As resurrections go, it was a speedy one. On Monday, much of the world's media declared that the chances of a worthwhile deal being reached at next month's international climate talks were as dead as the proverbial dodo. By Tuesday, however, the conjectured corpse was clearly still alive, if not exactly kicking.

President Barack Obama and President Hu Jintao were quick to insist this week that their two nations are committed to making Copenhagen a success.  Above, the two leaders together at a reception before the formal state dinner at Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China on Nov. 17, 2009.Photo: White HouseThe cause of the premature obituaries were weekend statements by President Barack Obama and Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen that it would not be possible to finalize a full, legally binding treaty when diplomats from around the world gather in Copenhagen starting Dec. 7. This, we were told, would turn the meeting into little more than a talking shop, while the real negotiations were postponed until later.

But as Grist readers already know, the fact that the conference will not produce a full-blown treaty is old news. I reported it here two weeks ago, together with quotes to that effect from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the United Nations' top climate official, Yvo de Boer.

The excruciating slowness of the U.N. negotiating process (which, after a combined eight weeks of formal talks in three cities starting last spring, still failed to produce a final negotiating text) and the recalcitrance of the U.S. Senate in passing a climate bill long ago assured it would be impossible to tie up a full treaty in Copenhagen.

My article also explored the alternative set out by Rasmussen at the weekend -- also already suggested by Merkel and de Boer -- of a "political" agreement, which would later be formalized in a treaty. Far from being a talking shop, the Copenhagen conference would be expected to agree on all the main elements of a climate pact, including big greenhouse gas emission cuts by rich countries, sharp reductions in the rate of growth of emissions in rapidly industrializing ones, and funding to help meet the vast costs faced by poor countries in controlling their own emissions and adapting to the potentially catastrophic consequences of climate change.

Rasmussen spelled this out in his statement, though it was little reported, making it clear that the conference must reach a "binding" deal that is "precise on specific commitments" and "provides for immediate action." He went on: "We cannot do half a deal in Copenhagen and postpone the rest till later. We need the commitments. We need the figures. We need the action."

By Tuesday evening, it was clear that such a deal was still a possibility. Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao, who as the leaders of the world's two greatest polluters will do more than anyone to determine whether the conference succeeds or fails, agreed to press for it. "Our aim," said Obama, echoing Rasmussen's words, "is not a partial accord or a political declaration but rather an accord that covers all of the issues in the negotiations and has an immediate operational effect."

The two leaders agreed that "transitioning to a low-carbon economy is an opportunity to promote continued economic growth and sustainable development in all countries" and struck deals to launch "a joint energy efficiency action plan and a partnership on renewable energy and the electric power grid" -- steps welcomed by Timothy Wirth, president of the United Nations Foundation, who has put much effort into building links between the two countries.

At the same time, environment ministers from 40 key countries -- assembled this week for a two-day preparatory meeting in Copenhagen -- made good progress towards a political agreement. "My feeling is that it looks better today than when we started meeting," said Danish Energy and Climate Change Minister Connie Hedegaard, when the talks ended on Tuesday evening. And indeed -- though there is still a very long way to go -- an agreement is marginally closer than before the weekend alarm.

Much depends on whether the U.S. Senate can demonstrate real progress on a climate bill that would cap and gradually lower America's greenhouse gas emissions. The hope is that enough will be achieved by senators over the next few weeks to enable Obama to go to Copenhagen with a provisional offer of emission reductions, pending passage of the legislation in early 2010. That, in turn, would make international agreement possible.

But time is short. If the Senate ties Obama's hands, it will be hard to salvage much in Copenhagen; the obituaries will then be due. As Achim Steiner, the executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, put it this week, there remains an "extremely high" risk of continuing deadlock.

If Obama assures the conference that the U.S. Congress will finalize a climate bill, the legislation would have to be passed by the end of spring, since the American midterm elections will be approaching fast. Failure to pass a bill by then would be disastrous.

It is all very difficult. But there is a chance that, with luck and skill, a climate-saving deal can be reached. And while far from ideal, the hope that a deal is still salvageable is a lot better than the doom that was so widely pronounced at the start of the week.

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Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Waking up on a dreary Sunday morning this weekend in Copenhagen (where I've recently moved to prepare for the upcoming climate talks in December), I was met with a barrage of headlines, mostly from U.S. media, telling me that Copenhagen is doomed to total failure and I might as well head off to Mexico City where next year's summit will be held. The New York Times cried out: World Leaders Agree to Delay a Deal on Climate Change. The Washington Post bellowed: Copenhagen talks unlikely to yield climate accord, leaders told. Not the best way to start a Sunday morning.

Is Copenhagen really over before it begins? Had I moved to this dark, rainy (but beautiful!) city for no reason? Should we all just pack it up and hope that political declarations will solve it all?

The answer, thankfully, quickly became a resounding "no." As Grist's own David Roberts is often the first to point out, the mainstream media clearly got it wrong. There's still hope -- a lot of it, at that.

Let's start with those headlines. Who are these "world leaders" who agreed to delay? Well, the plural may be accurate, but just barely.

In the 48 hours since initial reports, as Ministers and other government representatives have trickled into Copenhagen for the "pre-COP" preparatory meeting, it's become clear that while the media reported that all 19 APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) leaders were in agreement on the so-called "one agreement, two steps" approach, that's not at all the case.

The real story occurred at a hastily arranged APEC breakfast. Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen made a last-minute visit and surprised the room with a speech that was only vetted by a few of the so-called "leaders." One can only imagine a room full of bleary-eyed Heads of State sitting around a big table sipping their coffee and politely nodding at Rasmussen's climate change speech without really understanding how their nods would be translated by the media.

Rasmussen began his speech by saying:

...I would like to share with you how I believe a Copenhagen Agreement could be constructed to serve the dual purpose of providing for continued negotiations on a legal agreement and for immediate action...

And later towards the end of the speech he says:

Some of you might have wished for a different format or for a different legal structure. Still, I believe you will agree with me on one fundamental point: What matters at the end of the day is the ability of the Copenhagen Agreement to capture and reinforce global commitment to real actions.

