Lobbying by the U.S. Department of Transportation Against State Actions to Address Climate Change (cancelled)
Internal e-mails show that Transportation Secretary Mary Peters personally directed a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign approved by the White House to oppose EPA approval of California’s landmark standards reducing greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.
Corporate Climate Response Chicago
Chicago, September 25-26 2007
This two-day event will bring together companies, regulators and other experts to discuss the best solutions for companies looking to mitigate their carbon footprints. Supporters of this event include the City of Chicago DoE, IBM, and MetaFore. Corporate Climate Response also coincides with Chicago’s ‘Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet’ festival.
This is our 5th Corporate Climate Response event and a number of top speakers are participating including representatives from Ford, Time, Anheuser-Busch, IBM, McDonald’s, United Technologies, Catepillar, BP America, Exelon, EPA, Energy Star, WRI and more.
This event includes sessions on carbon footprint and life-cycle analysis, energy efficiency, choosing green power sources, offsetting and emissions trading, climate adaptation, and engaging the public on global warming issues. Attendees will also learn about the latest update in national climate change policy and how upcoming state and federal actions will directly impact US corporations. It will attract over 200 delegates from across the US whose responsibility is to implement climate change solutions for their organizations.
The event is sponsored by Environmental Defense, The Alliance to Save Energy, MetaFore, and the Institute for Sustainable Communication.
The Future in Our Hands: Addressing the Leadership Challenge of Climate Change
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that he will convene an informal high-level event in New York on the margins of the General Assembly on 24 September to promote discussion on possible ways to move the international community toward negotiations on new global agreement on climate change at the upcoming United Nations climate change conference in Bali in December.
The Secretary-General hopes that world leaders will send a powerful political signal to the negotiations in Bali that “business as usual” will not do and that they are ready to work jointly with others towards a comprehensive multilateral framework for action on climate change for the period after 2012.
The Secretary-General informed Permanent Representatives and Permanent Observers to the United Nations of the event, which will be informal and will seek to reaffirm the importance of addressing climate change in a global forum and provide an opportunity to involve all countries in the multilateral process. The high-level event would not seek to engage Governments in negotiations on the outcomes in Bali nor seek a negotiated outcome.
Hurricanes and Climate Change: What's Resolved and What Remains To Be Resolved? 2
Is there a scientific basis for anticipating that human-induced climate warming does and/or will affect hurricanes in some way, over and above natural climate variability? Do observations and model simulations support that expectation, or are there issues with data and observations that make the task of sorting out linkages more difficult? If the latter, what are the observational and data issues that continue to make this a challenging scientific problem? What do we know now that we did not know two years ago? What role do model simulations play in helping to sort out linkages, if any, between global warming and hurricanes, in the absence of data/observation or the presence of unreliable data/observations? How can we best develop a coordinated national effort to provide urgently required information for planning, community response and infrastructure development.
Moderator- Dr. Anthony Socci, Senior Science Fellow, American Meteorological Society
- Dr. Kerry Emanuel, Professor of Atmospheric Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
- Dr. William K. M. Lau, Chief, Laboratory for Atmospheres, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
- Dr. Greg Holland, Director, Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology Division, Earth and Sun Systems Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO
- Dr. Gabriel Vecchi, Research Oceanographer, Climate diagnostics Group, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab/NOAA, Princeton, NJ.
- Thomas R. Knutson, Research Meteorologist, Climate Dynamics and Prediction Group, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab/NOAA, Princeton, NJ.
What Does the Stern Review Mean for the UN Climate Change Meeting in Bali? 1
The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) invites you to a Congressional briefing with Sir Nicholas Stern a year after the release of the landmark “Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change.” The Stern Review represented a key milestone in our understanding of the urgent need to take action and the associated costs of tackling climate change. The headline message that the cost of action would be far less than the cost of inaction was a catalyst for many governments to increase their efforts in the fight against global warming.
In the run up to the next UN meeting on climate change in Bali (December 2007), there are a number of complementary processes taking place, including the UN Secretary-General’s meeting in New York on September 24 and the US Meeting of Major Economies on Energy Security and Climate Change in Washington on September 27-28. How will the findings of the Stern Review affect these meetings? Will the policy recommendations recommended by the Review be considered as part of the final deal?
Sir Nicholas Stern will speak about these issues, which will be followed by a Q&A session with the audience.
Briefing speaker:- Sir Nicholas Stern, Professor of Economics, London School of Economics Asia Research Centre and author of the “Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change“
The Stern Review was commissioned by Gordon Brown, formerly Chancellor of the Exchequer and now the British Prime Minister. The Stern Review’s principal conclusion was that tackling climate change is a pro-growth strategy. It found that the earlier effective action is taken, the less costly it will be. The Stern Review surprised many policymakers in terms of describing the relatively small cost of action versus the significant costs of inaction, i.e. stabilizing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will cost about one per cent of annual global output by 2050. If no action is taken, climate change will reduce global consumption per head by between five and 20 percent. In addition, markets for low-carbon energy products are likely to be worth at least $505 billion per year by 2050.
This briefing is open to the public and no reservations are required. For more information, please contact Fred Beck at fbeck@eesi.org or 202.662.1892.
Climate Week: Climate Change Takes Center Stage
During the last week of September, three high-profile global meetings will address the challenge of climate change. On Monday, September 24, the United Nations will convene a unique High-Level Session of the General Assembly, at which dozens of heads of states will address this topic. Starting Wednesday, September 26, the Clinton Global Initiative will bring governments, business, NGOs and media together to catalyze concrete action to address climate change. Starting Thursday, September 27, the Bush administration will host representatives of leaders from 15 major economies for an unprecedented meeting on this topic.
To preview these events and assess their significance, Brookings will host a forum on Friday September 21. After the program, panelists will take audience questions.
Introduction:- Strobe Talbott, President, The Brookings Institution
- Carlos Pascual, Vice President and Director, Foreign Policy Studies, The Brookings Institution
- Yvo de Boer, Executive Director, United Nations, Framework Convention on Climate Change
- David B. Sandalow, Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution, chair of the Energy & Climate Working Group at the Clinton Global Initiative
Ambassador Room Hilton Embassy Row 2015 Massachusetts Ave, NW
Forests and Climate Change
Institute of Ecosystem Studies President Dr. William Schlesinger is going to be speaking at 6:00 pm this Thursday on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., about his recent work on the interaction between forests and climate—and its implications for how and whether carbon offsets should be allowed.
Glenn Hurwitz has more at Grist.
Before coming to IES, Dr. Schlesinger served in a dual capacity at Duke University, as both the James B. Duke Professor of Biogeochemistry and Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences.
255 11th Street SE (close to the Eastern Market metro stop)
RSVP with Glenn Hurwitz (glenn dot hurowitz at ecologyfund dot net)
American Infrastructure Investment and Improvement Act, Habitat and Land Conservation Act of 2007, U.S.-Peru Trade
Business meeting to consider original bills entitled, “American Infrastructure Investment and Improvement Act”, “The Habitat and Land Conservation Act of 2007”, and to review and make recommendations on proposed legislation implementing the U.S.-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement