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May Jeong: Climate Deal Sealed. Sort Of.

2009-12-19T16:18:00Z

COPENHAGEN - A deal of sort has been sealed in Copenhagen. At 3:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon - 21 full hours past the original deadline on Friday at 6 p.m. - the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference officially came to a close.

This comes after a full around-the-clock day, and for others, weeks, of bilaterals, multilaterals, and many other laterals, which saw the parties acknowledge a 12-clause political declaration brought on by President Obama.

Copenhagen Accord, as the 3-pager is called, was introduced by President Obama, deliberated on by leaders from China, Indian, Brazil, and South Africa in a closed-door, invite-only session, heavily criticized by the rest of the international community, only to garner tacit consent a few hours later by the rest of the constituency.

It is still too soon to take full stalk of the failures and successes of Copenhagen. Whether this Accord will pave a path for a legally binding treaty in 2010, or will go down in history as that moment of misfortune when good stewardship lost way to the divisions of the past, remains to be seen.

In a hastily arranged press conference, as many others still navigated that terrible space between decision and indecision, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso stated following:

"This accord is better than no accord. This was a positive step, but clearly below our ambition. We have to be honest when we analyze this result. There are good things and not so good things. I will not hide my disappointment regarding the ambition in terms of the binding - or non-binding nature of the future agreement. In this particular agreement, the text today falls far short. Quite simply, all level of ambition has not been met. Especially, there was not an agreement on the needs to have a legally binding agreement. And this is, of course, a matter of concern for us."

What Barroso and many of the Copenhagen Accord critics point out is a glaring lack of numeric expressions. There are no mentions of mid-term targets for carbon emission reductions. The 2010 deadline to reach a legally binding treaty has been dropped. Nowhere in the text does it reference the $100 billion of climate fund assistance that Secretary Clinton announced. It is, of course, not legally binding.

Despite an overwhelming sense of disappointment, there are areas where praise is due. Within minutes of the gavel coming down to signal the "taking note" of the Copenhagen Accord, Secretary General Ban Ki Moon addressed the press pool on "only two hours of sleep in 48 hours." Secretary Ban stated that, though the Accord may be weak, it is a step in the right direction. He pointed out that ours is a political agreement that takes immediate and operational effect. Highlighting the complex, difficult, and unprecedented nature of the talks, Secretary Ban urged people to give weight to the fact that this is the first ever United Nations agreement of its kind, and that perhaps, observers should tread lightly, the terrains of harsh criticism.

Climate chief Yvo de Boer echoed these sentiments. In spite of its non-binding nature, the Copenhagen Accord holds political significance. It may not be a legally binding treaty as hoped for in Bali, nor is it a plan that sets out the contours on how to get to such an agreement, as hoped for in Bonn and Barcelona. But it is still a letter of intent, and one that was born over the span of 2 years upon 9 official UN meetings, countless informal meetings, discussions, spats, and chats.

Yet the wish list for a just and equitable climate protocol remains as challenging as ever. The to do list before, or leading up to, Mexico City - where the next climate talks is taking place - is as follows:

The international community must see to it that a legally binding treaty under the Convention be signed. Developing countries should be made to sign on to emissions cuts, while the United States must be made to reenter the discussions in a meaningful way. Mid term goals for 2020 must be defined in order to honour these targets. A financial architecture strong enough to mobilize resources for technology, adaptation, and capacity building must be erected. And all of this should be agreed on through a consensus of over 190 member states.

Many have called the Copenhagen talks a disaster, chaos, and a holocaust. Some have challenged the legitimacy of the United Nations and its role as a facilitator on global issues. Yet a system that offers equal weight to Vanuatu and the United States, one that values transparent office, fair process, and inclusiveness in dialogue, one that seeks peaceful solutions to seemingly irreparable problems, just might be one worth keeping around. At least until the next climate circus, that is.

Peter Galbraith To Challenge Dismissal By U.N. After Afghan Vote

2009-12-18T09:46:58Z

Peter W. Galbraith, the American diplomat who was dismissed by the United Nations after exposing voter fraud this fall after the Afghan presidential election, has decided to challenge his dismissal, the United Nations said in a statement on Thursday.

Gillian Caldwell: Hoping in Copenhagen

2009-12-17T12:19:44Z

Last night, I ambled home through the snow after another 20 hour day and stayed up too late watching the inspiring documentary By the People: The Election of Barack Obama. I guess the Danes decided it made sense to broadcast on the eve of his arrival in Copenhagen. I also read Kumi Naidoo's open letter to Barack Obama. And I hoped.

I hoped against hope that one man could pick up the pieces of these broken negotiations and make things right again. That he would bend the 'arc of history' he talked about in his campaign in the direction of a fighting chance to save this precious planet and all the living things that depend on it.

And then I woke up.

So...it's back to the campaign. What's today's message?

Will the real world leaders please stand up? World leaders have two days to stand up and deliver the leadership the world is demanding. We don't need more empty talk or finger pointing: They know what a fair, ambitious and binding deal looks like.

We are heading for climate disaster: We are heading for a deal that leaders will hail as a success, but will not protect the most vulnerable people or avoid catastrophic climate change. Poor countries cannot be expected to sign a 'suicide pact' in Copenhagen -- this is about survival.

The world is watching: Civil society is locked out from the negotiations, but even from outside we can see the truth about what is happening: 100,000 people just marched on the streets of Copenhagen, as well as in 140 other countries. 11 million people around the world are watching to see if world leaders will ensure survival or if they will fail, condemning millions of people to insecurity, hunger, poverty and death. We will not be fooled by spin and our voices will not be silenced.

We are hosting a vigil for survival: World leaders have heard our call -- the call is clear. In the final hours of the climate talks, we are holding a candlelight vigil to stand in solidarity across the world. This solemn and powerful event recognizes the urgency and gravity of the moment, which will unite civil society in a call for bold climate action from world leaders. Coordinated civil society activities will take place Friday to deliver a verdict on the outcome of the U.N. climate negotiations.

We have less than two days left in the negotiations, and President Obama is scheduled to address the conference tomorrow. We need your voice urgently right now and it will only take a minute: Tell President Obama to set the table for a strong climate deal tomorrow in Copenhagen.

More in a few hours as the negotiations proceed. I'm locked out of the Bella Center today along with tens of thousands of other NGO observers.

George A. Lopez: Improving Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism

2009-12-17T11:19:50Z

With the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution (SCR) 1904 a new architecture for effective UN counter-terrorism action has been constructed. Along with it comes a welcome recommitment to human rights norms by the Security Council. This mutual reinforcement of counter-terrorism and human rights was rather improbable one year ago. While SCR 1904 is a far-reaching set of reforms and thus noteworthy in its own right, its adoption provides insight into the new 'listen then lead' style of the US in the Council.

For much of this decade US pundits and politicians have incorrectly considered the UN as peripheral to serious counter-terrorism. Few Americans recall that in 1999 the Security Council led the condemnation of Taliban tactics against women and al-Qaida terrorism, froze their international funds, arms and restricted travel via SCR 1267. After 9-11, under what became known as 'the 1267 regime' the UN went fully global with this listing of al-Qaida suspects and the lock-down on financial assets.

But legal and ethical dilemmas multiplied as more than five hundred individuals and entities were placed on the 1267 list. In prioritizing counter-terrorism, glaring shortcomings emerged as the regime's listing and delisting process failed to meet basic, internationally accepted human rights standards. In particular, there was no notification of cause for those listed, nor access by them to the evidence used to place them on the list, as well as no provision for a right of appeal to contest one's listing. The lack of transparency of the 1267 Committee procedures compounded the problems.

The flaws in this UN approach sparked a group of like-minded states led by Lichtenstein, Switzerland and Sweden to push the Security Council to consider sweeping reform. The debates were contentious as some states labeled US unwillingness to recast the 1267 regime as indicating that Washington had sacrificed human rights for counter-terrorism without any evidence that due process reforms would jeopardize security. Although some revamping occurred in SCR 1822 passed in June, 2008, the like-minded states saw it as a half-way measure, while the US considered it as far as they would ever go on this issue.

The controversy deepened as rulings in recent European court cases led to the annulment of 1267 listings. A report issued by an Eminent Panel of the International Commission of Jurists provided in-depth critique of the workings of the regime. The detrimental effects on how Council members think about targeted sanctions were substantial. Since the mid-1990s virtually all UN imposed sanctions have involved listing individuals and locking down their assets. Many rightfully see this as a powerful tool for international law enforcement against mass murderers, arms proliferators and others beyond terrorists who threaten peace and security. But tainted 1267 procedures jeopardized all of this.