Doesn't sound like consensus to me; it sounds like a man trying to convince an audience to go along with him. It's not entirely clear who actually did agree with the Prime Minister, but what is clear is that there is nowhere near consensus on such a delay approach; in fact, dozens of countries oppose it and are still wishing--and fighting--for more.

Now, what about the actual plan itself -- the "one agreement, two steps" plan? Two steps to an agreement doesn't sounds so bad, right?

As NRDC's Jake Schmidt wrote, the strategy might not be so bad if you actually thought that the second step would ever be taken. Unfortunately, what Rasmussen has put forward is a cynical approach. It's becoming clear that all he cares about is getting a "positive" result in Copenhagen, and that the second step could just be for show.

If you look closely at Rasmussen's APEC breakfast speech, there's very little incentive to actually finish the job in 2010 (as in, to take the "second step"). Rasmussen explains his vision thusly:

The Copenhagen Agreement should capture progress already achieved in the negotiations and at the same time provide for immediate action already from next year.

The Copenhagen Agreement should be political by nature, yet precise on specific commitments and binding on countries committing to reach certain targets and to undertake certain actions or provide agreed finance.

The Copenhagen Agreement should be global, comprehensive and substantial, yet flexible enough to accommodate countries with very different national circumstances.

The Copenhagen Agreement should finally mandate continued legal negotiations and set a deadline for their conclusion.

Why would any developed country with high emissions want to go back to the table and flesh out a legally binding deal after the pressure of Copenhagen has passed and there is no real obligation to do so? Despite his lip service to "continued legal negotiations", there's no clarity nor firm deadline. Rasmussen's invention of "politically binding"--a term no one seems willing or able to define--is also repeated here.

Furthermore, there is only a passing mention of the Kyoto Protocol later in the speech. Despite what some would have you think, however, the Kyoto Protocol does not expire in 2012. In fact, in 2005, the parties to the Kyoto Protocol agreed to negotiate a second commitment period (2013-2017) and further committed in Bali in 2007 to reaching a conclusion on what that second commitment period would look like. In Rasmussen's vision, this goal seems to disappear in favor of a "politically binding" outcome.

Indeed, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper--one of the leading climate negotiation blockers now that George W. Bush is out of the picture--has been positively beaming in the press about this announcement. Not a sign of a positive development.

Luckily, there's still time to push for more. The Alliance of Small Island States, the African Group of nations, and other vulnerable and least developed countries will surely be pushing back on this plan during the prep meetings in Copenhagen this week. In fact, 11 Pacific Island States already have. Some European nations are also likely to stand up to this plan.

The planet and its people need a fair, ambitious, and binding outcome from this process. Countries should be working on such a document in Copenhagen and they can and should finish it there. After all, it's what they committed to in Bali just two years ago.

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Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

[See update at bottom.]

The big news this weekend was that a coalition of world leaders made it official: there will be no full-fledged, legally binding agreement out of the Copenhagen climate talks. Instead there will be a "politically binding" agreement, pledging to work out a full agreement in 2010 -- "one agreement, two steps." This was Denmark PM (and Copenhagen host) Lars Lokke Rasmussen's way of salvaging a half-win from what was threatening to be a total loss.

Of course opponents of climate action are portraying it as a disaster that augers the death of UNFCCC process; they do that with every setback or delay. Climate activists don't seem to have decided quite yet what to think about it. My take: it's not as bad as it looks. I'd endorse some mix of Broder, Romm, and Schmidt.

NYT's John Broder is right about the main constraint here. Well, almost right. He says "Congress," but the real culprit is the Senate. That dysfunctional body is taking its sweet, preening time as always, letting health care reform drag on into winter and now, in a fit of cluelessness, delaying a deficit-neutral, job-creating clean energy bill to ... focus on jobs and the deficit. Behind the scenes, that bill is getting larded up with enough retrograde energy pork to secure precious conservative votes. Best case scenario, it limps through the Senate, gets a little remediation in conference committee, and passes in April or May. Beyond then, midterm politics take over and reasonable legislating becomes impossible.

This absurdly protracted process is playing out as dozens of countries hang out, tapping their feet, looking at their watches, flipping idly through waiting-room magazines. Concerted international action can't get started without the U.S., and the U.S. can't get started without the Senate -- the Obama administration won't promise anything to which the Senate hasn't committed. So the world waits for the Senate, observing its legislative process with a mix of bewilderment, anxiety, and disdain.

Joe Romm points out that the delay offers some needed breathing room. The sense that the world is waiting will increase pressure on the Senate to pass a bill (there's pressure from Brazil and France already). Conversely, legislation from the U.S. would increase pressure on China and India to step up to the plate with targets and timetables.

NRDC's Jake Schmidt notes that the extra time will be beneficial if a) enough details are settled in Copenhagen and b) world leaders focus on ironing out a final agreement in the intervening months. That's a big if.

Nonetheless, if the world's nations had headed into Copenhagen expecting a legally binding treaty complete with targets and timetables, the result would have been disappointment, acrimony, and worst of all, wasted time. By taking some of the pressure off Copenhagen, the two-steps agreement has avoided disaster and maintained momentum. It's also given the Obama administration time to engage in more climate diplomacy. Now if something could just be done about the Senate ...

UPDATE: I'm hearing from people close to the international process that Rasmussen's deal might not be as official as it's been made to seem by the U.S. media. Apparently Denmark and the U.S. sprang this on their Asian partners and there's been some pushback, from them and from small island states and African nations.

To boot, Rasmussen's agreement seems like a variation on the plan Yvo de Boer has been fronting for a while -- only without de Boer's hard deadlines, thus letting developed countries off the hook.

Anyway, there's a lot more to this story than is reflected in most media reports. We'll bring you updates as events unfold.

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Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

The Danes have an enduring relationship with wind. This is symbolized by the big, honking wind turbine that looms like a bird of prey over the parking lot outside the Bella Center, the venue for the U.N. Climate Change Conference Denmark is hosting in December.

