Hello Environs,
I figure many of you have already read something similar to this but just in case!
Stay warm!!
Jodi
--- On Wed, 12/9/09, Anna Wagner <anna.wag...@greenpeace.org> wrote:

From: Anna Wagner <anna.wag...@greenpeace.org>
Subject: Greenpeace political updates - the inside scoop on Copenhagen, EPA, and stolen scientist emails
To: "Anna Wagner" <anna.wag...@sfo.greenpeace.org>
Date: Wednesday, December 9, 2009, 6:15 PM

Hi there -

I wanted to share these updates with you.  They're our take on what's happening in Copenhagen, the recent EPA announcements, and the scandal of the stolen scientists emails.
 
- Anna

P.S. If you haven't figured it out yet - suffice it to say, I consider you one of my "A-team" Lead Activists, that's why I send insider Greenpeace stuff to you :)  Based on things we talk and email about, I've assumed you're pretty excited to get the inside scoop, but let me know if it ever gets to be too many emailing :)  If you're especially interested, I'll keep sending you Copenhagen info and political updates, whenever I hear them.

What's happening in Copenhagen:
Talks suspended:
Perhaps the most important development of the COP so far is a rift amid developing nations.  To date, developing nations have largely glossed over differences and negotiated in a coordinated way to push developed nations to take on more aggressive targets and provide more international funding.  That changed this week as nations particularly vulnerable to climate impacts (such as poor African countries and island states) made demands for a legally-binding deal tougher than the Kyoto Protocol.  More powerful developing countries, such as China and India opposed the proposal, saying that it would curb their economic growth.  The nation of Tuvalu asked for – and got – a formal suspension of the negotiations as talks go on behind closed doors to resolve the conflict. 

What does this mean?  First, it is the first strong sign that many parties may not be willing to accept the “political agreement” outcome that many of the most influential nations have been promoting in place of a legally binding deal.  It signals that some nations may be willing to sink the process rather than accept a sub-par deal.  Second, it has diverted some attention and political pressure from the US.  If the talks failed today, the media would likely characterize it as a result of a political fracturing among developing nations.  We will have to wait until tomorrow to see how big an issue this will be in the talks. 

“Danish text” Controversy:
Getting 192 countries to agree to anything is very, very difficult.  So, to get their way, many have speculated that powerful countries like the US would get together in a small group outside of the official UN process to draft a “political agreement” to sign at Copenhagen.  In some ways, this has been going on for a while through the G-8 and other forums.  This is very controversial among smaller, poorer countries, because it side-steps the UN and robs them of a seat at the political table. 

That is why, when draft text of proposed political deal was leaked earlier this week, it set off a firestorm of controversy within the UN.  Developing countries blasted the proposal as unfair and the result of dirty deal-making.  The US quickly distanced itself from the text.  The Danish government – hosts of the COP15 – have resorted to saying that there is no Danish proposal, claiming “such a text does not exist.”  Whether they want to own up to the proposal or not, it does outline the contours of a deal favored by the US and other countries.  We are likely to see many of its core elements again before the COP concludes. 

The recent announcement by the EPA:
On December 7, the Administrator of the EPA finalized the Endangerment Finding, which found that public health and welfare are threatened by greenhouse gases.  The finding was originally proposed in April of this year, and in response Greenpeace generated over 50,000 public comments in support of government action to regulate ghg's. 

The endangerment finding puts the US government on record as stating that “greenhouse gases (GHGs) threaten the public health and welfare of the American people.”  The finding is a step in the process by which the Environmental Protection Agency, under the Clean Air Act, moves to regulate greenhouse gases.  But, the finding is just a step in the process, while giving the green light to move ahead, it does not directly regulate greenhouse gases.  GP’s bottom line is that the finding must now be followed immediately by developing and implementing the rules under which greenhouse gases will be regulated and by which US greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced. 

The timing of this announcement is politically driven: given that the US has been faced with broad criticism at international negotiations they have chosen to release the endangerment finding on the opening day of the conference as a gesture of its intentions to do more.   The problem is that while the endangerment finding is an important step, it is just a step.  The finding does not in any way put anything new or concrete on the table for the negotiations and will only prove useful if the government follows the finding with the necessary measures to actually regulate and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

What this decision does is give the green light to EPA to finalize the draft rules for vehicle emission standards and the “tailoring rule” that would regulate larger greenhouse gas emitters.  The aim of the EPA is to have these rules issued by March 2010.   We shouldn't interpret this move to mean that Obama is going to save Copenhagen by going beyond the 4% below 1990 levels by 2020 emission reduction target in the Waxman/Markey he announced a couple of weeks ago. While the announcement has caused some buzz in Copenhagen, it has so far had no impact on the emissions reductions targets being offered by the US in Copenhagen.  Nonetheless, it's a good thing and an important step forward.
  

The scandal of the stolen scientists emails: 

Nobody wants 13 years of their email published on the internet.  First thing this case reminds us is never write anything in an email that you don't want in the NY Times.... 

This story broke on November 19th when someone posted a cache of stolen emails to a Russian ftp site and then sent anonymous invitations to that site ("limited time offer") to a number of blogs who are in the climate denial echo chamber.  The pile of documents and includes well over 1000 emails and attachments in total, dating back to the mid 1990s. It is still not clear who was involved in the chain of custody: how these emails were stolen, who stole them, hacked them or leaked them, who filtered through them before they were released, who posted them carefully without fingerprints, etc. 

What we do know is the opposition (the ExxonSecrets A-team) has seized on these emails as a gift from heaven, or rather a newly sharpened weapon.  The right wing echo chamber sprang into action the moment this broke, claiming that the emails prove that climate science is a sham, that Copenhagen should be cancelled, that all the scientists should be sent to jail, along with Al Gore and that we should all buy new SUVs to celebrate. (well I may have embellished their glee, but only slightly).  They hammered the media with the story. Mainstream media has covered it in a very even way, detailing that nothing in the emails shows anybody faking data, knowingly lying about the severity of climate change or the evidence collected..  Good reads on the case are in Time Magazine and Washington Post stories. 

The story continues to unfold and gather steam with major pieces on CNN and BBC today and has been a distraction to say the least from larger matters at hand in Copenhagen.  We are still investigating how these emails came into the hands of the opponents of climate action at such a strategic moment, who might have paid for the operation that aquired them and if any crimes were commited. 

Here's what we're saying about the situation:
-There's nothing in these stolen emails that shows anybody trying to lie about climate change.
-There's nothing in these stolen emails that goes against the overwhelming consensus on climate change.
-Our understanding of global warming is based on the work of thousands of scientists over decades.  This media storm is about a small handful of scientists at one institution.
-We must ignore the work of climate change deniers and act boldly to avert runaway climate change.

--
Anna Wagner
Greenpeace Activist Network
National Organizer
www.greenpeaceusa.org
tel 415.255.9221 ext 309
skype: annalourawagner  twitter: @GP_Anna