As a dual triumph of human rights and counter-terrorism SCR 1904 restores the legal and moral grounding on which targeted sanctions must rest. The new resolution demands that before an individual or entity is listed both the designating state and the 1267 Committee must meet much higher evidentiary standards and prepare full case summaries defending the listing. Moreover, the resolution creates an Ombudsperson to whom delisting requests are made and who would lead a new process to help the Committee assemble information relevant to the request from multiple sources and ask questions of the petitioner. The Committee and its hard-working Monitoring Team commit themselves to a thorough review of all names on the 1267 list by June, 2010, including a pledge to delist those who are deceased or improperly listed. This reform restores fairness and transparency.

Equally far-reaching has been the leadership shown on this issue by the US in recent months. In shifting from stonewalling to shared problem-solving, the US has indicated a willingness to listen and then lead in a manner the Council welcomes and the UN badly needs. Much like the new procedures set forth in SCR 1904, the new US posture will serve to strengthen both human rights and effective counter-terrorism in a world that deserves both.

U.N. Officials: Galbraith Plotted To Replace Karzai

2009-12-17T09:20:09Z

As widespread fraud in the Afghanistan presidential election was becoming clear three months ago, the No. 2 United Nations official in the country, the American Peter W. Galbraith, proposed enlisting the White House in a plan to replace the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, according to two senior United Nations officials.

William Bradley: Copenhagen Blues: Obama's Weak Hand on Climate, and the California Option

2009-12-16T16:56:35Z

As he prepares to go to Copenhagen for the deeply troubled UN climate change summit, President Barack Obama does so with a weak hand. He has no enacted legislation to brandish, no binding agreements on big greenhouse gas cuts with some of the biggest polluters, and no big financing to aid the developing world of poorer nations.

Aside from that, it's really great.

In his first address to the United Nations as commander-in-chief this past September, President Barack Obama addressed the pressing issue of climate change.

Obama has cobbled together some impressive-looking cards. But starting from the zero point that was bequeathed him by the Bush/Cheney Administration, and with far less congressional support than many imagine, he's nowhere near ready to sign a new Copenhagen Protocol, were one to emerge, which it will not. However, having secured some movement on climate through his recent direct diplomacy with China and India, and with some action in the US, in the form of a bill that has passed the House, EPA moves cutting tailpipe emissions and declaring greenhouse gases a threat to public welfare and granting California its customary right under the Clean Air Act to regulate air pollutants, in this case greenhouse gases, he has a hand that at least consists of some respectable-looking cards.

Let's look at the cards the president does, and does not, have.

** There has been no new legislation enacted. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Obama's strongest and most effective ally, working with LA Congressman Henry Waxman, got the House to barely pass a climate change bill to cut greenhouse gas emissions through a combination of regulation and a cap and trade market.

** His pending legislation falls far short of the cuts that most experts say are needed. Pelosi could barely get a bill passed to cut greenhouse gases by 17% from 2005 levels. But the international standard is based on 1990. And by that standard, the bill is only a 4% cut.

** He doesn't have, as yet, a big financing/technology package for poor nations to aid them in transitioning to greentech and dealing with likely climate impacts. Though Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says America will be part of a big financing package if others agree. And if others agree to have their cuts verified.

** He doesn't have binding, verifiable agreements with rising powers China and India to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

U.N. climate talks deadlocked Wednesday, two days before global leaders hoped to sign an agreement. Police confronted protesters outside the Copenhagen conference venue with pepper spray and batons.

** He does have new agreements from China and India to cut "carbon intensity" in fuels and other products, secured during his supposedly unsuccessful tour of China and other Asian nations and his overlooked Washington summit last month with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. (The silly White House gatecrashers got all the attention.)

** He does have an Environmental Protection Agency decision (based on last year's Supreme Court ruling) that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health, rendering them worthy of regulation by EPA under the Clean Air Act.

** He does have new, stricter standards on vehicle fuel efficiency, based on California standards that were blocked by the Bush/Cheney Administration. (That was a 2002 law signed by then Governor Gray Davis in the face of threats by the auto industry to overturn it at the ballot box. Detroit backed down.)

** He does have a new energy policy, based on the energy efficiency/renewables path pioneered in California by Jerry Brown in the 1970s and 1980s.

** He does have the landmark California plan, enacted in 2006, to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The Bush/Cheney Administration blocked it, despite protests from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and legal action by former Governor-turned-Attorney General Brown. But the new EPA recognizes California's historic ability to take action under the Clean Air Act. And under the Clean Air Act, other states may follow California's lead, as they have done in the past. Which in this instance can create a program covering most of America, including a de facto national cap and trade market in greenhouse gas emissions.

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Copenhagen last Saturday demanding that world leaders take stronger action to fight climate change. This came at the mid-point of the United Nations Global Climate Conference.

Meanwhile, the talks in Copenhagen are in big trouble on a few fundamental points. The trouble is so big that Copenhagen looks destined to be, at best, an interim event, perhaps pointing to further negotiations next year in Mexico City.

The Copenhagen dilemma turns on a few key points.

** Industrialized nations are under pressure to cut back even more on greenhouse gases than they have offered.

** Still developing countries, including giants China and India, have to aggressively cut the growth in emissions, rather than merely reduce carbon intensity. But there is resistance.

** Developing nations need financing and technological assistance to make the leap to green tech, cut emissions, and prepare for the impacts of climate change. The rich nations are talking about a "prompt-start" plan of $10 billion a year for three years. Experts say the funding will be needed for many years, and that $10 billion is a drop in the bucket. Or, in this case, a drop in the rising seas.

And the reality is that European leaders, after much prior hoopla, have only come up with a distinctly underwhelming $3.6 billion a year -- only a third of what was originally planned by the EU -- to help poor nations reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare for climate change.

** America and other developed nations want technical verification of emissions actions by developing nations. But China resists that, saying it's a violation of its sovereignty.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger addressed the U.N. climate summit on Tuesday in Copenhagen, arguing that action at the subnational level can do much.

Against this wonderful backdrop, Obama, based on what Pelosi and Waxman were able to get through the House with a bare one vote majority, has offered to cut US emissions by 4% from 1990 levels by 2020. The European Union has committed to a 20% cut from 1990 levels.

It's hard to see how this works on the current track, at least in the near term. Politically speaking, there is a big bandwidth problem, especially for the Senate, which agonizes over legislation for months on end.

Despite an optimistic statement today from Senator John Kerry, it's hard to see how the Senate passes a bill in 2010, an election year, that barely passed the House this year. Remember that the Pelosi-led House passed national health care reform, with the public option, earlier this year, while the Senate is still struggling to pass national health care reform without the public option.

And most experts say that the barely passed House bill is clearly insufficient to meet the challenge of climate change.

Which leaves two options. Do it all by top-down regulation through the EPA, a less flexible cudgel perhaps best used to gain future passage of legislation. (Big moves through the EPA alone hands the Republicans a club about "unelected bureaucrats.") Or use the EPA to do some regulations and encourage other states, big and small, to follow the California plan, which is highly praised by the UN, which states have done before on other air pollution issues.

You can check things during the day on my site, New West Notes ... www.newwestnotes.com.

Steve Westly: Copenhagen Climate Summit Already a Success

2009-12-16T12:53:33Z

For the last several weeks, pundits have been bemoaning the prospect that the nations of the world will likely not be signing a comprehensive treaty at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. The simple fact is that Copenhagen has already succeeded beyond any reasonable expectations.

Of course, global warming skeptics call the summit a waste of time, and maintain that any agreement is a disastrous one since global warming doesn't exist. But even reasonable voices have been lukewarm on the summit, maintaining that no multilateral agreement will be formalized. Here's why their criticism misses the point:

Global Media Attention: Few events in the last decade have focused the world's attention like Copenhagen. Delegates from 192 nations have already arrived and 110 heads of state will gather for the final two days. Every media outlet on the planet is covering this event. The political left, right and center in every country in the world is debating one issue over all others this week -- climate change. Focusing the world's attention on this issue in such an unprecedented way means the commitment to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions is at an all-time high. To that extent, we've already made a huge leap forward. However, there is something more important happening here:

The Power of Now: Immediacy and competition are powerful forces. Virtually every world leader is driving their staffs to give them the most powerful commitment they can take to Copenhagen. No one wants to be outdone. While emissions reduction legislation has stalled in the U.S. Senate, President Obama is moving full speed ahead. His EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, recently announced that greenhouse gases pose a danger to public health -- a move that will enable broad new pollution regulations. President Obama promised last month to reduce U.S. emissions to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020. Leaders around the world aren't waiting with legislative support -- they are working overtime to make history.

The Developing World: While The European Union has promised to reduce emissions to 20% below 1990 levels by 2020 (and possibly by as much as 30%) -- the question remains -- what about China, India and Brazil, who were the focus of so much criticism after Kyoto because they were exempt from the targets? China has pledged to reduce its carbon intensity (the amount of carbon emissions for each unit of economic output) by 40% to 45% below 2005 levels by 2020. India has agreed to reduce its carbon intensity by 24% and Brazil has committed to reducing their emissions by 36% to 39% -- placing them near 1994 levels. Without Copenhagen, it's hard to imagine these countries stepping up in such a profound way.