It was a Dane, physicist H.C. Oersted, who discovered electrical induction, the principle at work inside wind and other electric generators. Danish farmers brag they were the first in the world to generate electricity from wind.

The Danes are now hard at work cracking one of the great challenges of wind power: the fact that the wind blows when it darn well pleases. Sometimes it blows hard when there isn't much need for the resulting electricity. Sometimes the air is becalmed when electricity is needed the most.

Wouldn't it be nice if households in Denmark had nice batteries to store the wind power coming off the country's wind farms?

Denmark's plan is to get those batteries into households using a Trojan horse strategy. The batteries will be mounted on four tires. If lots of Danish people switch from gasoline cars to all-electric plug in cars, each of those cars will have a nice set of batteries that can suck in wind power when the wind blows and use the power whenever there is a need to drive somewhere.

If this tactic of sneaking batteries disguised as new cars into Danish garages is to work, the electric car has to become a mass market item. For that, two big things have to happen. First, electric cars have to be capable of driving longer distances. To do that, a California company, Better Place, has come up with pit stops equipped with robots that will quickly swap out depleted batteries for charged ones.

Second, for electric cars to become widespread, they need to be comparatively cheap. The Danish government is pulling that off by making new electric cars exempt from a huge (180 percent!) environmental tax that applies to gas cars.

If all goes well, Danish roads could be swarming with mainly Renault-Nissan electric cars in a couple of years (Better Place has a strategic partnership with the carmaker). If all goes especially well, Denmark could eventually end the import of oil, courtesy of the wind.

Watch David Brancaccio's report on Green Denmark -- airing this week on PBS stations nationwide (schedule).

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Must we be dosed daily with antobiotics? According to the meat industry, the debate over legislation pending in the House that would ban the use of sub-therapeutic doses of antibiotics comes down to a simple "fact": hog-farming on any scale without sub-therapeutic use of antibiotics is impossible. The National Pork Producers Council says so. The American Veterinary Medical Association says so. Heck, even GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa says so.

For the record, these folks also say that livestock producers don't really use 70% of all antibiotics distributed in the US as the Union of Concerned Scientists estimates. And you know what, we have no idea if they're right. What many people don't realize is that antibiotic use by American livestock producers is one of the best kept secrets on the planet. The UCS had to deduce that number based on US sales of antibiotics combined with data from a country that does publish figures on antibiotics use in livestock: Canada. That's right. No one in the US, not the government, not industry -- no one -- has any responsibility to tell Americans how much antibiotics is actually in their meat. We're just to supposed to Take Industry's Word For It that everything's peachy.

Which is why the Danes insistence on being a part of this debate is so important. Denmark is the largest hog producer in Europe and, realizing the threat to public health posed by routinely feeding healthy livestock antibiotics, they stopped doing it. Over a decade ago. To listen to the AVMA and Chuck Grassley describe Denmark's experience, you'd think that Denmark's hog industry went the way of New York Harbor's oyster beds -- a happy, productive industry destroyed by mismanagement. Except, insist the Danes, that just isn't so. And they keep saying it. First they testified at hearings in the House. They said things like this:

[T]he discontinuation of non-therapeutic antibiotic use has not negatively impacted long-term swine productivity in Denmark. The facts outlined show that long-term swine production in Denmark has not been negatively impacted by the ban on non-therapeutic antibiotic use.

And so as not to be misconstrued, they said every thing was fine twice. But pages of testimony along these lines were apparently not enough to stop people from lying about the Danish record. The Danes, being a hot-headed people, couldn't stand it any longer. Recently, they met with a Congressional delegation to show them a blistering PowerPoint presentation that set the record straight. And then, as reported by Phil Brasher in the Des Moines Register, they wrote a letter [PDF]. This time, to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

We know that various rumours and sometimes “creative” interpretations of what has taken place in Denmark have been circulated to members of the US Congress, and we are grateful for having been given this opportunity to correct some of these stories.

Take that, Chuck Grassley! Attached to the letter was a 20 page report documenting the success of Denmark's ban on sub-therapeutic dosing of livestock. The Danes, understanding full well their audience, used a simple bulleted list to declare the following (I bolded some things for even more clarity):

•The Danish swine production has increased from 18.4 millions in 1992 to 27.1 millions in 2008; a 47% increase.
• Productivity increased continuously before and after NTA (Non-Therapeutic Antibiotics) stop
• Weaner [young pig] mortality increased before and a few years after NTA stop – the rate seemed unaffected, except the first year after the ban. Mortality has improved considerably in recent years (management)
• Weaner average daily gain decreased until and increased after NTA stop (continuously during a decade).
• Finisher [mature pig] mortality increased before and after NTA stop, similar rate. (mortality decreased first year)
• Finisher average daily gain increased before and after NTA stop
• Total antimicrobial consumption has fluctuated over time, but has in summary decreased from 100.4 to 48.9 mg/Kg pork produced; a 51% reduction.
• Major reductions in resistance among animal pathogens, indicator bacteria and zoonotic bacteria

That last bit is the crucial point -- end excessive antibiotics use and end increases in resistance among pathogens. Period. This is not theory -- this is what actually happened.

So, really. The Danish experiment worked. Congress needs to pass House Rep. Louise Slaughter's bill -- aka PAMTA, ban sub-therapeutic antibiotic use and our hog production will be just fine. In the end, though, this is about human health and the strong indication from Denmark is that a ban will indeed significantly reduce the odds of a superbug arising out of a hog farm. That's the goal. Are we clear on this? No more lies, please. We wouldn't want to make the Danes any angrier, would we?

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We hope you already know that the most important climate meeting evah will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark, from Dec. 7 to 18.  If all goes according to plan at the gathering—known in wonk-speak as COP15—world leaders will hash out a new global climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

Now, some things you don’t know about Copenhagen and the climate talks:

1. Umbra Fisk will be there!

2. The climate talks could spur a mini-boom in prostitution in the city.

3. MTV is sponsoring climate concerts in the lead-up to Copenhagen.

4. Oct. 24 is an International Day of Climate Action intended to prod leaders to get serious ahead of the Copenhagen talks.

