Looks like Copenhagen’s COP-15 is lurching toward a COP-16 and maybe many after that before one might expect binding agreement that gets most of the important nations to sign on. Especially the US and China. Grim reading this morning top right in the NYTimes is provided by John M. Broder and James Kanter with the hed CHINA AND U.S. HIT STRIDENT IMPASSE AT CLIMATE TALKS. Developing nations led by the US (despite a tremulous Congress) want heavy limits on themselves but at least some sort of strict accountability from poorer nations too. Per capita, China remains poor. It says here its delegates not only want rich countries to double down, and they not only want to spared any obligations on cuts, they also don’t want the world even to be able to tell what they are doing. Broder and Kanter write with authority, and well they might. A glance at the Times’s site finds that just since September Broder has written about 30 climate policy and other pertinent stories, and Kander in addition to his general political reporting form Europe has done another two dozen on such things. With other veterans, including the soon-to-depart Andy Revkin, at the meeting, the Times is loaded.

Maybe the US and China, and developed and developing nations as blocs, are merely being stubborn and intransigent so that when the presidents and premiers show up later this week, they can claim credit heroically for a big handshake at the end? We’re watching a form of political theater? Maybe?

Fortunately for the psyche of such climate worriers as me, there is some Copenhagen climate-talk news reporting that steers attention briefly to something else. Here’s one for water cooler and pub speculation, from the BBC‘s exceedingly incisive enviro correspondent and blogger Richard Black: Climate ‘skepticism’ and questions about sex. The story has a “previous/next” function to take you to others of his informative missives, some on the challenges of reporting the meeting at all (there was a giant snafu queue lasting hours – just to get IN to the hall). This particular piece posits that  lists of attendees at any gathering or on petitions by skeptics are more overwhelmingly male than just about any other slice of the climate discussant gradient. He speculates on why. When I read his lede I thought immediately, “Sallie Baliunas!” the sunspot charting woman, but he has her too – as one of the few counter-examples. One thinks there is a chance that men, being more prone perhaps to obsession, are simply more common at extremes in general – maybe a meeting of climate scholars and debaters who are totally  panicked over CO2 would also be overwhelmingly wide-eyed-with-fear-and-doom gentlemen, while ladies are a bit more in the sensible, concerned middle?

Other Copenhagen Climate Meeting Stories:

• Guardian (UK)

John Vidal, Suzanne Goldenberg, Jonathan Watts : Copenhagen climate talks stall / Vital hours lost over claim Kyoto treaty being killed; Brown flies in early as time to clinch deal runs out ; It credits a Downing Street source to say a deal is still expected in time, but “it will take the leaders,” meaning heads of state, to put in the final numbers.

Bibi van der Zee: Copenhagen: 194 arrested after protesters set fire to barricades . Tear gas thrown at demonstraters like ‘huge grey wave’ during raid, as concerns grow of police crackdown.

• Times (UK) – Philippe Naughton : World leaders ‘could boycott failing Copenhagen talks’ ; The story reports a great deal of tension, but note the quote marks and that big verb-modifying “could” in the hed. One source in the whole peace, from an NGO, surmises that national leaders might decide not to come.
• Washington Post – Juliet Eilperin: Climate change talks enter ‘important moment’ ;
• Toronto Star – Allan Woods: Climate talks try ot avoid ‘Kyoto-style failure’;
• AP

– John Heilprin: US-China showdown looms over climate talks ;

- Arthur Max: Tense atmosphere clouds climate talks ;

• Reuters – Gerard Wynn, Michael Szabo: Ministers try to break deadlock at climate talks ;
• NPR – Christopher Joyce: Copenhagen Boycott Averted; Cash For Trees On Table ;
• Boston Globe – Beth Daly: Despite stalemates, hope flickers on climate ; Is flickering good or bad? She says hope dominates despair. So this time, it’s good.
• Wall St. Journal – Alessandro Torello: Climate Negotiators Under Pressure Ahead of Leaders’ Arrival ;
• Xinhua/ChinaView – Wang Guanqun: China strives to contribute more to global fight against climate change ; It’s datelined Copenhagen, but the piece is all boilerplate from Beijing. Presumably Mr. Wang edited it there too. He also has his name on this, datelined Beijing: China says rich countries responsible for slow Copenhagen talks progress ;
• Voice of America – Stephanie Ho: China Accuses Developed Nations of Backsliding on Climate Change Promises ; She files from Beijing, with true news about China and Copenhagen.
• Christian Science Monitor – Peter N. Spotts: At Copenhagen global warming conference, alarms on ocean acidification ; The dek calls it an orphan issue, Spotts’s story compares it to a toddler tugging on one’s hem asking, “What about me?” ; Spotts also finds a panel with Al Gore, and worries over the Arctic.
• Science News – Janet Raloff: UN Effectively Locks Out Reporters, Others in Copenhagen ; She was among those caught shivering outside  in the accreditation mess – and she reports she was in good company. So much for Scandihoovian reputations for efficiency and neatness.
• Time Mag – Bryan Walsh: Amid Copenhagen’s Climate Din, a Corporate Silence ;

And finally, one by a writer earnestly trying to sort things through for himself, and for his readers. This is news report, news analysis, essay, a plea for a great statesman from China, and perhaps a lament that our world is so complicated:

• Philippine Daily Inquirer – John Nery: “On the new and never previously seen star’ ;

Who from the US is in the COP-15 News Center, an incomplete list:

(This relayed by Seth Borenstein at the AP, mostly people he’s happened to lay eyes on. We’ll add others as we learn of them):

AP’s Borenstein, (update 12/16: Michael Casey? from byline) ,Charles Hanley, John Heilprin from US bureaus plus Karl Ritter, Arthur Max, Jan Olsen from European bureaus, NYT’s Andy Revkin and John Broder, Boston Globe’s Beth Daley, CSM’s Pete Spotts, Energy Daily’s Chris Holly, WaPost Juliet Eilprin, ClimateWire’s Lisa Friedman, Janet Raloff of Science News, Cheryl Hogue Chemical & Engineering News, Emily Gertz (freelance), David Kestenbaum NPR.

Others (from bylines): NYT James Kanter, NYT Elizabeth Rosenthal, Time Mag. Bryan Walsh ;

*UPDATE: From others (see comments), additional US reporters there reportedly include:

Scientific American David Biello, Mother Jones Kate Sheppard, NPR Richard Harris ;John Hiskes of Grist, Kate Sheppard and David Cone of Mother Jones, Chris Mooney of The Intersection Blog at Discover.com, Alex Pasternack and Matt McDermottof Treehugger.

- Charlie Petit

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