The next few days will be fascinating theater, as world leaders compete with each other for the spotlight. Policy makers and experts are working around the clock to make sure their bosses show up in Copenhagen ready to make a significant announcement. No one wants to go home empty-handed.

Just as competition drives innovation in the private sector -- it's driving progress on climate change as well.

Critics such as Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe will continue to maintain that global warming is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" and Congress will continue to be locked in partisan debate -- but there can be no denying that something historic is happening in Copenhagen and the world is going to be better for it.

Steve Westly is a delegate to the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

Evelyn Leopold: UN Renovation: Fun Taken Out of East River Complex

2009-12-15T18:25:43Z

UNITED NATIONS - The bustling corridors of the United Nations are quiet. There are no lines in the cafeteria . The campus is being steadily dismantled in the 39-floor high-rise glass tower on New York's East River. And it's no longer any fun.

Completed in 1952, the landmark skyscraper now has water dripping through its roof, asbestos lining the ceiling tiles, a shortage of sprinklers and erratic heating and cooling systems. So it was time for a $1.87 billion overhaul, the costs divided among member states, with the United States paying some 22 percent or $413 million.

Three plans were drawn up in the past decade, each one more expensive than the last, and one is finally coming to fruition.

The skyscraper (known as the Secretariat building) will remain and is being gutted from the inside. Meanwhile, 3,300 of the more than 5,000 people have been relocated, the remainder by the first few months of 2010.

Many are scattered in office buildings around town while Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and top executives are migrating to a three-story $140 million new building on the north lawn of the complex. Eventually the General Assembly, the Security Council and other conference rooms will move to this building also.

And there they will stay for three years, minimum, more likely five years.

But the human costs are high. Undersecretaries-general who head key departments are to surround the secretary-general in the new office building. However, their staff are scattered around town, some as far as Madison Avenue, five wide city blocks away. Face-to-face interaction between those in political affairs, peacekeeping, and humanitarian affairs, for example, is limited to planned meetings.

And the press is harbored in a library complex on the south side of the campus, a wing off the high-rise. Half have moved, including this reporter, (without TV connections or telephone but with wifi), the other half come early in 2010.

Except for stake-outs at corridors near the Security Council, casual contacts with diplomats and UN officials are disappearing quickly; the attraction of seeing so many people of diverse nationalities in one space is gone.

Wudda, Shudda, Cudda

It didn't have to be this way. The first plan was to take over a little-used park near the UN on 42nd street and build an office complex on it. Once it was complete, staff would be moved in. And once the glass palace was renovated, UN agencies, such as UNICEF or the UN Development Programme, now renting expensive office space in New York, would take over the new building. But that was too logical. The plan was squashed in 2005 by the New York legislature, angry about everything.

Then-State Senator Roy Goodman, a Republican, enlisted an array of distinguished New Yorkers, Democrat and Republican as well as Abraham Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, to support the project, the UN being the city's number one tourist attraction. But in Albany, home of one of the most dysfunctional legislatures in the country, some state senators said UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had to resign first while others spoke of an anti-Israel bias. Most paid no attention.

Inside the building things got so bad, Mayor Michael Bloomberg forbid New York schoolchildren to visit the United Nations two years ago unless new sprinkler systems and fire-proof doors were installed, many of which took place, costing millions.

The new building will be as green as reconstruction allows. Total energy consumption is expected to be reduced by 50 per cent compared to the present. The carbon footprint will be reduced by over 45 per cent. The consumption of fresh water will be reduced by over 40 per cent. Renovation in the building's basement involves the installation of 14 kilometers of water piping, 65 kilometers of electrical conduits and more than 60 kilometers of telecommunications conduits. An equal amount of deteriorated materials are expected to be removed, representing almost a quarter of the construction activity of the entire project.

In charge of the project, known as the Capital Master Plan, is Michael Adlerstein, a Brooklyn-born former National Park Service architect involved in the preservation of Ellis Island, the Statute of Liberty and the Taj Mahal. He told a recent news conference that the renovation "should last forever," providing there is proper maintenance every 10 to 15 years. "There are buildings that are hundreds of years old that survive very well."

But in a place like the United Nations, renovation is not high on the agenda so it is put off for years, for decades until there is a crisis "where you have to vacate and do it wholesale," he said.

Richard Grenell: The Obama Team is Taking Credit for a Bush Policy in North Korea

2009-12-15T13:42:37Z

The White House this week leaked intelligence information to the New York Times to suggest that their North Korea policy is working. And although David Sanger from the Times was all too quick to buy the administration's line, an honest assessment of the Obama team's claims shows that the successful policy they highlight was designed and first implemented in the Bush administration.

Over the weekend, an airplane leaving North Korea with a cargo of illegal weapons was seized by Thailand. The Thai intelligence authorities worked with American officials to determine that the 5-member crew from a cargo company in the Republic of Georgia was carrying roughly 30 tons of illegal military equipment.

The Obama team points to the recently passed United Nations Security Council Resolution on North Korea, Resolution 1874, as evidence that they can design a strategy to contain North Korea from gaining weapons and materials to make or launch a nuclear weapon like seizing the Georgian plane. UN Security Council Resolution 1874, however, authorizes countries to board sea vessels and ships, not airplanes. The New York Times highlighted story in Thailand was an airplane and therefore technically didn't fall under the Obama team's UN resolution -- it was a Bush Administration resolution that gave the authority to seize the plane.

Additionally, the White House and the New York Times missed the fact that the UN Security Council has had sanctions on the DPRK for years. In rushing to trumpet the Obama team's erroneous claims, the Times failed to understand that it is already illegal to carry arms in or out of North Korea. The Bush administration passed the UN Security Council resolution that made it illegal to transfer illegal weapons by sea or air -- or any means.

Thailand has been authorized, albeit expected, to seize ships and planes suspected of carrying illegal cargo since 2006. Resolution 1695, passed July 15, 2006, reads in operative paragraphs 3 and 4:

3. Requires all Member States, in accordance with their national legal authorities and legislation and consistent with international law, to exercise vigilance and prevent missile and missile-related items, materials, goods and technology being transferred to DPRK's missile or WMD programmes;

4. Requires all Member States, in accordance with their national legal authorities and legislation and consistent with international law, to exercise vigilance and prevent the procurement of missiles or missile related-items, materials, goods and technology from the DPRK, and the transfer of any financial resources in relation to DPRK's missile or WMD programmes;

And Resolution 1718, passed October 14, 2006, says in operative paragraphs 7 and 8:

7. Decides also that the DPRK shall abandon all other existing weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programme in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner;

8. Decides that: (a) All Member States shall prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer to the DPRK, through their territories or by their nationals, or using their flag vessels or aircraft, and whether or not originating in their territories...

Further, early in the Bush administration John Bolton conceived of and implemented a successful program called The Proliferation Security Initiative, or PSI. PSI acted as a coalition of the willing searchers. Several countries in and around North Korea have been working together for quite some time to patrol the water, land and air for possible illegal shipments going in and coming out of North Korea.

The Japanese, in particular, have been very concerned and have aggressively been watching North Korean exports and imports. Countries interested in intercepting cargo going in and out of North Korea have been stopping and boarding suspicious vessels for many years. Once Bolton was at the United Nations as our American Ambassador, he was able to draft similar language used from the successful PSI program into UN Security Council mandated resolutions thereby compelling countries to work to ensure no illegal weapons entered or left North Korea with a UN mandated appeal.

However, he New York Times' David Sanger yesterday wrote, "The Obama administration is trying to show that it will choke off the North's illicit exports even while attempting to reopen nuclear talks. In interviews in recent weeks, several officials said they believed that the Bush administration, which came to office seeking to topple the North Korean government of Kim Jong-il, mistakenly eased pressure on him while pursuing disarmament accords, almost all of them since renounced by the North."

While Resolution 1874 is an additional constraint on North Korea, it is redundant and not as thorough as Resolutions 1695 and 1718. Resolutions 1695 and 1718, more important resolutions passed during the Bush Administration, established wide-ranging sanctions on DPRK back in 2006.

The simple fact is that during the Bush administration the pressure was greatly increased on the North Koreans, not decreased as the White House and the Times says. I have written to David Sanger asking him and the New York Times to correct the record but so far I haven't heard back.

Sanjay Khanna: Politicians Can Count on Popular Despair After Copenhagen

2009-12-15T12:57:46Z

An earlier version of this article is cross posted on The Tyee, "B.C.'s Home for News, Culture and Solutions."

On Saturday, after the first week of the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen, Connie Hedegaard, president and chairwoman of COP 15 (and Denmark's minister of climate and energy), and Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), responded to questions on the relative progress of the climate negotiations.

During that Q & A, I popped the following question to Ms. Hedegaard and Mr. de Boer: "In your experience, do leaders comprehend the potential impact of popular despair on civil society should these negotiations fail to deliver a substantive climate agreement?"

