By Tamar Shapiro and Thomas Legge WASHINGTON — On May 15, Richard M. Daley stepped down as mayor of Chicago. With his retirement, his city lost its chief executive of 22 years, but America also lost one of its most environment-friendly local leaders.  With the failure of the U.S. Congress to pass comprehensive climate and [...]

Read the full story

WASHINGTON — Just three months after his inauguration in April 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama unveiled his vision of an expanded high-speed rail network that promised to transform much of the United States’ outdated rail infrastructure while enhancing energy security and providing environmental benefits. In his words, high-speed rail would “lead to innovations that change [...]

Read the full story

CANCUN — It is hardly news anymore when international talks on climate change fail to produce a breakthrough agreement. But the real story of the annual UN climate conference, which concludes Friday in Cancun, Mexico, is what was happening on the sidelines of the conference. Last year’s summit on climate change in Copenhagen was ruined [...]

Read the full story

CANCUN–Kermit the Frog knew it all along: Green is cool. And it seems that more and more humans, in particular those working on climate change, are beginning to follow his logic. While the negotiations at COP16 in Cancun still promise to deliver some results by the end of the week – notably on deforestation efforts [...]

Read the full story

CANCUN – Secretary of Energy Steven Chu’s remarks yesterday in Cancun were attended by an expectant international audience clamoring to hear the latest official word on what Washington intends to do about global warming, despite roundly subdued expectations of the U.S. and the UN process both. Although one might have expected to hear boilerplate remarks [...]

Read the full story

The climate change negotiations in Cancun started into their second and last week this morning. Ministers are beginning to trickle in and the President of Mexico has arrived. With the politicians arriving, the final documents of the COP –UN speak for the climate negotiations- will have to be finalized any day now to then be [...]

Read the full story

Cancun, December 4, 2010–The mood at Cancun could not be more different from last year’s annual conference on climate change, which took place in Copenhagen. Even the setting of the Cancun conference—a beach resort in tropical weather—conveys a more mellow kind of international climate conference than Copenhagen’s freezing temperatures and hot tempers last December. Getting [...]

Read the full story

WASHINGTON — Next Monday, climate diplomats will gather in Cancun, Mexico, for the 16th annual installment of global climate negotiations. Expectations are low following the partial collapse of last December’s session in Copenhagen, Denmark. A global treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, seems years away and may never meet expectations. At [...]

Read the full story

Article originally published on euobserver.com Remember last year when the whole world was looking at a small and cold country in Europe – Denmark – mesmerized by an international conference on climate change known as COP15? This year, many people won’t even know where the follow-up conference, COP16, is taking place. While the next round [...]

Read the full story

WASHINGTON — The November U.S. midterm elections could shift control of the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate to the opposition Republicans, moves that would have widespread implications for U.S. policy on all fronts. But an obscure-sounding referendum in the state of California, if passed by a plurality of California voters on November 2, [...]

Read the full story