Climate Change – Existential Global Challenge.

By Ghassan Karam
The Kyoto Protocol, the only international agreement to fight climate change, will come to an end in two years, 2012. The world, including the US who is not bound by Kyoto

Planetary Boundaries

By Ghassan Karam
It is not very often that we get credible ecological news that is not full of negative news and dark projections. Well I am glad to say that the following

Bin Laden urged an end to reliance on the U.S. dollar

Osama bin Laden urged an end to reliance on the U.S. dollar as one solution to the global financial crisis and blamed developed countries for climate change, in an audiotape said to be of the al Qaeda leader.

The authenticity of the tape, aired on Friday and the second by bin Laden to air on Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera this week, could not be immediately confirmed.

“It is necessary for us to avoid doing business in the dollar, and to finish with it in the fastest possible time,” bin Laden said on the brief tape ,  without recommending any other currency as the replacement for the Dollar.

Bin Laden also blamed Western countries for climate change.

“Talk about climate change is not an ideological luxury but a reality,” he said. “All of the industrialized countries, especially the big ones, bear responsibility for the global warming crisis.” Reuters

The Flat Earth Society Is Alive and Doing Well In Saudi Arabia

By Ghassan Karam
As the world express concern and even regret over the failure of the Conference at Copenhagen to come to a meaningful conclusion the Saudi Arabian chief negotiator at the talks expressed glee and satisfaction

Copenhagen ends in failure

The UN climate summit reached a weak outline of a global agreement last night in Copenhagen, falling far short of what Britain and many poor countries were seeking and leaving months of tough negotiations to come.
After eight draft texts and all-day talks between 115 world leaders, it was left to Barack Obama and Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, to broker a political agreement. The so-called Copenhagen accord “recognizes” the scientific case for keeping temperature rises to no more than 2C but did not contain commitments to emissions reductions to achieve that goal.
Obama said: “This progress is not enough.” “We have come a long way, but we have much further to go,” he added.

Climate change agreement reached in Copenhagen

Key states have reached what they call a “meaningful agreement” at the Copenhagen climate summit. A US government official said the deal was a “historic step forward” but was not enough to prevent dangerous climate change in the future.
US President Barack Obama said the deal would be a foundation for global action but there was “much further to go”. Source: BBC

US aid offer boosts deal at UN climate talks

Large pieces of a climate deal fell into place Thursday with new offers from the U.S. and China, but other tough issues remained before President Barack Obama and other leaders can sign off on a political accord to contain the threat of an overheated world.

An announcement by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that the United States would contribute to a climate change fund amounting to $100 billion a year by 2020 was quickly followed by an offer from China to open its books on carbon emissions to international review. AP

Iran blames US for Climate Change in Copenhagen

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed the United States on Thursday at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen as an oil-addicted warmonger and insisted every nation have access to “clean and renewable energy sources”, including nuclear.

“All countries must gain access to new technologies to diversify their energy sources and be able to use clean and renewable energy such as wind, solar, sea tide, geothermal and nuclear energies,” Ahmadinejad said.

He added that oil has constituted the basic and strategic components of US security foreign policy, adding that oil-rich regions of the world became the theatres of wars and military adventurism that led to foreign domination on their energy resources.

The US, he said, gobbled up a quarter of the world’s oil and energy supplies yet had only five percent of the world’s population.

The attack was centerpiece of an argument, whereby Ahmadinejad declared that climate change was caused by capitalism and the rush to exploit cheap and plentiful fossil fuels.

Among solutions, he said “all countries” should be able to gain access to nuclear power to help ease the greenhouse-gas emissions that stoke global warming.

Source: Now Lebanon

Police arrested 250 climate Protesters

Police officers fired tear gas and wielded batons on Wednesday to beat back hundreds of demonstrators outside the global climate meeting in Copenhagen , as a police spokesman said 250 people had been arrested.
The police tried to disperse the chanting, drum-beating protesters who had marched from a train station about a mile away to try to make their way to the Bella Center, where representatives from nearly 200 countries are meeting to try to reach an accord on climate change. NYT

UN chief tells Hariri: The UN is always ready to support Lebanon

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said following his takes met with Prime Minister Saad Hariri on the sidelines of the UN Climate Change summit in Copenhagen “the UN is always ready to support Lebanon in all fields.”
Ban congratulated Hariri on the formation of the Lebanese cabinet and voiced hope that the government “would be able to achieve progress, prosperity and security.” Source: Dalati & Nohra