Hedegaard responded immediately. "Almost certainly," she said. "That is why the price of political failure is so high."

As Wallace might say, "Cracking sound bite, Gromit."

Nevertheless, I felt dissatisfied.

Cut to Sunday night. At a private gathering hosted by Yale University, Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said, "Political leaders still do not grasp climate change." He questioned whether "the structure of nation states" would make it impossible to act at the required level of urgency. He advocated mass grassroots pressure from civil society to protect the lives of the vulnerable and the innocent.

If Pachauri is correct in stating that the basic threats of climate change aren't grasped by the political leaders of our day, then it's not plausible that leaders, as Hedegaard suggested, "almost certainly" understand the impact that popular anger, despair, anxiety and depression may have on the functioning of civil society in the years following COP 15.

In contrast, almost every Western intelligence agency -- and the U.K.'s Chief Scientific Adviser John Beddington -- has formed a consensus that around 2030 civil disobedience will impact democracies in developed countries, with middle-class uprisings prompted by food and employment insecurity. In part, that's because seeds for civil strife have been planted already as a result of two decades of inaction and posturing on the climate file.

Ole Mathismoen is the environmental correspondent at Aftenposten, Norway's newspaper of record. Mathismoen said, "I've covered the climate issue since 1989 and the language they are using today is the same language they were using then."

Given this state of affairs, we can almost count on major disruptions of civil society, including mental and physical health and well being, as climate change impacts converge with structural vulnerabilities in our economies, and in our political and civil institutions.

To sum it up, the UN climate conference won't deliver the deal that wise leaders know is necessary not just to safeguard ecological health and bio-cultural diversity, but also to protect the well being of civil society.

Hang on to your hats, people. Something's rotten in the state of Denmark.

Joseph A. Palermo: Obama's Nobel Lecture: Speaking Truth From Power?

2009-12-15T09:59:33Z

President Barack Obama's Nobel lecture last Thursday in Oslo shows he understands that "peace is not merely the absence of visible conflict." "Only a just peace based upon the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting," he said. Hearing a president say this is mind blowing and illustrates the side of Obama we should seek to nurture. But the president's statement about the expansive nature of peace raises the question: Couldn't this idea be applied also to the social conditions that gave rise to terrorism aimed at the United States in the first place?

"America has never fought a war against a democracy, and our closest friends are governments that protect the rights of their citizens," President Obama said. "No matter how callously defined, neither America's interests -- nor the world's -- are served by the denial of human aspirations." Unfortunately, while it might be true that the U.S. "has never fought a war against a democracy," the U.S. has overthrown democracies when their interests collided with American global objectives. It has also propped up governments (including the current one in Kabul) claiming they are democracies when they really aren't. History shows a long line of human rights violators the U.S. has supported over the years that specialized in "the denial of human aspirations."

The president continues:

"For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want. . . . security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water, or the medicine they need to survive. It does not exist where children cannot aspire to a decent education or a job that supports a family. The absence of hope can rot a society from within."

America's enemies have for years told us through communiques and videos about a whole set of grievances relating directly to the failures of U.S. policy in the Middle East; policies of supporting corrupt dictatorships while extracting oil wealth and creating an environment where social justice doesn't have a chance. Even Karl Rove recommended that Americans read Osama Bin Laden's writings to glean greater knowledge of what animates these murderers -- an ironic twist indeed since throughout the Bush-Cheney years the United States was incapable of acknowledging the underlying social and political causes of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

"And so, a quarter century after the United States Senate rejected the League of Nations -- an idea for which Woodrow Wilson received this Prize -- America led the world in constructing an architecture to keep the peace: a Marshall Plan and a United Nations, mechanisms to govern the waging of war, treaties to protect human rights, prevent genocide, and restrict the most dangerous weapons."

The President is correct in pointing out these vital multilateral institutions that the United States was instrumental in forming. They not only reconstructed the post-war world but also provided a foundation for a greatly improved intercourse among nations. Yet right after the war it was the United States that was the first to develop, test, stockpile, and deploy nuclear weapons. And it did so at a time when it held a monopoly on them. Any "realistic" view of history must recognize that it was the United States that pushed the world onto the path of nuclear proliferation, the terrible consequences of which we face today.

Also, a "realistic" assessment of the history of American foreign policy would have to accept that even a cursory look at the regions of the world where American power had the most influence, namely Latin America, Central America, the Caribbean, and the Philippines, far from ushering in a trajectory of "democracy" and "freedom" the United States brought these places CIA overthrows of democratic governments and support for dictators and military juntas. American corporate and financial prerogatives, neo-liberal economic policies, and International Monetary Fund (IMF) "structural adjustment" schemes (all designed to wipe away enlightened social policy) have brought forth the kind of crushing poverty in those countries that Obama understands is inconsistent with promoting peace.

President Obama's Nobel lecture might have showed us that the United States has reached a turning point: either the national security monster we've created is going to eat us alive by bankrupting the country or we're going to have to shift course. We must begin to spin off the 700 or so military bases and installations around the world and focus on building a better life for our own people here at home. As it goes today we don't even have the political will to raise taxes to share the sacrifice of fighting these foreign wars. It's getting to the point where the only time we hear politicians wax eloquent about how important it is to spend money on education and health care is when the goal is to try to win hearts and minds in some distant land.

I think the U.S. policy of occupying Afghanistan is foolish and fails to recognize the limits to American power. The Pashtuns don't like foreigners in their midst and they live in vast numbers on both sides of the Durand Line. I'm afraid the United States, like the former Soviet Union, will have nothing to show for its Afghanistan adventure except for an empty treasury and a depleted military.

During the Cold War about one-third of the planet's nations were hostile to us and we still survived it. Yet today we're told to quake in our boots because nineteen suicidal guys with box cutters hit us eight years ago? From 1955 to 1975, we were told that Saigon was vital to the continental security of the United States; today, we're being told the same thing about Kabul. Here's an idea: Why don't we close some of those U.S. military outposts all over the world and amass our soldiers along the Canadian and Mexican borders and really protect the "homeland?" As was the case in Vietnam, U.S. forces in Afghanistan already have been absorbed into the ancient political feuds of a country the U.S. is supposedly remaking in its own image.

American right-wingers screech at the thought of U.S. troops under the command of "Blue Helmeted" United Nations forces. They see it as an unacceptable infringement on U.S. "sovereignty." But they're perfectly happy to cede U.S. "sovereignty" to the whims of the corrupt, unpopular, and incompetent government of Hamid Karzai in Kabul.

We're told that training the Afghans to take over their own security is "vital" to American "success." Right now the only number worth watching in Afghanistan is the desertion rate of its military and security forces. When it spikes (as I expect it will) no amount of American training or arms is going to make much of a difference.

Armond Cohen: Copenhagen, Methane Emissions, and the Arctic

2009-12-15T09:53:12Z

As world leaders and policymakers continue to gather at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, the focus of media attention has largely and rightly been on carbon emissions. Over the long haul it's carbon that matters.

But, over the next two decades, other emissions are critical to climate as well. Melting ice in the Arctic, retreating glaciers, and other changes already underway won't be halted by CO2 cuts today, because CO2 lasts for many centuries. Faster warming and more transient gases like methane can, however, if reduced, provide climate relief for these sensitive areas.

For that reason, the recommendations released on December 11th in Copenhagen by a blue-ribbon panel of experts deserve particular attention. The panel called for a crash program to reduce heat-trapping methane emissions as a way to slow the rapid warming of the Arctic, the Himalayas, and the Earth as whole. It urged the creation of a Global Methane Fund to underwrite projects that could bring about a quick reduction in powerful methane emissions.

The distinguished multi-national panel includes prominent experts on science, governance and finance from China, the European Union, Mexico, Norway, and the United States. Among its members are such renowned authorities as:

Dr. Robert Watson, former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change;

Dr. Mohamed El-Ashry, Senior Fellow, United Nations Foundation, and Chairman & CEO Emeritus, Global Environment Facility;

Ambassador Bo Kjellen, former chief climate negotiator of Sweden;

Dr. Luisa Molina, president of the Molina Center for Strategic Studies in Energy and the Environment in La Jolla, CA, and principal research scientist at the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology;

Ken Newcombe, CEO and Founder, C-Quest Capital, and former head of carbon finance at the World Bank.

"Methane is a very potent greenhouse gas - second only to carbon dioxide in its overall impact," said Dr. Molina, while presenting the recommendations in Copenhagen. "A rapid reduction in methane may be our best hope to blunt the effects of global warming in the near term. While carbon reductions are the longer focus, we need to reduce methane to help protect systems that may be already on the brink from past CO2 warming."

Reducing methane emissions could bring quick results, because its warming lasts only 10 years, while CO2 warming already in place will continue for centuries. Accordingly, limiting methane could be crucial for regions that could reach critical thresholds or "tipping points" that affect the global climate system or large human populations, such as those in the Arctic and the Himalayas.

