China, thirsty for oil, has turned to an entirely new land mass in an attempt to slake itself. Its new target is Argentina, specifically the Argentine company Bridas in which CNOOC, China’s nationally-owned oil and gas company, has just taken a 50% stake worth $3.1bn. CNOOC prez Yang Hua described the deal as being a “good beachhead for us to enter Latin America”, but it’s actually the second front in their Latin American adventures, having previously paired up with Venezuela on new exploration projects. This follows a year of exponential oil and gas exploration from China, who have recently headed into Canada, Nigeria, Iraq, their own territory, and Uganda just last week, while its interest in Ghana continues to stumble on. A few weeks back China announced that it...

Police in Dubai said today they were “virtually certain”  that the Israeli secret service Mossad was behind the assassination of  Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh (whose father is pictured above holding his photograph), as the incident threatened to turn into a diplomatic row between Britain and Israel over the use of false British passports. The British Foreign Office has fired the first shot in a potentially explosive diplomatic row with Israel by calling in that country’s ambassador to explain the use of fake British passports by a hit squad who targeted al-Mabhouh in Dubai last month. Interesting that we’re concerned about the use of false passports rather more than about the actual assassination itself. In that respect it seems at least that the...

Northern Ireland’s political leaders have reportedly been rewarded with the promise of a new US investment programme after closing a historic deal last week which saved power sharing. UK Prime Minister Gordon “Gormless” Brown (pictured above with upstanding pair DUP cuckold Peter Robinson – husband of adulteress Iris Robinson - and former IRA commander Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein) and his Irish counterpart, Brian “Biffo” Cowen, flew into Northern Ireland to put their seal of approval on the deal, which will create a Department of Justice, gives Unionists concessions on the issue of Protestant parades and saves the power-sharing executive from collapse. Mr Brown said the achievements over the longest period of unbroken negotiations since the...

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown today pledged that the Government would do “everything it could” to make sure jobs are kept in Britain following the proposed takeover of Cadbury’s (above).  The PM said assurances had been sought from Kraft about the US company’s awareness of and commitment to the Cadbury name, workforce and quality after its approach was recommended for approval. Gormless Gord did however duck questions as to why the UK taxpayer-owned Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) was prepared to lend money to Kraft to fund the £11.9 billion takeover bid.  So now we have the incredible scenario where British taxpayers have bailed out the banks, including RBS, and now their money is being used to fund the foreign ownership of a venerable and profitable British...

I divide my time between the Caribbean and Britain. When you have the option of endless summer, the predictable grey of London may seem an odd thing to look forward to. But my island in the sun (as opposed to my other soggy, snowy island) is struggling through a long drought. We have bee reduced to queuing for showers and washing clothes in water gathered from garden hoses. Imagine a backed up toilet in 30-degree temperatures and 90% humidity: yells of “Don’t flush!” because someone has only pissed, and you sure as hell can’t bother to carry buckets of water through the house just for that. Long showers never felt so good as when I arrived back in London, settling to fill the kettle as full as I bloody well like. Such a contrast reveals a major fault line...

Bad Idea blogger Kieron Bryan attended the UN’s COP-15 climate change conference in Copenhagen last month. Here he reflects on the mood at the end of the conference, and its immediate aftermath; later this week John Rapley will look at the longer-term implications of COP-15. A month on from the COP-Out conference in Copenhagen, the fingers of blame have been pointed at China for leaving talks early, the United States and Obama for failing to meet the challenge the way you’d expect the Messiah would, and Denmark’s over-zealous Government for hi-jacking talks, foisting a draft text on everybody just to save face and trying to guarantee a place in the history books - which, incidentally, they did, but for all the wrong reasons. It’s easy (though largely...

Having read the initial gloomy summaries of how disastrous the Copenhagen conference was in the hours and days afterwards I, probably like many, put it to the back of my mind and concentrated on enjoying a high carbon Christmas. So in sober January it was useful to get a less tabloid version of events over the Channel at the Green Monday event earlier this week. The organisers pulled together four speakers to review events from their perspective. There was: the Government man – Chris Dodwell from DEC ; the environmentalist – Steve Howard from The Climate Group; the businessman – Ray Barker from Kingfisher; and the banker – Abyd Karmali, who works with Merrill Lynch. The consensus: an attempt to look on the bright side rather than continue to get depressed about...

