Barack Obama may delay signing up to Copenhagen climate change deal | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Barack Obama may be forced to delay signing up to a new international agreement on climate change in Copenhagen at the end of the year because of the scale of opposition in the US Congress, it emerged today.

Senior figures in the Obama administration have been warning Labour counterparts that the president may need at least another six months to win domestic support for any proposal.

Barack Obama's pledges in peril as Blue Dogs take a bite at budget - Times Online

Neither the Senate version - nor the slightly less severe proposal suggested yesterday by the House of Representatives Budget Committee - would include Mr Obama's scheme for a $15 billion a year “cap-and-trade” system on carbon use. This has encountered stiff resistance from Democrats in coalmining states such as the key electoral battlegrounds of Ohio and Pennsylvania, who say that 85 per cent of their energy comes from such fossil fuels and that it could have a devastating effect on a manufacturing sector already stricken by the recession.

Eric Cantor, a member of the Republican leadership in the House, claimed yesterday that Mr Obama's budget was “so far out of the mainstream” that even Democrats were reluctant to support it.

Green energy is not such a breeze - Times Online

One by one, the energy giants that hoisted green flags and trumpeted their conversion to renewables are ducking and diving and hiding behind the curtains.
...
All of this is embarrassing for a Government that likes to portray itself as the champion of green causes. But it is pointless for Ed Miliband, the Minister for Energy and Climate Change, to berate utilities for not building stuff that is uneconomic and, anyway, cannot be relied upon to deliver the power we need at the flick of a switch.

The Government needs to decide whether it is prepared to commit the nation to a very expensive energy future or whether it would rather hedge its bets and build a few coal-fired generators, just to keep the lights on.

The Carbon Sense Coalition » Scrap the Cap-n-Tax Scheme

The Carbon Sense Coalition has forwarded a submission to the Australian Senate Standing Committee on Economics in response to the Exposure Draft of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009. The introduction states:

“This enquiry is focussed on The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009. The name itself is a deliberate deception – the only truthful word is “Scheme” which the Oxford Pocket Dictionary defines as “artful or underhand design”. It is not about carbon or about pollution - it is “The Carbon Dioxide Cap, Trade and Tax Scheme Bill” (referred to hereafter as “The Cap-n-Tax Scheme” or “The Scheme” for short).

“There is substantial doubt on the science on which this Scheme is justified. The chief justification is scare forecasts based on complex computerised climate models that few people believe and even fewer people understand.”

Benny Peiser, LTT, 14 November 2008:

Obama's advisers have already announced that any US climate legislation will have to be delayed until the new administration has solved the economic and financial crisis. Do I believe there will be a global agreement? No. This is where the runaway train crashes into the buffers. No one will say this has collapsed. They'll say, 'OK, well, we'll meet again in a year - there will always be another conference.'

Global sea ice area, 1979-present: Why so stable?