As Ken Newcombe noted, technologies already exist to limit methane emissions. Hundreds of clean-up projects are shovel-ready, but many plans for controlling the pollutant have foundered because of frozen credit markets and the global financial crisis. "We need to thaw those markets - and get those methane projects rolling," he added.

To do this, the blue-ribbon panel has proposed a new financing structure - a Global Methane Fund - to stimulate investments in methane-abatement projects by providing a floor price for carbon credits from methane projects. The Panel's analysis suggests that a small and nimble Fund could be created with as little as $100 million pooled together from governments, foundations and private companies; it could leverage several billion dollars in methane-abatement projects.

The Panel urged that the Fund aim to tackle 50 percent of cost-effective global methane emission reductions by 2020. Money disbursed by the Fund would be repaid from the value derived from credits under cap-and-trade systems, and the use of captured energy.

A full list of panel members and details of the Panel's recommendations can be found at www.globalmethanefund.org.

The author is executive director of the Clean Air Task Force (www.catf.us), an environmental organization advancing clean technology in the United States and China.

North Korea Weapons Siezure Raises More Questions

2009-12-15T02:10:17Z

The seizure at Bangkok's airport of 35 tons of North Korean arms being shipped by plane raises a disturbing question: How many weapons is North Korea managing to ship undetected to Iran and other clients worldwide?

The commander of US troops in Korea, General Walter Sharp, cited Monday the UN resolution imposing stringent sanctions on North Korean weapons sales as the key to halting the shipments. He refrained, however, from talking about the intelligence that tipped off authorities in Thailand to the cargo they found aboard the plane during a refueling stop at Don Muang military airport.

UN-Backed Congo Troops Killed More Civilians Than Rebels, Says Human Rights Watch

2009-12-14T16:00:27Z

JOHANNESBURG — A U.N.-backed Congolese military operation to oust rebels from eastern Congo has caused more civilian casualties than damage to rebels, with more than 1,400 people deliberately killed over a nine-month period, human rights groups said Monday.

Human Rights Watch said it had documented "vicious and widespread" attacks against civilians by soldiers and rebels between January and September. Soldiers being fed and supplied with ammunition by the United Nations have killed civilians, gang-raped girls and cut the heads off some young men they accuse of being rebels or supporting the enemy, groups said.

Rahim Kanani: Obama Can Help the World's Women

2009-12-11T14:00:21Z

More than six decades ago on Dec. 10, 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in Paris, codifying the fundamental rights and freedoms inherently bestowed upon all peoples. As we reflect on this milestone, the very same day we celebrate the affirmation of American leadership in a troubled world as U.S. President Barack Obama is presented with the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

In accepting the Nobel, Obama must spearhead a bold and unprecedented initiative aimed at one of the most pervasive human rights violations of the 21st century: violence against women and girls worldwide.

Penetrating every stage of life, violence against women and girls is a cancer that has incessantly killed lives and livelihoods around the world. Whether forced marriage, rape as a weapon of war, human trafficking, female genital mutilation, or intimate partner violence, this epidemic effects all corners of the Earth.

Globally, at least one out of every three women is beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime. Addressing this alarming statistic, President Obama has appointed Melanne Verveer as the first Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues, while U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has vowed to make women's empowerment in political, economic and social spheres a top foreign policy priority. We must demand more.

For decades, in the name of stability, the United States has turned a blind eye and placed strategic diplomatic ties with repressive regimes over the human cost of these relations. Today, we realize that the plight of women and girls is intimately tied to stability.

In testifying before the Senate, Verveer recently stated that, "around the world, the places that are the most dangerous for women also pose the greatest threats to international peace and security. The correlation is clear: where women are oppressed, governance is weak and terrorists are more likely to take hold."

Now, Obama must instruct America's national security community to integrate this insight into their ongoing analyses.

Around the world, women are a force for moderation; consequently, whether dealing with Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia or Saudi Arabia, violence against women and girls is now intimately tied to the security of the United States. Therefore, Obama has both the evidence and momentum to enact sweeping reforms to the way in which America conducts its business abroad -- not only redefining the climate of international relations, but also redefining the very relations themselves.

The United States must be courageous in defending its moral principles and tie the issue of violence against women and girls to diplomatic engagements, economic ties, and military aid -- linking such relations to prevention, including education and economic opportunities, the protection of victims, and the prosecution of those who perpetrate these crimes.

America has an obligation to exercise its full range of incentives and punishments to end this global atrocity by engaging the world in ways that encourage, and sometimes force, positive reform.

In addition, Obama must proactively engage the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women.

In 2008, the fund awarded nearly $19 million U.S. for initiatives in developing countries, while receiving grant requests amounting to $525 million.

The gap between these amounts is not merely the lack of finances, but it is the countless number of abuses, exploitations, and acts of violence against women and girls that could have been prevented and will now go unpunished.

The Obama administration has a unique opportunity to reignite the torch of multilateralism. Investing the hundreds of millions required each year to meet the Trust Fund's demand will rebuild trust and goodwill with the United Nations, contribute to the national security priorities of the United States, and demonstrate America's moral leadership towards ending a defining human rights struggle of our time.

Leading the world into an era free of violence against women and girls is no simple task; however, America has the resources, reach and resilience to set in motion the very process that can do just that.

The world is watching, the clock is ticking, and the women and girls of the world are waiting. We must put an end to these unspeakable crimes.

This op-ed was originally published on Dec. 10th in print of the Ottawa Citizen.

Kai Eide: Top UN Official In Afghanistan Has Had Enough

2009-12-11T06:38:15Z

KABUL — The top U.N. official in Afghanistan said Friday he will step down early next year after a rocky two-year tenure marked by a fraud-marred national election and a deadly Taliban attack on U.N. employees.

The departure of Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide provides an opportunity to restructure the civilian side of the international mission as the Obama administration's military strategy kicks into gear.

Jim Luce: Only in America: Ambassador Sichan Siv - From the Killing Fields to the White House

2009-12-10T17:26:11Z

I first met Ambassador Sichan Siv in 2004 when I was invited to hear him speak at the imposing Women's Republican National Club, just north of Rockefeller Center. What a speech!

He spoke on surviving Pol Pot's Killing Fields in Cambodia, then making his way to America where he earned a degree in International Relations at Columbia. He ended up working in the White House and then the United Nations.

Others have graduated from Columbia's prestigious business school, but few have done so after arriving at JFK with only $2, a scarf from their mother, and an empty sack for rice as their total life possessions.
Ambassador Sichan Siv went on to become a U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

There are fewer than ten speeches I have ever heard in my life that have stuck with me. His was one of them. Hearing a man recount how every member of his family - 15 in all, including his mother - were killed during genocide -- that sticks in one's mind for a long, long time.

After the war, Sichan learned that his mother had gone up to the Khmer Rouge and said, 'Why do you leave me alive? You have killed my daughter and my son already. Why don't you kill me as well?" So they did.

This man -- who suffered so much, and yet went on to accomplish so much -- impressed me greatly. I was delighted to be invited to his New York City home last week to meet with him and his lovely wife Martha. They now reside in Martha's home state of Texas, but visit the East Coast regularly.

I was particularly pleased to do an on-camera interview with Sichan about his harrowing but ultimately triumphant life - and his best-selling book, Golden Bones. The title means "Very lucky, very blessed."
"An extraordinary Journey from hell in Cambodia to a new life in America."

A few days later, I heard the Ambassador speaking at Columbia Business School, at a symposium sponsored by my friends at Global China Connection, and wrote about that event last spring.
Hon. Sichan Siv with the leadership of Global China Connection at Columbia University.

We have all seen the heart-breaking footage of the fall of Saigon with the last helicopter leaving the U.S. Embassy, leaving Vietnam. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge entered neighboring Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh. Once again, America evacuated key personnel and locals.

Sichan had been selected for U.S. evacuation because he had helped manage the U.S. relief agency CARE. He had one hour to get to the embassy - but he did not make it. Thus began his dark brush with death that somehow led him to the corridors of power in Washington and New York.

No one knows how many were executed by the Khmer Rouge -- at least 200,000 by the lowest counts. Estimates of the total number of deaths resulting from Khmer Rouge policies - including disease and starvation - range from 1.4 to 2.2 million out of a small population of around 7 million. Sichan should have been among them.

To escape notice as a pariah "intellectual," he had thrown away his glasses. None the less, he was immediately captured by the Khmer Rouge and placed in a labor camp.

Ambassador Sichan Siv, a Buddhist, revisited Angkor Wat in 1992.

Last spring he journeyed back, and in a poignant essay in the New York Times, "Last Breakfast in Cambodia," wrote about his return. Cambodians, like most Theravada Buddhists, celebrate their New Year in mid-April.

He reminisced about how his family held their reunions every year to mark both the New Year and his mother's birthday. "In 1975," he wrote, "we had no idea that it would be our last."

