The enduring image from last week’s UN conference on climate change in Durban, South Africa, was of negotiators “huddling” in full view on the plenary floor to come up with the form of words that allowed the final deal to be reached. The negotiators are in shirtsleeves, visibly tied at the end of talks that [...]

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BRUSSELS — Expectations are low at the beginning of the 17th annual United Nations conference on climate change that began this week in Durban, South Africa. The European Union and the United States have assumed contrary positions and even disagree over what would constitute a successful outcome. But, behind the talks, and despite that standoff, [...]

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WASHINGTON—Beltway insiders always love a scandal, and the bankruptcy of solar power cell manufacturer Solyndra Inc. makes for a good one. Solyndra received over $500 million in loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Energy under a scheme to provide financing to promising companies in the renewable energy sector, before going bankrupt last month. President [...]

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WASHINGTON — Germany’s decision last week to phase out nuclear power has sharpened the differences between Europe and the United States on energy policy. Democratic Senator Jeff Bingaman, a senior voice on energy policy in the U.S. Congress, led the chorus decrying that removing nuclear power from the energy mix would undermine global efforts to [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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LONDON/ISTANBUL — When disaster strikes, whether it is a hurricane, a flood, or a tsunami, the people affected need assistance—and they need it fast.  If there is a positive byproduct of these catastrophic events, it is the potential to bring people, nations, and countries closer together. So was the case last weekend when Israel faced [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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