In the weeks since the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen, pundits around the world have been ruminating on what went well, what went wrong and what didn’t happen at all. From a UK perspective, we recognise that the hardest work lies ahead.  All countries need to raise their level of ambition in taking action against climate change. And we need a legally binding agreement to get there.    One debate that's yet to be aired widely in the US is about how a changing climate will affect national security interests. Even if you remain unconvinced by the numerous economic and environmental arguments for taking action, there are many consequences of climate change that have real security implications, which will have to be addressed. In coming decades, climate change will be a...

Minister Ana Lya Uriarte announced in Copenhagen a voluntary reduction of 20% by 2020 in the electric, mining, transport and the energy-intensive industrial sectors. This reduction -she said- will be achieved using mainly government funds. This ethical commitment and political responsibility is what was lacking in Copenhagen, especially on behalf of the US and China, but also from other G77 countries, who could have done more to reach an agreement. Chile has also changed the way in which nations negotiate, since she didn’t wait for others to act to start taking actions. On the contrary, in what seems to me to be a decision of a mature, fully integrated nation, Chile made a free and autonomous decision to contribute to avoid the worst effects of climate change.  Other developing and...

From: Eoin, 3Jan10, Greenpeace, Climate Rescue Weblog"The Red Carpet Four are still locked up, awaiting a hearing on January 7th. You can support them from wherever you are by joining our climate campaign today."Further Info:Greenpeace Change The Future* Racheblue - Striving for Sustainability & Ethics in Art, Design & Lifestyle...

The effect of climate change on migration, is one of the largest aspects of social fallout resulting from rampant capitalism’s destruction of the enviroment. On the 7th-18th December a sizeable group of No Borders activists from Wales and the south west joined thousands of others and travelled to Copenhagen to attend the mobilisations at the UN Climate Summit –...

The Copenhagen Conference has finished with an Accord which sets out a number of important measures on aiming to keep global warming to 2 degrees, setting up climate financing amounting to $100bn per year by 2020, and pledging to announce emissions reductions by the end of January 2010. It’s a significant step forward, but it falls short of the expectations of many, and leaves a number of issues unresolved.  So, not the ground-breaking agreement the UK was hoping for. But we shouldn’t lose heart: the transformation Copenhagen has brought in attitudes and behaviours towards climate change from governments and the world’s citizens marks a significant victory. The next few months will be crucial – we need to convert the Copenhagen deal into a legally-binding treaty, providing a...

In between avoiding mainstream media as much as possible Ecomonkey has heard an assortment of responses to the Copenhagen fiasco and we imagine you have too. It's not entirely clear what exactly went so wrong and what was so difficult about agreeing on a fair solution to safeguard the future of human life on planet earth, but, what do you know... it didn't quite go according to plan, hmmmm.For a great insight and analysis of the day by day action and inaction, The Stupid Show was the screen to be watching. We've watched most of the episodes and despite the clear lack of budget which allows for some highly amusing moments as well as the odd transmission break, Franny Armstrong and her team have produced a quite brilliant. summation of the whole sordid affair. If you watch nothing else, be...

The picture above sums the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit perfectly. An exhausted delegate sent to sleep listening to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown droning on, making promises he can’t keep, pledging money he doesn’t have, all in reality with the single aim of raising taxation in Britain. Yet another example of Gordon taking the initiative to save the planet, where yet again the initiative duly falls on its arse. We were told by all the eco-fascists that the world needed a climate treaty from the Copenhagen summit. Despite the fact they were all gathered at our expense in Copenhagen, all the world got was an “accord”, whatever that means. There’s no hiding the disappointment amongst the “climate aware”  fashionable chattering classes and...