5. 12,000 to 15,000 people are expected to attend the conference, and thousands more journalists, NGO reps, activists, and rabble-rousers will also come to town.

6. The Yes Men have launched a site where people can pledge to engage in civil disobedience the week before the Copenhagen talks to demand serious climate action.

Photo: brianjmatis

7. Hey, ladies: It’s now legal to go topless at Copenhagen’s public pools.

8. Oxfam has celebrities painting their faces blue for its “Blue in the Face” campaign: demand action on climate change from leaders at Copenhagen until you’re blue in the face!

9. The average December in Copenhagen has 17 days of rain and a temperature of 28 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

10. U.S. President Barack Obama has done some serious thinking about Copenhagen.  Grist’s David Roberts explains.

11. Vaunted game theorist Bruce Bueno de Mesquita predicts the climate talks will fail.

12. You can become a fan of COP15 on Facebook.

13. You can follow COP15 on Twitter, or U.N. Climate Talks. Or follow #cop15. 

14. You can sign up online to host your own screening of the climate-change documentary The Age of Stupid; the distribution model is intended to get as many people as possible to see the film before Copenhagen.

15. Denmark has a climate minister, Connie Hedegaard.

16. The talks will take place almost exactly 10 years after the WTO protests in Seattle—and some activists say Copenhagen could be the “next Seattle.”

17. International carbon-trading agreements reached at Copenhagen could spur a wave of organized carbon crime.

18. The documentary The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning will screen during the conference in Copenhagen.

19. Copenhagen averages one hour of sunlight each day in December.

20. You can buy a “CPHCARD” for easy transportation around Copenhagen and free access to its museums.

21. The current and previous Danish prime ministers are both named Rasmussen (no relation)—and have both been actively pushing for the climate talks to succeed.

22. A site called “Hopenhagen” lets you share your future-y climate-y hopes.

23. No cars are allowed in Christiana, the leafy, free-spirited, communal-living section of Copenhagen founded by hippies in the 1970s. Too bad Christiana’s “Pusher Street” was demolished in 2004—it might have been a temporary haven for stressed-out conference-goers.

24. Greenpeace has predicted what newspapers will report after the climate talks end.

25. Every year on the Little Mermaid‘s birthday on Aug. 23, women and girls of all ages jump into the water surrounding her to celebrate.

26. The conference is taking place in Orestad, an “extension” of downtown Copenhagen that is either an urban-planning coup or an environmental nightmare, depending on your perspective.

27. The conference venue is the Bella Center; other events scheduled there this fall include the Scandinavian Shoe and Bag Fair and a meeting of the International Olympic Committee.

28. The Bella Center is constructing the Bella Hotel, Scandinavia’s largest, which will open in 2010. Talk about bad timing.

29. In lieu of creating waste (and wasting money) by giving gifts to climate conference participants, organizers will put the roughly $700,000 saved toward “climate scholarships” to allow students from around the world to pursue climate-related studies at Danish universities.

30. No bottled water will be provided at the conference—tap water only.

31. At least 65 percent of food at the conference will be organic or fair-trade.

32. No smoking is allowed in Copenhagen’s public buildings or businesses, including restaurants and pubs.

33. Tipping is not expected at Copenhagen restaurants, since waitstaff actually (gasp) make a living wage—but rounding up the bill with a little “drinking money” is appreciated.

34. Conference organizers are encouraging attendees to pursue “a better life as a delegate” by minimizing waste, drinking tap water, using public transportation, and staying in green-certified hotels (good luck getting a room).

35. Nearly 20 percent of electricity in Denmark comes from wind power.

36. Danish companies manufacture almost half of the world’s wind turbines.

37. Denmark is making a huge push into offshore wind power. 

38. In 2008, Monocle magazine named Copenhagen the world’s most liveable city.

39. In May, takers of a TripAdvisor survey named Copenhagen Europe’s cleanest city.

40. Copenhagen is the seventh most expensive city in the world.

41. Copenhagen touts itself as the world leader in sales of organic food.

42. By 2015, Copenhagen leaders want all food in the city to be organic.

43. Copenhagen’s tourist website has a section dedicated to “green.”

44. It also has a section dedicated to “kissing places.”

45. A Hindu group has criticized Copenhagen summit planners for neglecting to include world religious leaders.

46. A drug-related gang war has been raging in Copenhagen—and tarnishing its squeaky-clean image.

47. Visitors to Copenhagen should be on the lookout for vicious attack dogs.

48. Actress Connie Nielsen was raised in Copenhagen.

49. Actor Leslie Nielsen was born in Saskatchewan. Just FYI.

50. Lars Ulrich of Metallica lived in Copenhagen.

51. Since 2006, Denmark’s 31 crematoriums have made $15,000 by selling metal that was salvaged from dead bodies to a Dutch recycler.

52. Hans Christian Andersen and Soeren Kirkegaard are buried in Assistens kirkegården, a cemetery that also serves as a public park where people picnic and play.

53. Copenhagen has its own cocktail.

54. You can ice skate for free at Copenhagen’s public outdoor ice rinks.

55. The Black Diamond, the newest addition to Copenhagen’s Royal Library, was built out of granite imported from Zimbabwe, then cut and polished in Italy. So much for minimizing your carbon footprint.

56. The water in Copenhagen Harbor is so clean you can swim in it. Multinational polar-bear dip?

57. Copenhagen has reduced its carbon emissions 25 percent since 1990.

58. The city has a new CityCirkel fleet of electric sightseeing buses.

59. In Copenhagen, even the kids compost, as seen in this video about the city’s transcendent greeness.

60. Copenhagen was founded in the year 1167.

61. Danish officials don’t have a crisis plan to handle a swine-flu outbreak if it crops up during the climate talks.

62. Fortunately, if you get sick while visiting Copenhagen, you are entitled to free medical treatment in hospitals or medical wards (as long as you didn’t visit just to get the medical treatment).

