Interesting

The Story of Cap & Trade is a fast-paced, fact-filled look at the leading climate solution - emissions trading - on the negotiating table at Copenhagen and in other capitals. Host Annie Leonard introduces the energy traders and Wall Street financiers at the heart of this scheme and reveals the "devils in the details" in current cap and trade proposals: free permits to big polluters, fake offsets and distraction from what’s really required to tackle the climate crisis. If you’ve heard about Cap & Trade, but aren’t sure how it works (or who benefits), this is the film is for you.

It's very telling that, when the ACF and Union Climate Connectors came to Canberra last week, a number of the grassroots campaigners they brought with them were shocked to discover that they were being asked to campaign for the CPRS, not against it. They thought they had been brought to Canberra to campaign for real climate action, not for the Rudd Government's pretence of action.

By Zane Alcorn

If you have heard the concerning rumours that the Copenhagen summit is not going to produce the type of strong international agreement needed to stop dangerous climate change, and were wondering why, look no further than Australia: the world’s largest coal exporter. Bear witness to the Australian Coal Association (ACA)’s ‘cut emissions- not jobs’ campaign, a poetic example of how the global coal industry (and indeed fossil fuel industry more broadly) is likely to react as dangerous anthropogenic warming becomes more obvious.

By David Spratt, 4 November 2009
[Republished here from Climate Code Red blogspot. First published in Crikey, 4 November 2009.]

Columnist David Roberts sees the Copenhagen climate change conference negotiating process so far as akin to "an aquarium full of hamsters connected to rudimentary motors. There's a lot of frantic running, a lot of sweat and heat, but in the end, very little light".

The government of Norway has recently announced that it will adopt a target of 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

The Eco-Digital website (from the international Climate Action Network) has hosted these YouTube videos (reproduced below) and is promising more news to come about this.

By Karl Miller, 26 September 2009

More and more people accept that we need emergency action to achieve a safe climate. The Copenhagen Summit in December will be a dramatic opportunity for governments to show whether or not they are prepared to be part of the solution.

There are several possible outcomes from the Copenhagen Summit.

By David Spratt September 10, 2009

THERE'S an irony in the rushed construction of a new security fence around the Hazelwood power station, in anticipation of a community protest this weekend.

The Government, it seems, is more in interested in protecting Hazelwood from protesters, than protecting our climate from Hazelwood.