.
.We’ll be tracking pretty lightly if at all over the next few days. Back Monday Dec. 28 for a few days, and then off again at the end of next week. Everybody stay warm in the N. Hemisphere’s winter, and hope for a prosperous New Year.
Pic source ;
- Charlie Petit
If you are not entirely familiar with the SETI Institute and the acronym it borrows – the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence – you could do far worse than to read in the Washington Post a broad and useful summary by Marc Kauffman. The piece seems to cover no news ground, but it covers a great deal of territory. He visited the Allen Telescope Array, at the Hat Creek Observatory that the University of California runs up where the Sierra fade into the Cascades. He spoke with Jill Tarter, a SETI scientist and among the best know popularizers in her field, and with Frank Drake, who is even better known.
Grist for the Mill: SETI Institute ATA Fact Sheet ;
The Sunday Telegraph has stirred a storm whose substance may be about the same as the e-mail fracas in the UK. Of course, judgment of that substance may depend on one’s political coloration – it’s a scandal, or not much of anything, or something in between. But the politics of climate change gets no less nasty as time goes by.
The news, if that it be, from columnists Christopher Booker and Richard North, is that Rejendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has a lot of private investments and other close links to business interests that have put “billions of dollars in organizations dependent on the IPCC’s policy recommendations.” The two writers often attack global warming as a trumped-up theory (see an earlier column). They also wrote a book on it this year. They seem to have intimate familiarity, as they entertain these charges against the IPCC chief, with conflict of interest.
This story openly takes its cue from allegations by prominent climate skeptics. And it offers no evidence how much if any money Pachauri is making from his role as adviser to several organizations and corporations involved in climate related affairs. Nor does the piece, as far as I can see, offer any reply by Pachauri to the assertions.
The story starts off snarky. It suggests Pachauri is no expert anyway. After first reporting that Pachauri “is often presented as a scientist” and even, by the BBC, as the “world’s top climate scientist,” it says that as a PhD economist he “has no qualifications in climate science at all.”
It’s a long piece. A stout rejoinder – down there in Grist - from Pachauri’s associates calls the thing’s allegations false and unfounded. It also says that IPCC, by its charter, does not even make policy recommendations. It summarizes science and leaves to others what ought to be done.
As for that, Telegraph columnist James Delingpole, perhaps among the least temperate writers in the English language and whose stories all explain at top that he “is right about everything,” has responded in turn with “It’s all lies! lies Pachauri (again)” ; He calls Pachauri “our favourite jetsetting, millionaire, troll-impersonating railway engineer.” Um .. what’s this we hear about British libel laws being so scary tough?
The Telegraph story also reflects assertions already circulating, from blogs by its co-author North, “a right-wing commentator,” reports Amanda Hodge in The Australian.
The story has not gone down well in India:
Grist for the Mill: The energy and Resources Institute (TERI, in India) Statement on Telegraph Story.
- Charlie Petit
You know FERC, don’t you – Federal Energy Regulatory Commission? Utility executives and public utility commissioners certainly do know FERC. On the NYTimes’s site this morning E&E Greenwire‘s Peter Behr tells the big-gadgetry lovers among us of a project that could start resolving one of the primary snags of renewable energy. That is how to get electrical power to where its needed and from such places as those that are very sunny, windy, or perhaps overlie easily reached geothermal sources. The news is of a project that could cost $1 billion. It is called the Tres Amigas Superstation. Advanced switching machinery and superconducting cables would, if it works out, link three existing grids and hook them efficiently to one another and to the rest of the country. It seems they are now, literally, out of synch so it will take some fancy transformers, de-inverters, and other stuff to more or less laundry the juice (AC-DC-and back) in a way that makes it palatable to all concerned. FERC has the proposal before its bureaucratic eyes. I can’t claim to understand its details, but it apparently has nothing to do with federal stimulus money – which I’d thought was to be a main player in redoing the grid.This is even better, they say. It supposedly will be a privately financed money maker and, presumably, tax-generator.
A search reveals several other accounts in recent weeks as the proposal headed for FERC:
Other Green Energy Business News:
- Charlie Petit
Yesterday’s – Monday’s – email version of ksjtracker was hours late due to mystifying inability to send it. The software had a mind of its own upon the activation of the send button icon windows dealie thing. Then last evening, it may have worked. I am unsure so am trying again this morning. It’s also possible some are getting multiple newsletter emailings – I’m not getting it myself at all.