For the past couple of weeks, many big-wigs are meeting in Copenhagen for a chit-chat about climate change. This happens against the backdrop of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit email hacking. This is said by some to offer evidence that climate scientists have manipulated data in order to boost the case that climate change is man-made. The emphasis on whether or not climate change is man-made confuses me. For instance, the Met Office’s response to the hacking seeks to underline the fact that climate change is man-made: “The bottom line is that temperatures continue to rise and humans are responsible for it.” Why is there so much concern over whether or not changes in temperature, and the knock-on effects that result, are man-made? Would...

BBC Ethical Man poses an un-festive...

Cartoon by Martin Rowsonin the Guardian 19 December 2009Well the world came, they talked, they didn't really agree anything.The sportsman in me knows that you have to set a goal a target to aim for. Sometimes you end up reaching that goal, I have won two Irish Junior cups at bowls as well as several other titles. Sometimes you miss, I didn't make the 1992 Olympics for example. But they were...

Every rich nation on the planet thrives and prospers despite having an underclass of people starving, in need of medical treatment but not getting it and having racial struggles but not caring about them because they don’t vote.So what chance was there really in Copenhagen that the rich nations would strike a deal limiting CO2 emissions when the developing African, Asian and Oriental nations clearly want to pollute more because we in the west have done it and become wealthy so therefore they see it as their right to have a go at killing the planet – it’s their go. America, Australia and the other G7/G9/G34/G3452 countries couldn’t give a shit about them if it affects their prosperity. The Maldives may get smaller beaches but that’s less life guards to pay.The will to be superior...

Recently reading my student friend's updates on Facebook or Twitter I've seen numerous of them stating that they were pulling "all-nighters" to get the end of term essays finished. The latest news from Copenhagen is that the Danes are telling the world leaders not to go anywhere just yet on what is meant to be the last day of the Climate Change Summit.Of course all nighters at the end of a...

We will have to do as James Lovelock has suggested: prepare for the worst case scenario. Massive temperature rises in some parts of the globe, sufficient temperature rises elsewhere to enforce major lifestyle and social changes, sea levels increasing to the extent that nearly all coastal settlements on the planet and some entire island nations will disappear under the waves, billions of refugees—men, women, children, entire animal species—on the move across continents, battering at the defences of every nation trying to keep them out. An end to world trade, the dissolution of law and order, warlords controlling food and fuel and vast areas of land, mass starvation and dehydration, disease, wars everywhere, fighting on the streets, tens of billions of people dying, plant and...

It's Friday morning and I'm on my way home - thereby reducing by one at least the thousands of people packing in to the conference centre today to witness world leaders take upon themselves the full weight of this truly global issue.There seemed to be a lift yesterday afternoon, following the US announcement of support for long-term climate financing (using the figure first tabled by Gordon Brown in June) - and a sense of crunchy engagement growing between leaders. But that still needs to find a way to mesh with the detailed negotiating over the preceding months and years, including through last night. A key concern of many vulnerable countries has been the maximum temperature rise target which should be adopted, based on the science. I asked Vicky Pope of the Met Office Hadley Centre...

It's Friday morning and I'm on my way home - thereby reducing by one at least the thousands of people packing in to the conference centre today to witness world leaders take upon themselves the full weight of this truly global issue.There seemed to be a lift yesterday afternoon, following the US announcement of support for long-term climate financing (using the figure first tabled by Gordon Brown in June) - and a sense of crunchy engagement growing between leaders. But that still needs to find a way to mesh with the detailed negotiating over the preceding months and years, including through last night. A key concern of many vulnerable countries has been the maximum temperature rise target which should be adopted, based on the science. I asked Vicky Pope of the Met Office Hadley Centre...

Further Info:VisionTV* Racheblue - Striving for Sustainability & Ethics in Art, Design & Lifestyle...

