Lots of pre-COP Action Today!

President Obama has committed to attending COP15 on his way over to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize in December. He's also pledged to reduce emissions 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83% below 2005 levels by 2050. That's great news that he's going to attend the conference and has committed to taking a stand on this issue even though the US Congress hasn't been able to.

Others from the US government will also be attending including EPA Commissioner, Lisa Jackson, Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack and Assistant to the President, Carol Browner.

For more info check out the press release:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/20091125-obama-copenhagen.pdf

In other news, leading scientists have come out with a new report, "The Copenhagen Diagnosis" that summarizes the fact that the science has once again proven to be even worse than our worst predictions. This report is an update from the last IPCC report in 2007.

Be sure to read Elizabeth Kolbert's article about it at Yale e360:

http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2214.

My favorite quote from her article is this quote from Andrew Weaver, a researcher at University of Victoria and one of the report's authors, who clearly was not excited about the world leaders' decision to abandon hope of a binding treaty, “'Maybe they should be honest, and stand up and say, ‘You know what? As your political leaders we do not accept that we owe anything to future generations.’ I don’t think they’d ever say that, but this is what they are saying if they don’t deal with this problem.”'

To read the report yourself, click here:http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.com/

Sustainably yours,

Lily T