63. There’s a Copenhagen chewing tobacco.

64. And a song about said tobacco.

65. There’s a “Copenhagen interpretation” of quantum mechanics.

66. There’s a Copenhagen play (which Daniel Craig starred in during his pre-Bond days).

67. There’s a Copenhagen furniture company. 

68. The Carlsberg Brewery is in Copenhagen.

69. Copenhagen’s opposition party has proposed a congestion-pricing scheme.

70. Copenhagen is home to the world’s first walking house, a “solution to beating the floods.”

71. Grocery shopping? You either bring your own bag or buy one at the store. No bag handouts here.

72. Only 3 percent of Copenhagen’s waste goes into landfills. 

73. During the last big round of climate talks, Grist’s Sarah Kraybill Burkhalter penned a delightful primer on climate conferences and Kyoto—still useful if you want to get up to speed on those COP and MOP acronyms.

74. Official municipal policy dictates that by 2015, all Copenhagen residents must be less than a 15-minute walk from a park or green space; this has spurred the development of new parks in the city.

75. Copenhagen has three ice hockey teams.

76. Copenhagen is home to the two oldest amusement parks in the world, one of which, Tivoli Gardens, contains the oldest still-operating roller coaster and ferris wheel in the world.

77. Copenhagen has 13 Michelin star restaurants, more than any other city in Scandinavia.

78. The Danish name for Copenhagen is København, which means “Merchants’ Harbor.”

79. “Copenhagenize” is a word (and an environment-related word at that!).

80. Copenhagen aims to be the world’s best city for cyclists.

81. More than 40 percent of Copenhageners bike to work, and the city hopes to get half of commuters onto bikes by 2015.

82. The city has more than 300 kilometers of bike paths.

83. Copenhagen launched a bike-sharing program in 1995, and gave Bill Clinton an honorary bike called “City Bike One” when he visited in 1997.

84. If you rent a bike from the Copenhagen shop Baisikeli, proceeds go toward sending retrofitted bikes to Tanzania, Sierra Leone, and Ghana.

85. Copenhagen-based company YAKKAY makes bicycle helmets that look like hip hats.

86. Teams of kids from all over the world competed in the Children’s Climate Call in Copenhagen in May, building technical solutions to climate change out of Legos.  

87. The Lego company, based in Denmark, gets an unimpressive score on the Climate Counts scorecard.

88. It’s illegal to drive without your headlights on in Denmark.

89. The highest point in Denmark is only 564 feet above sea level.  Test your Danish language skills by checking the latest sea levels along Denmark’s coast.

90. What’s better than a yoga class for letting go of the tension after all-day climate negotiations or long, cold hours at the protest barricades?  Copenhagen has lots of yoga studios.

91. Copenhagen is really close to Sweden. Commuting to Malmö, Sweden, can be quicker than getting to Copenhagen’s outer suburbs. “Naturally, you must seize such a great opportunity to see more of Scandinavia!”

92. Copenhagen’s current time can be found here.

93. Copenhagen’s current weather can be found here. We can’t tell you what it is because we suck at Celsius.

94. The weekend between the two COP weeks will see the traditional and popular NGO party—BYO NGO!

95. Shakespeare’s Hamlet took place in Denmark. Diplomats have adopted the line “I will speak daggers to her, but use none” as an unofficial credo.

96. More Hamlet: “Brevity is the soul of wit.” This will undoubtedly not be heeded by diplomats.

97. “The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.” In other words, use art.

98. “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.” Same thing for the effects of climate change.

99. “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” Let’s hope so.

100. You’re still here? It’s over. Go home. Go.

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The Sermeq Kujalleq glacier (also known as the Jakobshavn Glacier) near where it flows into the sea in western Greeland. The photo was taken in the summer of 2008. Scientists have recorded the glacier's rapid melt over the past decade.Courtesy kriskaer via Flickr

Here's a tip for the ministers who are attending the latest of the long series of meetings preparing for the make-or-break climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December.

Go visit the valley of the dogs.

Yes, that's dogs, not dolls. Greenland sled dogs to be precise. For this week's meeting of 30 ministers from key countries is in Ilulissat, the third biggest settlement on the immense, increasingly melting island.

They have been invited there for informal "substantive and open" discussions, far from the media, by Connie Hedegaard the impressive Danish Minister for Climate and Energy. She has been holding such ministerial dialogues in different parts of the world for the past five years, but Ilulissat is her prime location, her secret weapon.

A former journalist, she well understands that "seeing is believing." And in this small coastal town overlooking a sea strewn with icebergs, the evidence of global warming is both unmistakable and overwhelming. She has hosted a whole series of key figures there over the last years, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. John McCain, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She wants President Obama to come too.

With her country hosting the next major international talks on climate change, Denmark's Connie Hedegaard has been bringing world leaders to Greenland in hopes that seeing global warming's effects up close will spur them to action.Courtesy Denmark's Ministry for Climate and EnergyI was there almost two years ago with Bartholomew I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Dubbed "the green pope" for his deep environmental concern, he has held a series of shipboard seminars on religion, science and the environment, on seas and rivers around the world, and this one started just off Ilulissat, home to 4,500 people and 2,500 sled dogs.

Ah yes, those dogs. I came across them on a trip ashore, when the whole shipload of us took a walk from the town to an ancient settlement on a nearby shore. In a valley, stretching as far as the eye could see, were countless scratching, sleeping, howling animals, tethered next to makeshift kennels. It must be the strangest settlement of the unemployed on the face of the warming Earth.

Until recently the dogs were busy and treasured, vital engines of transport in a land without roads, where the easiest routes from place to place -- or to the best hunting spots -- are often across the frozen ocean. But for five years before I was there the sea had failed to freeze, giving the hunters and their dogs nowhere to go.

