House Committee Seeks to Gut Funding to Support International Action on Global Warming: Bad for Americans | Jake Schmidt's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC

The authorization bill – H.R. 2583, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2012 – passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee by a vote of 23-20 (a straight party-line vote). Rep. Mack’s amendment would prohibit any funding being used to “support activities of the Global Climate Change Initiative”. The Rep. Mack amendment passed on a party-line vote with all the Republicans on the committee voting yes.

Spending binge: Congress votes to raise the cost of future disasters

With the United States in full support, the UN Security Council voted last week to tackle the impacts of a changing climate on global security (think Somalia, for example, if you haven’t already). But just a day later, Republicans ignored security and voted to bar any funding for the Global Climate Change Initiative, which helps build the resilience of communities in unstable countries facing climate change impacts.

Fortunately, that vote has no real effect — but today’s vote by the Foreign Operations Appropriations subcommittee in the House will. That vote would eliminate funds in the FY 2012 budget for the Climate Investment Funds, a multilateral fund that includes a program to help developing countries adapt to climate change.

How the IPCC Defines ‘Distinguished Scientist’ « NoFrakkingConsensus

To recap, then: Teske appears to have no more than a Masters degree. He has been a Greenpeace activist and employee for the past 17 years. Depending on which press release you read he is either an expert in renewable energy or on nuclear matters (in the Greenpeace world, these are not the same thing).

Perhaps Pachauri and journalist Stanford would care to explain which part of Teske’s CV makes him a distinguished scientist.

NZ Minister Says Deal in Global Climate Talks 'Still within Reach'

“It’s like water dripping away at a stone,” Groser said, referring to the glacial pace of U.N.-led negotiations. “There is rarely ever a crucial meeting. It’s a case of building slowly on an international basis”.

About 70 delegates attended the informal meeting in Auckland that ended on Tuesday. All the major developed and emerging countries were represented except for China. Groser said it was not known why China didn’t attend.