Live Webcast From Cancun

Watch live webcast of the Cancun Climate Conference:
cc210.mx
oneclimate.net

Big Polluters Freed from Environmental Oversight by Stimulus

Westar Coal-Fired Plant, St. Mary's, Kansas

BP, Westar, and DuPont Among Companies Exempted from Environmental Law

A Center for Public Integrity investigation has found that:

"In the name of job creation and clean energy, the Obama administration has doled out billions of dollars in stimulus money to some of the nation’s biggest polluters and granted them sweeping exemptions from the most basic form of environmental oversight, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found.

"The administration has awarded more than 179,000 "categorical exclusions" to stimulus projects funded by federal agencies, freeing those projects from review under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. Coal-burning utilities like Westar Energy and Duke Energy, chemical manufacturer DuPont, and ethanol maker Didion Milling are among the firms with histories of serious environmental violations that have won blanket NEPA exemptions.
 ...
"The so-called "stimulus" funding came from the $787-billion legislation officially known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed in February 2009.
...
"Documents obtained by the Center show the administration has devised a speedy review process that relies on voluntary disclosures by companies to determine whether stimulus projects pose environmental harm. Corporate polluters often omitted mention of health, safety, and environmental violations from their applications. In fact, administration officials told the Center they chose to ignore companies’ environmental compliance records in making grant decisions and issuing NEPA exemptions, saying they considered such information irrelevant..."
 -Kristen Lombardi and John Solomon, November 28, 2010 


This is an in-depth article on this important investigation; read the full report at PublicIntegrity.org.

The Politics Heading into the Cancun Climate Summit

An in-depth report on the international politics of climate change in the lead-up to the Cancun Conference.

Cancun Climate Summit: Time for a New Geopolitical Architecture
26 November 2010, by: Nikolas Kozloff, truthout.org

"As we approach crucial climate change negotiations in Cancun, Mexico, the key question on many people's minds is this: what nation or nations will have the courage to stand up to the United States, which still represents the key obstacle to a binding agreement on global warming? If it looked unlikely that the U.S. would reduce carbon emissions before, the recent midterm elections have made such a possibility seem even more remote: many incoming Republican legislators simply deny that global warming exists.

"Without any targets set for emissions cuts in the U.S., it will be difficult for Washington to fulfill its obligations under the Copenhagen accord, an agreement which many feel is already hopelessly watered down. A US refusal to substantially decrease its emissions could in turn bode ill for future negotiations, since China will certainly claim that Washington is more historically responsible for global warming and is not doing its fair share to halt climate change.

"Developing nations need to get their act together and exercise more pressure on the U.S. In recent years, a leftist bloc of Latin American countries, chiefly Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador and Venezuela, have sought to challenge the U.S. when it comes to setting climate change policy. Ringleader Bolivia, which was particularly opposed to the Copenhagen deal, wants to limit any increase in world climate change to less than 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit).

"Yet, major emitters have failed to even meet Copenhagen's far less ambitious target of limiting the rate of increase to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). President Evo Morales, who some are pushing for the Nobel peace prize, recently organized a counter climate summit in Cochabamba. The Bolivian president declares that $300 billion a year is necessary to cope with global warming and is lobbying hard for the formation of an innovative international climate court.

Read the entire in-depth report on the situation leading up to Cancun here.

Nikolas Kozloff is the author of Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left  (Palgrave, 2008) and No Rain in the Amazon: How South America's Climate Change Affects the Entire Planet (Palgrave, 2010).  Visit his website, www.nikolaskozloff.com.


New York Times/Reuters pre-conference coverage:

Modest Climate Change Steps Are Goal of Meeting in Mexico 
"This year is likely to be recorded as one of the warmest since record keeping began in the 19th century. The United Nations panel of climate scientists says rising temperatures will mean more floods, droughts and sandstorms, as well as rising sea levels.
For Cancún participants, the major challenge is to end a deadlock on sharing the burden of emissions cuts between China and the United States. Their relationship already is strained over China’s trade surplus, North Korea and other issues.
The Cancún meeting also comes as the weak world economy, with euro zone bailouts of Greece and Ireland, has sapped attention from climate change..." (read full story at NYT)

Bolivia Report- Climate Debt

Avi Lewis travels to Bolivia to explore the country's climate crusade from the inside. An excellent reportage.

Interview: Ingrid Betancourt

BigThink asks Ingrid Bettancourt what her experience as a captive of the FARC for 6 1/2 years in the Columbian jungle taught her about human psychology...



Ingrid Betancourt is a French-Colombian politician and anti-corruption activist. In February 2002 Betancourt was kidnapped by the guerrilla organization "Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia" (FARC) while she was campaigning for the presidential elections. She was finally rescued by Colombian security forces six and a half years later.