It is much the same story hundreds of miles away at Qaanaak in the island's far northwest. The sea still freezes there, but the ice comes one and a half months later than a few years ago, and melts one and a half months earlier. For the local Inuit, who subsist by hunting over the ice with their sleds, it is -- as explained to me -- "like your boss taking away three months for your pay without giving you notice."

You can hear the howling of the idle dogs, reputedly descended from wolves, all over Ilulissat. But even this is not the most remarkable, or portentous, sound that fills the air. That sound -- loud booms that sometimes rumble like approaching thunder or other times crack sharply like a gunshot -- accompanies the calving of yet another iceberg from the giant Sermeq Kujalleq [see map at bottom of next page] glacier reaching the sea just beyond the canine valley.

The booms are ever more frequent these days, for the glacier is melting ever faster as Greenland warms up three times as fast as the rest of the world. Every day it now sheds enough fresh water, in the form of ice, to supply the whole of London or New York for an entire year.

The glacier, the biggest in Greenland, is racing towards the sea at a rate of nearly ten miles a year, five times as fast as a decade ago. And it can go even faster -- at one point scientists were shocked to find that part of it had surged three miles in just 90 minutes.

You can see the start of the process if you fly over the glacier. Melt water on the surface is finding its way down to the rock beneath, not in gentle trickles but in giant waterfalls that have carved great caverns in the ice; some are said to be as large as the Niagara Falls.

This has created a lake 500 meters deep under the glacier, lifting the ice and lubricating the glacier's passage. And much the same is happening all around Greenland, causing its ice-cap to melt far faster than anyone had expected, contributing to the inevitable rising of the world's seas.

I defy any rational person to see all this and not be struck with the urgency of combatting global warming. The ministers at this week's climate meeting will surely be shown the glacier; they have been promised "excursions to ... view first hand the consequences of climate change."

Rational people that they are, let's hope they get the point and act accordingly ... and fast.

--

Below: Video of the Ilulissat Icefjord from www.100places.com.

This video is from www.icescapes.tv

The Jakobshavn Glacier in western Greenland drains the central ice sheet, and it is retreating inland faster than any other. This image shows the glacier in 2001. The glacier flows from upper right to lower left. The fjord beyond the glacier terminus is packed with seasonal ice and icebergs. Terminus locations before 2001 were determined by surveys; more recent contours were derived from Landsat data. Without measurements of ice thickness, however, the picture of ice loss is incomplete. -- NASA image by Cindy Starr, based on data from Ole Bennike and Anker Weidick (Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland) and Landsat data.Courtesy NASA's Earth Observatory

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The Climate Post is a weekly roundup of climate news, produced by the The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University.

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The word "Copenhagen" hangs over climate discussions everywhere from Washington to Wagga Wagga. That’s because in December the world travels to the Danish capital for the 15th Conference of Parties meeting, affectionately referred to as COP15. There, nations large and small hope to reach a new international agreement that would ratchet down global emissions beginning after 2012.

Expectations for a conclusive deal have diminished over the last several months. But negotiations of every stripe continue, and will accelerate through the summer and fall. This week saw nations, businesses, and advocacy groups ramp up activity.

Todd Stern, the U.S. Special Envoy on Climate Change, traveled to Paris, where he met with representatives from 15 other major economies and the European Union. Together these nations contribute more than 80 percent of industrial CO2 emissions. European officials pressed the U.S. for a stronger emissions reduction program than the one outlined in current climate legislation. Europe’s own goals are tied to the rest of the world. Leaders there have committed by 2020 to a 20 percent reduction in their emissions, below 1990 levels. If negotiators produce a new agreement in Copenhagen, the E.U. has vowed to raise that target to 30 percent.

Stern told his counterparts that pollution reductions below targets in the current House of Representatives climate bill are politically unfeasible: "We are jumping as high as the political system will tolerate."

Sino the Times: A more promising note rang from Beijing, where the government has issued draft car fuel economy standards tougher than those President Barack Obama announced last week, according to the New York Times. Chinese cars currently average about 35.8 miles per gallon and would be required to reach 42.2 mpg in 2015 (Obama’s new standard is 35.5 mpg by 2016). Chinese officials have yet to address a loophole large enough to drive a Hummer through: Standards apply only to cars produced in China — not imports.

In Beijing, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told Chinese leaders that the "climate crisis is game-changing for the U.S.-China relationship." Pelosi visited Beijing days after the Chinese government issued its formal negotiating stance for Copenhagen, which asks major emitters to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by 40 percent by 2020. It’s hard to come up with a precise analogy for how difficult such a target would be. But certainly Americans could meet it easily by, uh, eliminating all household and commercial refrigeration.

Fortunately, striking a deal might ultimately cost much less than our entire national store of popsicles, ice cream, and frozen vegetables. Reuters interviews Gao Guangsheng, a top official in the National Coordination Committee for Climate Change, who acknowledges flexibility in the Chinese position. "I think Copenhagen may not be the final negotiation. It may set policy intentions so that we can keep negotiating," he said.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who also went to China, put a finer point on current negotiations between the world’s two largest emitters: "Copenhagen will be defined by what the U.S. and China agree on in the next few weeks."

Other nations admit little or no such sunlight between their formal and informal negotiating positions. India has said it will look to the developed world for definitive leadership before considering a rigorous climate policy. ClimateWire explores the task facing climate advocates in India tilting at this particular windmill. "The Indian government’s agenda will not change until Indians want it to change," Malini Mehra, the founder of the Indian nonprofit Centre for Social Markets told U.N. Foundation audience in Washington, DC.

Climate glasnost?: Even intransigent national positions on climate change can change abruptly and dramatically, as they did after the 2008 U.S. election. They can also do so without warning.

Russia surprised the climate world by finally acknowledging the potentially catastrophic threats of manmade warming, Nature reports. The magnitude of this change might not be immediately apparent. Imagine that Senator James Inhofe (R-Ok.) jettisoned his longstanding ridicule of basic science and climate policy, and adopted a position as rigorous as that of Rep. Henry Waxman, the powerful House committee chairman and lead author of that chamber’s current climate bill. That’s what happened when the natural resources minister briefed the Russian Cabinet in April. Officials calculated that the economy already takes nearly a $2 billion hit every year, because of climate-related flooding, droughts, and storms.

