Climate News Items

By Juliet Eilperin

Van Jones, the environmental justice advocate who relinquished his post as a White House adviser five months ago after coming under fire from conservative activists, is reemerging on the public policy stage to push for green jobs.

Editor’s Note: This editorial was produced in association with New America Media (www.newamericamedia.org), a national association of ethnic media, and was published by ethnic media across the country to bring attention to the urgency of addressing climate change.

U.S. public concern about climate change has waned. The climate change summit in Copenhagen – largely viewed as a failure – did little to elevate the issue among the public. Climate change is foremost among the concerns of our communities. It is our responsibility, as the media that serve them, to call for action on this urgent matter. For many ethnic Americans whose family members are at the frontlines of global warming back in their home countries, climate change is a life-and-death issue.

If no action is taken, immigrants will continue to see their family members back in their home countries bear the brunt of rising sea levels and devastating cyclones.

By Suzanne Goldenberg & John Vidal

America sees a diminished role for the United Nations in trying to stop global warming after the "chaotic" Copenhagen climate change summit, an Obama administration official said today.

Jonathan Pershing, who helped lead talks at Copenhagen, instead sketched out a future path for negotiations dominated by the world's largest polluters such as China, the US, India, Brazil and South Africa, who signed up to a deal in the final hours of the summit. That would represent a realignment of the way the international community has dealt with climate change over the last two decades.

COPENHAGEN, Dec 19 (IPS) - The climate change summit proved to be a "spectacular failure even according to its own terms," but civil society had "some successes," such as the inclusion of certain issues on the climate agenda, and making the voice of the South heard loud and clear.

That was how activists assessed their efforts at 15th Conference of Parties (COP-15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as the climate change talks came to an agonising end Saturday in Copenhagen.

By Frances Q. Quimpo

Copenhagen - The climate negotiation in the Fifteenth Conference of Parties (COP 15) in Copenhagen has come to a sour end. The world's high expectation for a meaningful and binding agreement is doused with icy cold water by a non-binding deal dubbed as "Copenhagen Accord" - a deal primarily brokered by the most powerful and leading polluter country in the world -- the United States.