Have you registered yet? on 350.org? to fight climate change also: MoJo on the speech:

[amborin]

<http://www.350.org/>


Mother Jones on President Obama's climate speech to the UN:

/snip


"The reason he didn’t speak those targets out loud is because anyone who knows anything about climate—and that now includes, on at least a rudimentary level, most of the heads of the state who assembled to hear his speech—knows that those targets are unbearably weak. By 2050 he’s talking about 80 percent reductions—but 2050 is so far away as to be almost meaningless without strong interim targets. By 2020 the bill he’s backing aims for something on the order of 17 percent reductions, though the legislation is so shot through with weird weird loopholes that that’s probably a meaningless number too. In any event, it’s well below what actual scientists are calling for: reductions in carbon emissions from the developed countries of something like 40 percent by 2020. In other words, an all-out, crash effort to change course and avert disaster.

And that’s not at all what Obama seems to be planning for. His most immediate priority—"every nation’s most immediate priority"—is producing more economic growth. Copenhagen can be a "significant step." We must not let "the perfect be the enemy of progress."


/snip


<http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/09/obama-climate-he-even-trying>



/snip


"the public-facing side of the summit didn't offer much hope. Barack Obama's speech offered nothing in the way of specific policy directives and did little to put pressure on Congress to deliver him a bill that he can take to Copenhagen. And there were no major breakthroughs on agreements between leaders.

For those determined to find signs of progress, one might have been the speech by Chinese President Hu Jintao. His promise that the country would reduce greenhouse emissions by a "notable margin" below 2005 levels within a decade was hailed as a breakthrough – though he didn't clarify whether that would be a binding goal. Chinese leaders said they are still discussing what the actual target will be.

Hu also pledged that China would work to raise the amount of energy drawn from nuclear and other non-fossil fuels to 15 percent by 2020, and employ other strategies to protect and expand forests and develop a more sustainable economy. Yet he maintained his desire that developing countries – even rapidly modernizing ones like China – not be held to the standards of developed countries. "Developing countries need to strike a balance between economic growth, social development and environmental protection," said Hu.

There were other significant pledges on Tuesday: the European Union reaffirmed its commitment to cuts of 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and 30 percent if other developed nations follow suit. And Japan's new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, touted his promise to cut Japan's emissions to 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, so long as others consent.....

/snip

<http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/09/was-un-climate-summit-success>