No suprises here. 'Leaders' don't want to listen to us. FOE and other NGOs representing the needs of ordinary people, have been refused admittance to the conference. Business as usual then.From: Anna Markova, 16Dec09, Indymedia Danmark"The controls at COP15 process are becoming ever more evident and frantic as civil society organisations and those who tried to join protests get their accreditation revoked. Intense footage has traveled round the Internet of police just inside Bella Centre violently pushing back 200 accredited delegates trying to get out of the conference venue and join the Reclaim Power protest outside.Delegates from Friends of the Earth, Avaaz, Tck Tck Tck (fluffiest campaign in the world), La Via Campesina, and more, faced a surprise this morning at the entrance to the...

On a pretty grim night (driving sleet, collapsing Copenhagen discussions etc.) I discovered something of an oasis of optimism in the snug surroundings of the Shortwave cinema in Bermondsey Square. That’s the place with the rather original version of a Christmas tree made from recycled bicycle wheel, designed by Sarah Wigglesworth. There was a special screening of Yes Men Fix the World, which is effectively Borat/Bruno with a political edge. The two pranksters pretend to represent dubious corporations and make outrageously truthful/ridiculous/absurd claims in their behalf. With largely hilarious results. Unfortunately they don’t achieve what the title suggests, but it’s thought-provoking in how activism could work differently to large protests and banner waving. On our...

The British Climate Change Minister, Joan Ruddock, was interviewed this morning on BBC Breakfast from the Copenhagen World Government Climate Change Conference. Throughout the 5 minute interview she talked constantly about the European Empire - the offers it has made, the deals it has done, the laws it has passed, the promises it has made and of course, Gordon Brown is leading it (seriously,...

In the city hall square in Copenhagen lies Hopenhagen Live, a futuristic village of glass cabins with green-neon trim, showcasing the greentech innovation that will perhaps save the world. It’s a pop-up conference exhibition designed to show attendees and Copenhagen locals the everyday applications that can come out of greentech investment; Hopenhagen Live is part of Hopenhagen, a global grassroots campaign created by advertising agency Ogilvy and Mather working pro bono to support the United Nations. Whilst the UN conference is about policy and targets, Hopenhagen Live reminds us that it’s greentech innovators who will provide the solutions. Most ideas on display in this public space are based on transport; the renewable energy technology sector is mostly ignored. Given that...

I'm now in Copenhagen at the beginning of Week Two. The stage was set early on Monday morning with Ed Miliband and Douglas Alexander's message at their press conference that we are very close to "midnight" in negotiating terms, and that the conference collectively needed to respond with corresponding urgency.   Amongst others reflecting that theme was President Nasheed of the Maldives, who called for urgent progress given the pressures facing his country and others which are similarly climate vulnerable. Water and Irrigation Minister Ngilu of Kenya and Environment Minister Burian of Tanzania spoke at an IIED event organised in parallel to keep up the momentum on the vulnerable voice. Saleem Huq of IIED provides his daily progress updates from COP 15. You can read...

MIT Researchers have appropriately debuted the Copenhagen Wheel at the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change. This big red wheel has a very unique ability: When you brake, your kinetic energy is recuperated by an electric motor and then stored by batteries within the wheel, so that you can have it back to you when you need it. It is similar to tech that has been on Formula One racers for the past couple of years. So the next time you are going up a steep hill with that Copenhagen wheel on your bike, simply release all that energy that you got by braking earlier. I don’t think there is any indicator of how much energy you have, because that extra energy sounds like something that could run out real fast. The development of this bicycle wheel has stemmed from what people are...

It’s good to see that Mark Brinkley’s considerable intellect is grappling with the debates that Copenhagen has set off. Last week he posted on economic growth, with the inevitable ensuing mixture of measured debate and asterisk anger from Mr Anonymous, and this week he’s turned his attentions to population, which I’m pretty shocked has not emerged as a topic over the Channel in past eight days. The problem as I see it is that whilst thousands of well intentioned individuals grapple with the future of our species, life, well… goes on regardless. A small case in point. I don’t usually read leader columns, but here’s one in yesterday’s Evening Standard. Three separate articles, offering three separate opinions: one on Copenhagen, one on the...

Climate campers in Copenhagen just sent over a few interesting links.Here is their photopool. Here is a video from the spait of mass arrests. Here is a video by visiononTV from a demo called 'system change not climate change'.There is also this blog post about the emotions involved in just getting...