The Ambassador visiting orphaned Cambodian children playing with masks in Takeo.

For a year he was imprisoned in a succession of slave-labor camps in Cambodia, toiling 18 hours a day, digging ditches, hoeing weeds, fixing roads. He would then stagger back to the huts, gag down a bowl of rancid soup, and fall into a nightmarish sleep.

After a year he escaped to Thailand and became a Buddhist monk. His escape will one day be the subject of a Hollywood movie. Sichan arrived in Thailand, where he eventually made it via a refugee camp to New York's JFK. His powerful book has all the riveting details, a must-read.

There is also an incredible piece on the Ambassador's life by Voice of America, in Mandarin.

Sichan's marriage to Martha Pattillo, a Presbyterian from Texas who had once worked for the U.N. in Bangkok, is the Buddhist Ambassador's greatest blessing. They were married in the Lone Star State on Christmas Eve 1983.
Sichan's marriage to Texan Martha Pattillo has made him a Cambodian cowboy.

Are names destiny? His slaughtered mother named him "Sichan," which means "Beautiful Moon" in Khmer. She instructed him, "Remember, Sichan, whatever happens, never give up hope."

Jim Luce (Orphans International), Ambassador Sichan Siv, Jean-Michel Tijerina

(The Cambodia Project), and Gavin Newton-Tanzer (Global China Connection).

He never has. He continues to inspire young leaders across the U.S. and world, such as his friends Jean-Michel Tijerina, founder of The Cambodia Project, and Gavin Newton-Tanzer, founder of Global China Connection.

Ambassador Sichan Siv is a thought leader on the miracle of Making It In America, and a global citizen with a deep understanding of human nature, learned during his unlikely journey from his Buddhist temple to the White House.

He has never given up hope - which inspires my friends and me, and the entire world.

Related Stories by Jim Luce

Cambodian Children's Hospital Benefits In New York and Los Angeles (Huffington Post)

Bleecker Street Bar Crawls for Kids in Cambodia and Haiti (Huffington Post)

New York's GreenSoul Shoes Tours Southeast Asia (Huffington Post)

Global China Connection: From Columbia to Stanford and McGill (Huffington Post)

Edited by Ethel Grodzins Romm.

William S. Becker: Saboteurs at Copenhagen

2009-12-10T11:19:33Z

COPENHAGEN - With the announcement that a delegation from the Congressional Republican Flat Earth Caucus will show up to embarrass President Obama in Copenhagen next week, we hope the White House finally decides to man-up on climate change.

What manning up means in the present context is that the Obama Administration must get serious about using its regulatory authority to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions well below the levels being considered on Capitol Hill.

So far, Obama has been scrupulous in not "getting out ahead" of Congress on climate change. He has announced he will appear in Copenhagen on Dec. 18 to commit the United States to the goal passed by the House - a reduction in emissions of only about 4 percent by 2020. That is embarrassingly low compared to the European Union's goal of 20 percent and to the opinion of leading climate scientists that industrialized nations should be shooting for 40 or 45 percent below our emissions in 1990.

With EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's formal finding Monday that greenhouse gases endanger public health and safety, the Administration now has the legal tool to establish a goal more in line with climate science, and to make sure the goal is met. The question is whether Obama plans to use regulation as a small crowbar to pry a bill from Congress, or as a game-changer in the economy.

Politically, it's time for Obama to accept that Clintonesque centrism isn't working as a leadership strategy. So far, the White House has been acting like a Capitol Annex rather than a branch of government duty-bound to check and balance not only the excesses of Congress, but also its failures.

Obama's desire not to "get out in front of Congress", which began with his trek down Pennsylvania Avenue shortly after his election to sit down with Republican members in a symbolic reach across the aisle, has won no more than a handful of GOP votes on enormously important issues of the day, ranging from the stimulus package to the health-care bill and climate change.

It doesn't take a K Street lobbyist to see the only problem Republicans are interested in solving is their minority status on the Hill. Their strategy is to make sure that Obama and the Democrat majority fail as often as possible, even on an issue like climate change that risk the future of Republican children as well as Democrat children.

So now an uninvited and unwanted delegation of Republican climate deniers will make the trip to Copenhagen to further undermine America's reputation in the world community and to demonstrate that President Obama is not in control. In doing so, they will show a lack of respect not only for the president, but also for their own institution where they were unable to block the bill Obama has embraced.

They will likely spark a very nasty response in the highly emotional climate conference, which already is threatened with a breakdown due to the goodwill gap between industrial nations and developing countries, including several already suffering the effects of climate change.

That undoubtedly is exactly what the Republican saboteurs hope - a breakdown at COP-15 that sends years of diplomatic efforts into a tailspin. They lost the election last year; they lost the vote on the Waxman-Markey bill; but they plan not to lose their war against rational and responsible climate action.

So here is our untenable situation: So long as the world waits for Obama to lead, and so long as Obama waits for Congress to lead, the international response to global climate change can be stopped by one vote in the United States Senate - one elected ego who has sold his soul to the coal industry or who wants to be a hero to the radical Right, with all the campaign contributions that status promises. Obama has the power to prevent this travesty, if only he chooses to use it. Here's how:

First, the president should announce to Congress and to the world that his Administration intends to implement aggressive regulations that will cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 40-45 percent by 2020, compared to 1990. This will require a World War II scale national effort in collaboration with states, half of which already have their own climate plans.

Second, he should request that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson establish a carbon cap-and-trade system that equips the United States to participate in the global trading regime expected to emerge sooner or later from the United Nations process. Jackson should respond with a clean and transparent trading regime in coordination with states and regions that already have established their own trading systems.

Meantime, Obama should tell congressional leaders that he still prefers a market mechanism to regulation and he is willing to work with the Hill to make climate legislation work in tandem with the Clean Air Act. But he should set out these non-negotiable terms: The United States will cut its emissions 45 percent in the next 10 years. If Congress passes a bill with a lower cap, the Administration will regulate to achieve the rest. If Congress passes a bill that is wholly inadequate, the president will veto it.

Finally, if it appears the Senate cannot produce the 67 votes necessary to recommend ratification of an international treaty, the president should prepare to use an Executive Agreement to collaborate with other nations on carbon reduction and climate adaptation. An executive agreement can be used much like a treaty, but does not require a Senate vote.

Some members of Congress will react by trying to curtail EPA's power and by placing new restrictions on executive agreements. To block such retaliation, the president should implement his strategy in full consultation with the members of Congress who believe in responsible climate action and who might be relieved to see the president take the heat. Obama should put Republicans and conservative Democrats in the position where they need 60 Senate votes to bring retaliatory legislation to the floor.

In Copenhagen on Tuesday, news of Jackson's endangerment finding created a buzz of speculation about whether Obama would come to the climate conference with a December surprise - i.e., an announcement that he and Jackson planned to use the Clean Air Act to set a more ambitious carbon-cutting target than the president has embraced so far. Jackson was asked about this three times; she evaded the question each time, saying only that the EPA has to be mindful of lawsuits and has to take action that is "reasonable and cost-effective".

But the EPA will be sued no matter what it does, and nothing is more reasonable and cost-effective than preventing severe climate change with all of its costly impacts, from drought and disease to national security threats and natural disasters. In fact, a strong climate policy that relies on energy efficiency and renewable energy, a smart grid and other improvements to our aging infrastructure, and that ends America's dependence on foreign oil and slows our energy trade deficit, will put people back to work, from steelworkers to computer technicians.

The regulatory approach has been studied and recommended by groups such as the Center for Biological Diversity, which has just joined 350.org in petitioning EPA to use the Clean Air Act for aggressive cuts in greenhouse gases. In an analysis issued earlier this year, the Center concluded:

Notwithstanding the fact that EPA currently has not only the full authority under the Clean Air Act, but the legal mandate, to begin requiring greenhouse emissions reductions immediately from nearly all major sources in the U.S., a decade of agency inaction under the statute has created a prevailing perception that the Clean Air Act is somehow "ill suited" to addressing greenhouse emissions and that new legislation is needed before meaningful U.S. action to address greenhouse emissions can occur. However, a review of Clean Air Act provisions demonstrates that the law is in fact very well-suited to addressing greenhouse emissions, and if expeditiously implemented and enforced would result in emission reductions in the U.S. at least equal to, but likely exceeding those under any climate legislation currently before Congress.

Researchers at the New York University Law School looked at the Executive Agreement option last April and concluded it can be used as an alternative to a treaty.

It is time for the Executive Branch to assert itself. If it does, Obama can come to Copenhagen with a bold and actionable commitment to cutting America's carbon pollution, in a way that is under his control, saves the negotiations and renders meaningless the shameless shenanigans of the Flat Earth Caucus.

