A pelican takes off from Cat Island as Coast Guard conducts tour of area oil clean up efforts in the waters outside of Venice on Sunday, June 27, 2010.

The combined global land and ocean surface temperature for May was the warmest on record, at 1.24°F (0.69°C) above the 20th century average of 58.6°F (14.8°C).

According to NOAA, the global temperature for May was the warmest on record.  The oil geyser in the Gulf continues.  But finally, the politics of a possible climate bill this year are shaping up and it looks like it may even come together late this year.   First, here is the text of the single paragraph in Obama’s speech after the G20 yesterday where he mentions climate change and energy:

“The G-20 leaders renewed our commitment, made in Pittsburgh, to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. The United States has laid out our plans for achieving this goal, and we’re urging our G-20 partners to do so as well. This would be one of the most important steps we can take to create clean energy jobs, increase our energy security and address the threat of climate change.”

That was it.  (You can read the entire speech here).  He did try to get world leaders to agree to stop their subsidies for fossil fuels, which amounts to encouragement and financial backing of the very thing that is causing global warming.   Leaked draft language (PDF) obtained by ClimateWire indicated that leaders may weaken the language on fossil fuels, but reportedly, the word “voluntary” was removed.  (See post below).

Tomorrow, President Obama is getting down to work on energy and climate for real, meeting with actual lawmakers.  (Half-gov  Sarah Palin and her persistent “Drill Baby Drill” message were not invited.)  Bill McKibben, the guru of 350.org, sent out his thoughts today on this upcoming meeting with senators regarding the “energy bill”.   He writes:

“We learned earlier today that President Obama will convene a meeting at the White House tomorrow with a group of key senators to hammer out an energy and climate proposal to take to the floor of the Senate in the next six weeks.  ??Whatever that proposal contains, it won’t do everything that we need–but it might at least get us started.  The danger is that Senators will just do the easy stuff, and remain too timid to seize this moment to pass truly far-reaching legislation.  So it would be very useful to call your Senators and make the following points:

1) We need a bill that puts an economy-wide cap on carbon–all carbon, from utilities and factories and cars and anything else that burns coal, gas, and oil. And we need those caps based on science–they have to start us on the route back towards 350 and towards a safe climate.

2) We won’t be fooled by a bill that merely addresses the need for [...]