will be displaced when the dam's reservoir floods, and the project will also likely affect over 450 species of fish, many of which are important to the area's fishing industry. "It's extremely depressing to think that they're going to be able to build this dam," said Glenn Switkes of International Rivers. "This is an area that is one of the world's hotbeds of biodiversity." Nevertheless, the Santo Antonio dam is just one of some 70 dam projects planned for Brazil's Amazon basin region through 2030, including one that would be the world's third-largest dam. Despite heavy criticism, Brazilian officials say the country's planned hydroelectric frenzy is fueled in part by concerns about carbon emissions from power plants. "[I]f you don't do hydroelectric plants, you'll have to do thermo-electric plants with carbon and oil," said Environment Minister Carlos Minc.

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The 100 individuals or companies most responsible for Amazon deforestation since 2005 were listed Monday by Brazilian Environment Minister Carlos Minc, and Brazil's own land-reform agency took the top spot. The Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform was said to be culpable for the deforestation of 850 square miles of Amazon rainforest in the last three years. Everyone on the list, most of whom are Brazilian farmers and ranchers, will face criminal charges, according to Minc. Satellite data show that Amazon deforestation is up sharply after a few years of decline: At least 300 square miles was destroyed in August 2008, compared to about 90 square miles in August 2007. Rising food prices have incentivized soy farmers and cattle ranchers to clear forested land, and with elections coming up, officials say mayors in the Amazon region are going easy on illegal loggers in hopes of gaining votes. It all makes for an uphill battle for Minc's ambitious goal to end net Amazon deforestation entirely by 2015.

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Brazil's president has unveiled plans to protect a large area of the Amazon rainforest, after weeks of mutterings that the country has insufficient protections in place. The proposal by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva would create three protected reserves for a total area the size of Vermont; the plan still has to be approved by Brazil's Congress. Amazon deforestation is on the rise, and while welcoming Silva's proposal, critics are still wary of the president's view that "environmental protection and development [of the Amazon] are not incompatible."

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