The African countries have walked out of the Copenhagen talks because of the lack of movement from the industrialised countries to take responsible action now, beyond the Kyoto measures. The formal talks are currently therefore in suspension.The African nations are amongst those that are liable to feel the first major effects of any catastrophic climatic change. That is if they are already...

South West MEP Graham Watson, who Friends of the Earth said was the greenest MEP a while back, got in touch from the climate conference in his first report from the Danish capital. What’s going down, Graham? I am here until Wednesday, and hope to keep you updated with developments. I left my hotel at 8.15 this morning. Great public transport here got me to the Bella Centre in less than half an hour. Then a two and a half hr queue outside in -1 deg C with 000s of others from all continents before getting inside. Hopeless organisation, either by Danes or UN or both. They won’t come here again for quite a few years. Heads of State and Government arrive later this week but much happening before then. Everyone is determined to save the planet. • While the great and good gather...

With the right finance, Britain can lead the world to a greener future, says Boris Johnson. By the time you read these words I will be airborne to Copenhagen.  Why, you may ask, am I going to the... [Visit boris-johnson.com for the full post and more information about Boris!]...

The Copenhagen Climate Conference is half way through, and from reports I’m seeing from the UK team at the Conference, there’s still a long way to go before the competing interests can find a way through and “seal the deal”. But seal the deal we must – the poignant photograph I saw in a UK newspaper last week of a melting ice sculpture of a polar bear in Trafalgar Square sums up the urgency. The UK and Dutch delegations are working closely together, notably on the EU financing package, with a deal reached at last week’s European Council to offer over $10bn for “fast-track funding” over 3 years. The UK is making the largest contribution. Developing countries say this is not enough. Indeed – other rich countries need to contribute too. With world leaders arriving in...

South West MEP Graham Watson is off to Copenhagen next week, but first he has a few other matters to deal with – how much money the EU should put into help developing countries deal with climate change issues, how to vote on the EU’s budget, ‘the common EU agriculture and food policy’, competitiveness and, FYI, Israel refused entry of Gaza to eight MEPs on Tuesday. Over to you, Graham… As the non-governmental organisations and policy advisers gathered in Copenhagen for the impressive array of meetings and briefings which precede next week’s arrival of the government ministers, climate change also dominated this week’s European Council (summit) meeting in Brussels. Heads of state or government of the 27 EU countries met on Thursday afternoon and...

Cleaning brand and all-round good eggs (it’s an English phrase) method, has a nifty little site that will keep you up-to-date with what’s happening at the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen this month. Click here to get to co-founder’s Adam Lowry’s blog. And being the nice company it is, if you sign the petition through a link on this page, and give them the details of what you posted, you’ll get a money off voucher. Lovely eh? All information is © Life Goggles 2009Follow What’s Going On In Copenhagen And Save Money With Method...

We are coming to the end of week one of two weeks' intense negotiation at Copenhagen.  Both the UK and Korea are working for an ambitious deal to prevent dangerous climate change.  But what are we looking for?  Korean actor, Kim Beom, visited the Foreign and Commonwealth Office last month to find out more for himself.  Watch an extract from their conversation here:...

I am writing this entry when the COP15 in Copenhagen has started. The UK is going all out to seek a fair and effective climate change deal. It is essential for Britain’s future economic prosperity and national security that this deal is as far reaching as possible. All the reliable science indicates that poor countries are in grave danger of the consequences brought upon the planet by climate change. Success at Copenhagen remains in the hand of the world’s most capable environmental negotiators. There can be no Plan B for the world. We are confronted by a challenge difficult to imagine but frightfully real in scope and effect. For the first time in history sustainability is being overrun by the development of human industrial activity. Is it too little too late? The UN talks...

The latest round of UN climate talks are under way in Copenhagen. Pressure for an agreement is growing as those living with climate impacts become ever more vocal and the risks of 'business as usual' greenhouse gas emissions become better understood. Seventeen years of negotiations with rising global emissions is enough...