Maybe he liked the city? Either way, President Barack Obama announced today that he will attend the climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December. The climate summit is held between 7-18 December and is the last chance we have to take action against “the greatest threat the world has ever faced”.

“U.S. President Barack Obama will go to Copenhagen for a U.N. climate change meeting on December 9, hoping to add momentum to an international process despite slow progress on a domestic bill to cut carbon emissions”, Reuters reports.

“Obama planned to make a visit at the beginning of the climate negotiations in Denmark, an administration official told Reuters on Wednesday, before picking up the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in neighboring Oslo.”

With him to the climate summit Obama has a pledge to cut emissions in the USA with 17% from 2005 levels by 2020, 30% by 2025, 42% by 2030 and 83% by 2050. But these numbers are much lower than those proposed by the EU and other industrialised countries such as Norway.

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Photo credit: rockcohen

Leaders from the European Union (EU) have just agreed on a new watered-down climate deal to tackle global warming. The actual emissions cuts could amount to as little as 4% by 2020.

Yesterday UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in Poznan that “the world is watching us. The next generation is counting on us. We must not fail.” He also called for the EU to show the way and leadership on the climate crisis for other countries. Unfortunately it seems the short-sighted “leaders” of Europe ignored him. Instead of 30% emission cuts by 2020 the EU leaders only agreed on cuts by 20% by 2020, compared to 1990 levels.

But the actual emission cuts could end up being as little as 4% by 2020, environmental groups warned. That is because of special exemptions for dirty industries in Europe as well as allowing cheap emission cuts overseas to be counted to the EU total. The latter has been heavily pushed by the new Swedish right-wing government who has called for as much as 88% of the EU emission cuts to be allowed to do overseas in development countries.

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Photo credit: azrainman

A new report from WWF says that climate change is happening much faster than the scientists have predicated earlier. The report says that we must take action on a global scale to avert devastating climate effects such as more and heavier storms, flooding, droughts, crops failures, collapse of eco systems on land and sea and rising sea levels just to name a few.

Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, Professor of Climatology and Environmental Sciences at the Université catholique de Louvain and newly elected Vice Chair of the IPCC, said that “it is clear that climate change is already having a greater impact than most scientists had anticipated, so it’s vital that international mitigation and adaptation responses become swifter and more ambitious.”

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photo credit: rockcohen

The governments of Italy and Poland are, as I write this, trying to weaken the already weak climate goals that the European Union agreed on in January. Italy and Poland blames their will to inaction against climate change because of the current financial crisis. They argue that they can’t afford to implement tough emissions targets on their industrial sector.

This is a fine example of ignorance from these right-wing governments in Europe. The climate package will not worsen the economy for Europe. Instead the plan will create millions of new green jobs, reduce our fuel costs and avert a catastrophe beyond our wildest dreams.

During a summit Nicolas Sarkozy said that they will look for “solutions” for those European countries who have expressed concerns about the climate goals and their economy. “The climate package is so important that we cannot simply drop it, under the pretext of a financial crisis,” said Nicolas Sarkozy, who currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency.

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“Europe, it’s time to lead” and “keep global warming below 2°C”.

That is what a new campaign from Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, WWF and the Climate Action Network Europe is demanding. And they want you to help put pressure on your MEPs to take action now, before it’s too late.

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Iceland has killed two polar bears since the U.S. Department of Interior formally listed the polar bear as a “threatened” species a few weeks ago.

The first polar bear, named Björn Björnesson, came to Iceland in the beginning of June this year. The polar bear was shot as soon as he was spotted for fears he would get into the nearest village. According to the hunters, killing the polar bear was the only solution as it would take to long to get the anaesthetic that was on the other side of the island.

The polar bear had probably travelled the 29 miles (47 kilometres) from Greenland on a flake of ice and swim the last miles to Iceland.

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The United Arab Emirates, home for around 5 million people, wants to build the world’s first zero-carbon city called Masdar City.

In Masdar City cars will be banned. A light rail system will serve the residents inside the city as well as taking them to nearby cities. Waste water will be reused, all garbage will be recycled and organic food will be locally grown.

The water will be provided through a solar-powered desalination plant. Even though the developers of Masdar City haven’t said any exact percentage they plan to power most of the city by solar power.

Masdar City, which will stretch out 3.5 miles and will have a wall built around the city. The wall is there to diminish the heat carried in from southerly desert winds, but also the noise from the airplanes at the nearby Abu Dhabi International airport.

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The Danish design agency Saatchi & Saatchi has made this pretty simple and straightforward environment ad:

To make people realize that saving the planet starts with them saving paper, we took a standard paper dispenser and made a simple modification with green foil and the silhouette of South America. This allowed us to prove that the survival of the forest is directly connected to what people consume.

You can see a larger version of the ad here. You can also check out this clever ad on a bridge in Amsterdam.