This morning, Fred Krupp, EDF’s president, gave the following remarks at the Point Carbon conference in New York City:

Think for a moment about the speech you’d expect to hear from an environmental leader on the eve of Copenhagen.

Now forget it.   This is not going to be that speech.

You might expect someone in my position to call for – to demand – a final international agreement to solve the climate crisis before Copenhagen delegates go home for Christmas.   I will not.

You might expect me to assert that the greatest threat to our planet will come about if New Year’s Day 2010 arrives without a new treaty.   It will not.

And that signing a final treaty is the only way Copenhagen can be successful.  It is not.

Let me explain.

Continue reading his full remarks.

EDF’s Gus Silva-Chavez is blogging from the global climate negotiations in Bangkok. Yesterday, he sent a big thank-you to Senators Boxer and Kerry for getting work started on the Senate version of the climate bill:

Whatever else you can say about the draft bill that Senators Boxer and Kerry introduced in the Senate yesterday, it was welcome news to country negotiators and NGOs at the climate talks in Bangkok.

For several weeks the main question everyone has been asking me is “What’s the next U.S. move and when will it happen?” Now I can give them an answer – Senators introduced draft climate and energy legislation. Today.  Continue »

This echoes the call for U.S. leadership from the governor’s summit in California. The scientific urgency, public opinion and global path are all in place — now it’s up to the Senate.

I admit I was a little bit nervous on my way into Davos. I looked at the guest list – so many government officials this year – and I was sure that questions about climate and the environment were going to be completely sidelined by the terrible unfolding drama of the economy. But thankfully, today I was proved wrong. Read more »

Old-growth forests hold vast amounts of carbon from centuries of growth, and this carbon would be released into the atmosphere if the trees were cut down. That much has been known for a long time, which is why Environmental Defense Fund so strongly advocates a plan to reduce deforestation in developing countries.

But new research shows that old-growth forests are even more important than previously thought. According to a new study in Nature, old-growth forests aren’t just standing there maintaining the status quo. They still actively take up CO₂ from the atmosphere.

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Another UN climate negotiating session has come and gone, the banners and tents swiftly dismantled, the delegates again scattered to the world’s four corners. Most leave with a sense of progress – incremental, to be sure, but the meetings are slowly transforming into real negotiations. When the United States’ new team hits the ground in January, the pace of negotiations will grow furious as we count down to the Copenhagen talks in December.

Here are the highlights from a week packed with negotiations, side events and planning sessions.

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Even if every industrialized country were to reduce its emissions to zero by 2050, atmospheric carbon levels would still be above what scientists tell us is dangerous.

That’s a pretty powerful statement, and it leads to the question: How do we convince developing countries to set limits on their emissions? A possible answer to that challenge brought me to Ghana this week.

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This post is by Gustavo Silva-Chávez, an international policy analyst in the Climate and Air program at Environmental Defense Fund.

Early this week, the team from Environmental Defense Fund started boarding planes for Accra, Ghana to attend the international Climate Change Talks. The official first day was Thursday, but Wednesday was busy with pre-meeting workshops.

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This post is by Gustavo Silva-Chávez, an international policy analyst in the Climate and Air program at Environmental Defense Fund.

Last December, a team from Environmental Defense Fund attended climate change negotiations in Bali – an annual meeting of some 190 countries. Next week, we’re headed to Accra, Ghana for another round of talks. These meetings, along with other talks this year and next, are part of an international negotiation process that will conclude in Copenhagen in late 2009.

The goal is to put the world on a path to avoid dangerous climate change. As part of this effort, EDF is working to encourage full participation of the United States, all other developed countries, and all major developing countries. The findings, recommendations and negotiated text coming out of these interim meetings will form the basic structure of the Copenhagen deal.

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This post is by Peter Goldmark, Program Director, Climate and Air, Environmental Defense.

The high and mighty are gathered in Davos, Switzerland for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), and right there in the center of the conversation, confabulation and champagne is our own Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense.

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This post is by Peter Goldmark, Program Director, Climate and Air, Environmental Defense. Also see his previous dispatch from Bali and background on the meetings.

As I reported in my last bulletin from Bali, after much sturm und drang, countries finally agreed to a two-year process that can lead to the next international climate change treaty in 2009 – the "Bali Roadmap".

Deforestation was a major topic at the Bali conference, and ended up being one of the most positive components of the Bali Roadmap. Environmental Defense helped lead the way there.

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