Courtney Reum: The New Faces of Eco-Entrepreneurship: Q&A with Blake Mycoskie (TOMS Shoes), Lauren Bush & Ellen Gustafson (FEED Projects), and Andy Dunn (Bonobos)

2009-12-09T18:28:19Z

As someone who tries to live by the mantra "don't talk about it...be about it," I'm going to make an exception and "talk" to several of my close friends who also happen to all "be about it" in the form of doing really phenomenal and ground-breaking entrepreneurial things while still keeping an eye on the greener side of things and adhering to the triple bottom line.

This is a philosophy we live by at my start-up brand, VeeV. While we are one of the fastest growing new spirits brands in the US, we never lose sight of the fact that we would not be here if it were not for the little purple açaí berry in the Amazon. If VeeV is to continue to flourish in bars and restaurants around the US, it is imperative we go the extra mile with conservation of the açaí fruit and the communities it supports in the Amazon.

TOMS Shoes, FEED, and Bonobos share the same entrepreneurial spirit as I do, while caring about tomorrow at the same time. So without further ado, please enjoy the following chat:

On the off-chance that someone isn't familiar, please describe your business in a few sentences.

Blake: TOMS Shoes is a One for One company: with every pair purchased, TOMS gives a pair of new shoes to a child in need. One for One. To date, TOMS has given over 150,000 pairs of shoes to children around the world.

Lauren & Ellen: FEED Projects is a charitable business that creates good, eco-friendly products to feed a better world. Our flagship FEED bags have sold across the US and around the world, raising over $5.5 million for international hunger relief efforts, primarily UN World Food Program school feeding.

Andy: Bonobos sells better-fitting men's clothes over the internet. Our goal is to make it easy and convenient for men to look and feel good. We started with a pair of pants with an innovative contoured waistband that fits better, and to our amazement we sold 40,000 pairs in our first two years on our website Bonobos.com.

What made you want to take the entrepreneurial plunge, especially at such a young age? What were some inspirations you had?

Blake: When I was younger, my parents would send me to my grandparents' house for the summer. They lived on a golf course, and summertime in Texas is hot. I would set up a good ol' fashioned lemonade stand for the golfers passing by. The pride in building something from the ground up was always incredibly rewarding for me. After high school, I went to college on a tennis scholarship, but when an injury took me out I funneled my hard work and determination into starting my first business. My entrepreneurial spirit flourished, and before my 30th birthday I had started five successful businesses. With each one, I would strive for it to be better, more efficient, smarter, and more successful than similar businesses. The knowledge, experience, and investments from those earlier companies made TOMS possible.

Lauren & Ellen: We created the concept of the FEED 1 bag, which would be modeled after bags of grain and would be sold to feed one child in school for one year. We thought the UN World Food Program would sell the bags as a marketing tool for their great school feeding programs and joined forces at the UN with then-spokesperson, Ellen Gustafson. When we realized it would be difficult to operate a wholesale business in a UN agency, we started a separate venture, FEED Projects, to raise funds and awareness for the important cause of nourishing the hungry. The idea and the cause came first, and we built the company around it to fulfill the mission.

Andy: In the spring of 2007 I was traveling in Kenya and Uganda, visiting with entrepreneurs who had been backed by Kiva. I was inspired by their courage and bravery, and felt that the notion of 'taking a risk' to start a company in the US was overblown. A friend put his arm around me and told me he wouldn't let me starve and that I'd always have a couch to sleep on, and I realized how lucky we are in America. I realized it was not a risk to pursue an entrepreneurial adventure, but a privilege.

Why is sustainability important to you and your company's mission?

Blake: When you start something, you need to think long term and not just about the next 3 - 5 years. Think beyond the next generation. I thought it was important to create a sustainable company that would be able to provide for others consistently. I could have easily created a non-profit and solicited the same donors year after year. But what would happen if they lost interest in my charity? I wouldn't have enough funds to help children or those who needed it. With a sustainable business model, TOMS is able to stick to its promise and continually provide shoes to children in need.

Lauren & Ellen: From day one, Lauren's idea for the FEED 1 bag was motivated by the dual desire to feed hungry kids and to reduce plastic bags with reusable bags. We make sure that all of the cotton we use is 100% organic and that our business practices are as sustainable as possible.

What do you say to people who think "green" is a fad?

Blake: I would say the same thing that I tell people who question the TOMS One for One model. People are starting to connect with things that are good for our culture and the environment. We are beginning to see a real shift in people's view of the world and what they can do for a better tomorrow.

Lauren & Ellen: We would say that we don't really have the option for green to be a fad. As food sustainability activists, we know that without the conscious improvement of our environmental practices in agriculture and manufacturing, led by consumers, we will be harming our soil and water past the point of no return. We think that the success of reusable FEED bags over the last two and a half years shows that our customers don't see green as just a fad either.

Andy: I don't say anything to them. I smile, just as I did when people told me no one would ever buy pants over the internet from a brand that they hadn't heard of, and hope that we are lucky enough and good enough to prove them wrong.

As 2010 nears, think about the brands you patronize day to day, and year to year. Come January, why not reach out and support a couple of new, small brands, which will not only blend seamlessly into your lifestyle like your old "tried and true" brands, but also help save tomorrow?

Iran: UN Observatory Near Border Is Spy Station

2009-12-09T08:09:39Z

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran claimed Wednesday that a newly built U.N. station to detect nuclear explosions was set up near its border so that world powers could spy on the country, an accusation that underscored the growing bitterness in Tehran's relations with the West.

Construction was completed last week on the seismic monitoring station in neighboring Turkmenistan, a few miles from the Iranian border. It is one of roughly 275 such facilities operating around the world to detect seismic activity set off by blasts from nuclear tests – such as ones in recent years by North Korea.

Alexia Parks: Three Reasons for Hope in Copenhagen

2009-12-07T09:37:05Z

The symbolism can't be missed in the U.S. Nearly 70 years after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, on December 7th 1941, "A day that will live in infamy!" declared President Roosevelt, Japanese delegates are sitting down with U.S. representatives in Copenhagen to forge policies based on hope. It is the hope that policies agreed upon by the 190 nations attending the conference can be made legally binding, and then acted upon by 2020.

With this in mind, here is why I am also hopeful.

First, the delegation that the U.S. has sent to Copenhagen and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is first rate. It is not simply a team of lawyers and diplomats. It includes a powerhouse of leaders from the agencies who will implement policies that emerge from the two week meeting.

U.S. delegates include: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley, Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren, and Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change Carol Browner.

Second, President Obama's decision to wait until the final day of the UNFCCC to arrive is a major, symbolic victory for the conference. The final day is also a day of photo opps, as world leaders show up to bask in the spotlight of a successful outcome. Obama's decision to return to Europe on December 18 instead of this week -- enroute to Norway to receive the Nobel Peace Prize -- shows his belief that major goals will be reached.

By contrast, in 2007, at the UNFCCC in Bali, the U.S. delegation was booed by fellow delegates on the final day for their role in obstructing the process. It was not a good day for photo opps. At that time, delegates believed that it would be necessary to wait to finalize any agreement until 2009, in Copenhagen, when the U.S. elected a new president.

Now, faced with the prospect of a polarized U.S. Congress (which must sign off on any agreement for it to be legally binding for this country), delegates to Copenhagen believe that final, legally binding agreements will be forthcoming in late 2010 -- after the U.S. holds elections again -- or in 2011.

And this final point, the requirement for the U.S. Congress to sign off on any document produced at Copenhagen for it to legally bind us to those agreements, is another reason why I'm hopeful.

It may now be true, that the real power in America no longer resides with Congress. With deep polarization between the Republicans and Democrats, and gridlock in Congress, power may be shifting back to local and regional leadership -- that is, to Main Street.

Several cities across the U.S., including Boulder, Colo., are sending delegates to Copenhagen to both observe the process and speak about local approaches to global warming and climate change. Here, close to home, I think, is where the real hope resides, not simply in policy deliberations in Copenhagen.

Decade Of 2000s Was Warmest Ever, Scientists Say

2009-12-07T09:21:54Z

It dawned with the warmest winter on record in the United States. And when the sun sets this New Year's Eve, the decade of the 2000s will end as the warmest ever on global temperature charts.

Warmer still, scientists say, lies ahead.

Copenhagen Climate Summit Begins

2009-12-06T09:48:51Z

COPENHAGEN — Delegates converged Sunday for the grand finale of two years of tough, sometimes bitter negotiations on a climate change treaty, as U.N. officials calculated that pledges offered in the last few weeks to reduce greenhouse gases put the world within reach of keeping global warming under control.

Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s top climate official, said on the eve of the 192-nation conference that despite unprecedented unity and concessions, industrial countries and emerging nations need to dig deeper.

Janet Ritz: The Consequences of Climategate

2009-12-05T18:15:50Z

In response to growing pressure following the release of hacked emails from the U.K.'s University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be conducting their own investigation:

The United Nations yesterday announced an investigation into the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. Critics of the scientific consensus on climate change claim emails from the unit's servers show researchers manipulated evidence to support their theory.