This thaw in climate politics amounts to a major political shift in Russian attitudes. And its intended result is to prevent actual thaw that would amount to a climate shift in Russian latitudes. Edward Schuur of the University of Florida and colleagues write in Nature that warmer temperatures unleash soil carbon stored for many thousands of years in permafrost. Over the next few decades, carbon release from tundra could "overwhelm" the amount that plants use to grow, creating another accelerator for warming.

"If it isn’t boring, it isn’t green": Stern and Pelosi are not the U.S.’s only world travelers this week. Some 500 business leaders convened in the state of Denmark itself, calling on nations to halve their greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a target much lower than the 80 percent or so advocated by Obama and congressional allies.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu told a London audience that whitewashing the world’s roofs would reflect enough solar energy back into space to match emissions reductions from taking 11 million cars off the road. This is worth keeping in mind in coming weeks and months as Congress considers climate legislation (Legislators have the week off for Memorial Day). Little things, aggregated globally, mean a lot.

"Cap and trade" or no "cap and trade," the White House and Capitol are unlikely to ever change how they address global warming. That’s because both buildings reflect about 240 watts per square meter of solar energy right back up into the sky. (It’s the same principle behind parental encouragement to wear light shirts on sunny summer days. White and light colors reflect energy; black and dark colors absorb it.)

That’s just one approach. These buildings’ whiteness comes from heavy, hydrocarbon paints, which given the size of the buildings probably store several tons of carbon. The buildings themselves keep many tons of carbon out of the atmosphere. The Capitol Rotunda alone, made of Triassic and Cretaceous period sandstone, keeps carbon locked away in rock.

Climate Post is, of course, kidding in pointing out these relatively paltry stores of carbon. But maybe as elected officials and policymakers consider paths forward, they’ll take a moment to meditate on or marvel at the bigger picture — the much bigger picture — of the history they are making (either way), the common U.S. history that led them to this episode, its role in the community of nations, and the community of nations’ current, consequential role in the history of the Earth’s climate and life. How "cool" is that?

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Cop a ride to COP-15...Photo illustration by Tom Twigg / Grist
So you’re going to Copenhagen to help save the planet. Splendid! This December the city will host the United Nations Climate Change Conference, where international delegates will negotiate a post-Kyoto Protocol global climate plan. That’s the hope, anyway. Earlier we posted some tips and ideas for finding lodging the in Danish capital, but what about getting there?

Jet travel emits a tremendous amount of carbon dioxide, of course. And for non-European attendees, it’s pretty much the only option. So what’s a delegate/activist/NGO rep/journalist/gadfly to do?

Erik Nelson of environmental travel site Better World Club offered this insider tip: You pretty much have to fly. But! If you have the time, ships might be a low-impact alternative. See The Cruise People LTD for leads on both cruise and commercial ships. Even Nelson, whose site is sort of a green AAA, hadn’t heard of many folks doing this. But it’s possible.

For everyone else, the trip likely involves an arrival at Copenhagen Airport, Kastrup (CPH), the city’s main airport and Scandinavia’s busiest. The city is also well-connected to the rest of continental Europe by rail, if you find it more convenient to fly elsewhere.

More than 70 airlines fly to Copenhagen, according to Skyscanner.net. Most of the ones that fly from the U.S. are searchable on the usual flight search aggregators—Expedia, Orbitz, Kayak, Priceline.

Better World Club has its own flight-finder, powered by Orbitz, that makes it easy to buy carbon offsets when you book. It’s also got a carbon calculator to estimate the impact of flights, though finding the actual impact isn’t simple. For those (understandably) wary about the legitimacy of carbon offsets, check out this Grist guide to offsets.

And if you’re hell-bent against flying, a few other possibilities:

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The more you talk to Shai Agassi, the more the Steve Jobs comparison seems apt.

Shai AgassiCourtesy Better PlaceLike his fellow Silicon Valley impresario, Agassi, the founder of electric car infrastructure startup Better Place, is as much a green-tech visionary as entrepreneur bent on cashing in on the "Next Big Thing." Just as Jobs elegantly married hardware and software to create the iPod and iPhone and disrupted the telecommunication-entertainment industrial complex, Agassi aims to do the same with transportation.

In case you missed the spate of national magazine stories on the former software executive and his company, Better Place has signed deals with governments in Israel, Denmark, Australia, California, Hawaii and Canada to build a web of electric car charging spots and battery-swapping stations.

Agassi aims to crack the chicken-and-egg electric vehicle dilemma by deploying the infrastructure that will give automakers the confidence to make carbon-free cars by the tens of millions while allaying drivers' "range anxiety" that they'll run out of juice on the way to grandma's house. Better Place will own your car's battery and sell you electricity by the mile (or kilometer) like your mobile phone company sells you minutes.

Better Place is not the only company pushing that model, but no competitor has raised as much money -- more than $200 million so far -- or signed deals with national governments to electrify their roadways.

Then there's the Agassi factor.

If Steve Jobs is a distant, "cult of personality" figure, making semi-annual pronouncements before the party faithful in a never-changing uniform of running shoes, jeans and turtleneck, Agassi is the Gen X enviro-evangelist in a sharply cut black suit, appearing before audiences large and small to sell the story of making the world a better place through electric transportation.

I sat down with Agassi recently to get an update on Better Place's progress and delve into just how the company plans to make money off a capital-intensive venture that will depend on an emerging EV ecosystem of carmakers, battery manufacturers and utilities, not to mention government policymakers.

Slight and dark-haired with a penetrating gaze, Agassi possesses Jobs' supreme charismatic self-confidence -- "The internal combustion engine is dead," he tells me matter-of-factly -- and parries every question with a ready set of facts and figures. We met at Fortune Magazine's Brainstorm Green conference in Southern California a few weeks before the scheduled May 13 unveiling of Better Place's prototype battery switching station in Japan. (Why Japan? "They paid for it," he says. "Japan is the most robust manufacturing and they fear being wrong" on electric cars.)

