Climate talks resume, very small chance of 2010 deal

Thousands of acres of forest have been slashed and burned in Rondônia, a state in northwest Brazil, mostly to make room for cattle ranching.

BONN, Germany (Reuters) – Climate negotiators meet in Bonn on Friday for the first time since the fractious Copenhagen summit but with scant hopes of patching together a new legally binding U.N. deal in 2010.

Delegates from 170 nations gathered on Thursday for the April 9-11 meeting that will seek to rebuild trust after the December summit disappointed many by failing to agree a binding U.N. deal at the climax of two years of talks.

Bonn will decide a program for meetings in 2010 and air ideas about the non-binding Copenhagen Accord, backed by more than 110 nations including major emitters China, the United States, Russia and India but opposed by some developing states.

The Accord seeks to limit world temperature rises to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F), but without saying how. (Magic?)

“We need to reassess the situation after Copenhagen,” said Bruno Sekoli of Lesotho, who speaks on behalf of the least developed nations who want far tougher cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to limit temperature rises to less than 1.5 C. . . . .  it is unclear what will happen to the Copenhagen Accord.

The United States is among the strongest backers of the Copenhagen Accord, but many developing nations do not want it to supplant the 1992 Climate Convention which they reckon stresses that the rich have to lead the way.

“I don’t believe that the Copenhagen Accord will become the new legal framework,” Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told reporters in a briefing about Bonn last week.”

Yvo de Boer has actually resigned, so it’s unclear how involved he is at this point.  And a legal framework of any kind will simply be ignored by the U.S. if right-wingers are ever in power again.  They are already working to ignore any laws passed by Democrats from now on.

READ more here.

Green Groups Fight to Keep EPA’s Power Over Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Good luck, green groups — you’re going to need it, but I hope they are successful.   Senators John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham are working hard behind the scenes to chop the EPA off at the knees and render it useless on climate change.  With friends like that . . . . .

Environmental activists this week are stepping up a battle to protect U.S. EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, staging demonstrations and lobbying lawmakers at their local offices.

Carrying signs with slogans like “Fight Climate Change Now” and “We Can’t Wait for Climate Action,” members of the coalition 1Sky already have rallied outside the regional [...]