Phil Jones, the director of the CRU, has dismissed the claims as "complete rubbish" but the scandal has thrown the scientific world into turmoil and has been raised by some countries as a reason not to strike a deal in Copenhagen.

British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has weighed in on the controversy, stating: "With only days to go before Copenhagen we mustn't be distracted by the behind-the-times, anti-science, flat-earth climate skeptics. We know the science. We know what we must do."

The Union of Concern Scientists: "Unfortunately for these conspiracy theorists, what the e-mails show are simply scientists at work, grappling with key issues, and displaying the full range of emotions and motivations characteristic of any urgent endeavor. Any suggestions that these e-mails will affect public and policymakers' understanding of climate science give far too much credence to blog chatter and boastful spin from groups opposed to addressing climate change.

Nasa's James Hansen: The controversy has "no effect on the science" and that while some of the e-mails reflect poor judgment, the evidence for human-made climate change is overwhelming.

RealClimate: What was not contained in the e-mails was the most interesting element: "There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to 'get rid of the MWP' [Medieval Warm Period], no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no 'marching orders' from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords."

Science historian Spencer R. Weart: "a symptom of something entirely new in the history of science: Aside from crackpots who complain that a conspiracy is suppressing their personal discoveries, we've never before seen a set of people accuse an entire community of scientists of deliberate deception and other professional malfeasance. Even the tobacco companies never tried to slander legitimate cancer researchers."

The incident itself -- the hacking of the emails -- has been dubbed as "Climategate" by those who seek to use the emails as proof of their claims:

The Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, which some have dubbed "Climategate" began in November 2009 with the hacking of a server used by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, England, in the United Kingdom. An unknown individual stole and anonymously disseminated over a thousand e-mails and other documents.

The university confirmed that a "criminal breach" of their security systems took place, and expressed concern "that personal information about individuals may have been compromised." Details of the incident have been reported to the police, who are investigating. Professor Phil Jones, Director of the CRU, confirmed that the leaked e-mails that had provoked heated debate appeared to be genuine.

Critics have asserted that the e-mails show collusion by climate scientists to withhold scientific information. Other prominent climate scientists, such as Richard Somerville, have called the incident a smear campaign. Jones called charges that the e-mails involve any "untoward" activity "ludicrous", and Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research stated that the skeptics have selectively quoted words and phrases out of context in an attempt to sabotage the Copenhagen global climate summit in December.

The scientists at The University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, along with colleagues across the globe, have insisted the emails were part of the scientific method of trying out data against different scenarios and seeking to disprove one another's hypotheses. In one easy to misinterpret passage, a scientist suggested that data from tree rings be excluded, in what he referred to as a "trick," from statistics being used in a calculation because they had not yet established the reasoning behind anomalies in the tree ring data.

It may be understandable that those unfamiliar with the scientific method could be influenced to take the word "trick" and the decision to exclude uncertain data out of context, but that is not what scientists would take from it. To use a statistical "trick" is to work with "what if" scenarios, to press the data in different ways and then to challenge the result. It may have been an inartful use of language from a political point of view, but in a private email setting between peers attempting peer review, it is the scientific equivalent of the sausage making process involved with new legislation.

That has not stopped those who deny or, worse, cynically put their self interest ahead of the science behind climate change. As had happened so often during the Bush Administration, faux controversies were raised while data was hidden. Budgets to climate satellites were cut while an insistence that the data did not exist to support climate change.

And yet, the changes persist. In the light of a new administration, that data has been more forthcoming and what we're seeing is not encouraging. Ice thinning or disappearing, water wars heating up, warnings from respected generals that the change in the climate is not only real but that it presents a risk to national security.

Those who fight against and/or deny changes to the climate, whether by citing the email controversy or by pointing to the snow in their own backyard (how could things be warming if they're cold?), have missed out on a vital question in their new demand for transparency:

What if they're wrong?

What if this Ark of an Earth that we're on is struggling in a Gaia-like way (the theory of the Earth as a living organism) to compensate for the changes thrust upon it? What if the fluctuations in temperature and weather were the eco-system trying to balance out against an onslaught of changes? And even if that's not the case; even if it's not increasing temperature differentials between hemispheres causing a change in wind patterns or the newly-exposed ground where there was ice releasing the stores of greenhouse gases once locked in its depths ... What if they're wrong and we're on a path, as many scientists warn, of inexorable changes to our ecosystem?

At what point, when we're dealing with millions of refugees and wars over resources and the growing chasm between rich and poor leading to political upheaval, will these skeptics step back and say: oops?

Perhaps it's easier for those who are afraid of the consequences of climate change to insist that it's not real. For those, the question is: would you ignore a possible diagnosis of heart disease? Would you tell your doctor not to investigate, not to run tests, not to operate?

Or would you say: sorry, Doctor, you're wrong. There's no such thing as heart disease.

But then, when your chest tightens and your lips turn blue, would you say: Oops? Or, perhaps, help? Or would you continue to insist that there was nothing wrong?

Species are dying on this planet at a record rate. Some scientists refer to it as the "Sixth Extinction" and cite climate change as the cause. If that's true, and scientific evidence from many more places than the U.K. insist that it is, what gives us the right, as the Stewards on this Earth, to cause the decline of so many of its inhabitants?

It's not just wildlife that is endangered. The Pacific island nation of Tuvalu has become the canary in a coal mine where too much water may lead to changes in international law:

What Will Become of Tuvalu's Climate Refugees?

International legal experts are discovering climate change law, and Tuvalu is a case in point: The Polynesian archipelago is doomed to disappear beneath the ocean. Now lawyers are asking what sort of rights citizens have when their homeland no longer exists.

Kenya provides the latest example of a world where scarce water becomes a resource more valuable than oil:

The last nomads: drought drives Kenya's herders to the brink

In the isolated border lands between Kenya and Somalia, families have always clung to a precarious existence. Now a decade of droughts has tested their endurance.

The Himalayas provide another example. India's rivers are dependent upon the water from their glaciers. What happens when they're gone?

The glaciers of the Alps, as well.

The question -- for the skeptics, the fearful, and the misinformed -- becomes this: What if you're wrong? What if your insistence that the science of climate change is a manufactured controversy stops the needed legislation, corporate and community efforts required to save a significant percentage of endangered species and the quality of life and national security of a great portion of the human race in the years ahead? What will those who seek to undermine the scientific or legal process by convincing a public desperate for better news than they've been receiving do to help those who become displaced or see their livelihoods disappear in an increasingly unfair world.

Make no mistake, if climate change becomes as bad as science predicts, then those who do not have the advantages of ready wealth or fortunate location will be the ones displaced or disinherited. One only needs to look at the impact of the recession on the concept of fairness to see where this would lead. In a global recession, there is no room for those who are not perceived as elite. If you are a person of color, the wrong gender, the less educated, the less attractive -- any excuse for a potential employer to say no -- you will become unemployed in favor of those who fit the picture of employers more able to apply their discriminatory practices where they could not in an environment of full employment.

How can they be accused of prejudice when they have so many applicants for each job? Who could say that their choice of someone who looks or acts like them would be unfair over someone who doesn't, even if that latter applicant was the one more qualified?

It's the same in a world fighting for resources. Those who live in the right locations or have the advantages of looks, wealth or education may be able to get by in an increasingly limited resource pool. But those who do not, when the number could rise to the millions or more; how could the privileged few think the sheer numbers of the disenfranchised would not impact them?

War is the inevitable outcome of staggering inequality. History is proof of that. At what point will those who insist it's not their problem be forced to face the consequences?

If you have a temperature, you do something about it or you get sicker and, even if you don't die, your quality of life can become impacted.

If the world has a temperature, which scientists across the globe have cited an overwhelming amount of evidence to postulate, do you ask only: what if they're wrong?

That is the takeaway from the controversy over the stolen emails the U.N. will now investigate.

But those who stole the emails, those now using them to create controversy and those influenced by them to continue to deny the consequences of climate change have their own investigation to perform. It is the question they need to ask themselves: What if I'm wrong and they're right and climate change is happening?

That is what they need to face now, not ten years from now when the evidence is so overwhelming it can no longer be denied -- with consequences so set into motion that it may too late to reverse the impact.

That would be a bitter lesson learned and one that need not happen.

The scientific method requires that data is tested and that challenges are made. The investigation into East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, as frustrating as it may be for those who have seen empirical proof of climate change, is appropriate for the U.N., as long as it is done scientifically and not politically.

But, in a what-goes-around-comes-around world, the same should be applied to those who deny climate change, who hack emails and then present them out of context. Where are the official investigations into corporate entities or other groups who push the denial of climate change? What are their motives? Who is funding them?

What are the consequences if their increasing influence on the denial mindset of the public is allowed to continue?

Can the world afford those consequences?

More on this topic at: THE ENVIRONMENTALIST