Think of Better Place's battery switching station as the electric version of gas station. Most of the time Better Place subscribers will top off their batteries at home or at battery charging posts -- about the size of a parking meter -- scattered around cities and suburbs. For trips that exceed a car's range, they'll pull into a switching station where a robot will unlatch a panel underneath the vehicle and remove the battery pack, install a fresh battery and close and lock the panel. Total time: About 40 seconds. The depleted battery is then recharged so it's ready for the next customer. Each Better Place station will cost about half million dollars and will maintain a store of 10 batteries.

"We've done tests where we've swapped the battery 200 times a day on a car," Agassi says. "It feels like a car wash more than anything else."

For $25 million, according to Agassi, Better Place could electrify the West Coast's Interstate 5 corridor.

So far, Renault-Nissan is the only automaker that has pledged to manufacture an electric car with a battery pack configuration compatible with the Better Place switching station. No worries, says Agassi, noting that in Israel -- the first country that will deploy a nationwide Better Place network -- the company has already taken more than 20,000 orders for electric Renaults. He says that's enough to break even on Better Place's initial $200 million investment in 100 switching stations and 100,000 charging posts. At somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 cars, Better Place turns a profit, according to Agassi, who notes that there are about 2 million cars on the road in Israeli and that about 200,000 cars were sold there in 2008.

Israel, a relatively tiny country, is one thing. But the suburbanized and continent-wide United States will require a much bigger investment in infrastructure. Agassi estimates that to do the initial build out of the San Francisco Bay Area, he'll need Northern Californians to buy between 40,000 and 50,000 electric vehicles -- no small number. When Better Place announced the $1 billion Bay Area deal with the mayors of San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland last year, no automaker had committed to providing the electric cars, though Renault-Nissan has pledged to begin putting EVs in mass production by 2012.

A demonstration of what a Better Place charging station looks like. Watch the video at the bottom of this article for a demonstration of the company's battery-swapping stations.Courtesy Better PlaceAgassi says he expects Better Place to earn between $4,000 and $5,000 in annual battery subscription fees per car. That would be the equivalent of buying $76 to $100 worth of gasoline a week, which seems on the high side for even a suburban commuter given current gasoline prices. That's also far more than what Better Place's initial urban customers likely pay for gas. Of course, the wild card is the price of gas. If it goes back up to $4 or more per gallon, Better Place's numbers start to look more reasonable.

There are plenty of critics who question whether Better Place can raise the billions needed to build just the infrastructure for the deals the company has signed so far. Others doubt that automakers and battery manufacturers will adopt standardized technology to enable, for instance, the widespread use of Better Place switching stations.

None of which, of course, fazes Agassi. He says Better Place has the cash to build the Israel network and Denmark -- next up with a 2011 roll out -- is financed as well. He's hoping to tap stimulus package funds to help pay for Hawaii's network.

"Somewhere between hundreds of thousands and millions of cars, electric vehicles are cheaper to make than gas-powered cars," he said earlier in the day, pacing the Brainstorm Green conference stage Oprah-like. "Somewhere between now and then we get to [the equivalent of] zero dollars a barrel of oil."

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Below, a Better Place promotional video:

Watch another promotional video on the Better Place website.

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COPENHAGEN, Dec. 4, 2008 (AFP) -- Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen discussed climate change and continuing cooperation in Afghanistan in a 10-minute telephone conversation, he said in a statement issued Thursday.

"I expressed my respect for Barack Obama's strong personal dedication to the climate question and to energy security," Rasmussen said. "I emphasised my wish to have a good and close cooperation with the United States in the run-up to the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen in December 2009," he added.

Denmark's centre-right coalition government has been one of the George W. Bush administration's staunchest allies. Rasmussen said he had told the incoming president he was "looking forward to continuing the good Danish-American relationship."

He added: "I expressed my expectation of a tight cooperation with Barack Obama in addressing the big challenges we face, for instance when it comes to the fight against terror and for peace and stability in Afghanistan.

"It is important that Europe stands with the United States and other like-minded (countries) in dealing with the big economic, political and security challenges," he said.

Rasmussen's conversation with Obama on Wednesday lasted around 10 minutes, said his office.

Copyright 2008 -- Agence France-Presse

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Could the global auto infrastructure be overhauled in a way that's profitable for business, cheap for drivers, and easy on the planet? Meet Better Place's Shai Agassi and his plans for an electric-car future, featured in the latest issue of Wired. In Agassi's vision, gas stations are replaced with omnipresent recharging spots for electric cars. Vehicles are cheap, perhaps even free; money is made off electricity, and renewable energy is incentivized. Drivers purchase electricity on subscription, paying for unlimited miles, a certain number of miles per month, or pay-as-you-go. No time to recharge? Head to your nearest battery exchange station and swap in a fully charged one. An onboard system is energy monitor, GPS unit, help center, and personal assistant in one. Think it could never happen? Think again: 100,000 electric cars will roll out in Israel by the end of 2011, and Denmark will also provide a testing ground. And wherever Agassi goes, he convinces CEOs, mayors, investors, and statesmen that the world could become a Better Place.

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Even while Greenland's melting ice is slowly destroying the viability of subsistence hunting, it offers new economic opportunities that could ultimately fund the island country's bid for independence from Denmark. Diamond hunters from North America have been coming to Greenland to search for the precious stones in rock uncovered by glacial retreat. Melting ice offers new opportunities for hydroelectric power. Gold found recently is already being mined. The government is in talks with aluminum giant Alcoa to build the world's second-largest smelter in the country. And oil companies are vying to drill off Greenland's expansive coastline. The country achieved a measure of independence with its successful push for self-governance in 1979, but Denmark still handles defense and foreign policy and sends much-needed funds. Yet if Greenland's mining rush could effectively displace those funds, the country's population of about 56,000 has a shot at full independence.

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