I hope it’s working better, especially later today. I.T. has been alerted. By the way, the newsletter is ordinarily reliable. This gives opportnity to alert those who have not noticed the little fill-in box for e-mail subscription, free of course and requiring no registration, and who might prefer to have the day’s posts pushed to your mailbox. It usually goes out a little after 3 p.m. US eastern time. Please help yourself and sign up if you’d like. Again, fingers crossed for today.
- Charlie Petit
The Tracker, following news lately on the boomings and luminous displays on Luzon Island in the Philippines from Mayon Volcano – among the world’s more frequently active ones – has been eager to read some serious volcanology reporting on it. So far, however, most of what I’ve seen has been about the evacuations alerts and the sheer spectacle of this classically conical mountain. Public safety is the paramount story. This volcano goes off regularly – another eruption led to wide evacuation just three years ago. But some of us would like to know how the scientists monitor it, what they’re seeing in some detail, and why the lava looks so blocky in videos and how it can have flowed so far while being so apparently viscous.
I guess it’s just the lava that has me going. In videos it tumbles in pieces, looking like a lava dome falling apart more than a flow. But the latest reports have the lava flows or whatever they are reaching several kilometers from the summit crater. That’s interesting. Some headlines and stories say that officials fear it may soon erupt. Huh? Erupt worse, maybe explode, sure, that’s a fear – but if it booms shatteringly and glows in fiery embers at night and its lava flows are advancing and smallish lahars are cascading and ash plumes and condensed steam are billowing and the air reeks of sulphur, um…. isn’t it erupting already?
Stories:
Best science content spotted so far:
Grist for the Mill: Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology Mayon Volcano Bulletin ;
Synchronicity strikes this week at two of the nation’s large regional papers, ones that still maintain science beats, praise be. Both published portraits of local entomologists who have gained public profiles. Both of the protagonists work for large natural history museums important to the process of informal science education on which so deeply depends what little the broad public knows and understands of science (A process that journalists rightly, vigorously deny pursuing consciously – even though education of a sort occurs as fallout from good news reporting).
Neither writer gets into a persistent irony in biology. While most young people entering that science gravitate to tightly-focussed supspecialties such as molecular biology or evolution and genetics,a declining share majors in organismal biology and systematics of the kind popular with the public. That is, we are not getting enough new people who can walk across a field and name darned near every plant or animal they see (and also are vital for the scut work of environmental impact reports preceding large changes in land use).
Entomologists like these two are getting rarer. And each, it turns out, does a bit of forensics on the side. The stories illustrate that news is not only where one finds it, but almost anywhere one looks. Both arise from paying attention to (perhaps with puplicists’ help) the interior celebrations and administration of the research world.
Grist for the Mill:
Cleveland Mus. of Nat. History Invertebrate Zoology ; Phil. Academy of Nat. Sciences Orthoptera Species File Online.
- Charlie Petit
By design or not during a holiday season where many people try to think positive thoughts and believers offer prayers of wonderment and hope, Science Times this week does its part to boost one’s opinion of humanity. There is not a single tale of us killing Earth’s familiar climate, or sociopathology, or drug-resistant diseases. Uplifting stories of life, of invention, of music, and of cleverness abound.
An ancient church pipe organ and a new, near-identical one are the stars of Guy Gugliotta‘s lead story. The tale is not a report on science – but rather on precision craftsmanship aided by modern technology and engineers’ understanding of acoustics. It relates the near-duplication, down to where the nails go and the florid ornamentation, of an enormous, 18th century Germano-Baltic organ that does not even work but is all there for copying. The Baroque dupe is in Rochester, New York. Again, one is unsure of any research angle. But it’s that time of year, and it fits the section as well as would, say, a detailed account of how fragile dinosaur bones are turned into gleaming and essentially artificial skeletons for a natural history museum – or, for that matter, as the basis for animatronic monsters. Plus, a pipe organ at full throat pierces the conscious brain, vibrating ventricles and cortices and altering one’s mental state.
That’s a transition, awkwardly done. Two other pieces on dissecting the contents of human skulls have a stunning correspondence, even though not twinned by layout or editor’s comment. Benedict Carey writes of a Search Engine Of the Brain. The news is of a neuroanatomy project to thin-slice cadaver brains and digitize their images at unprecedented detail. Well inside, by Jascha Hoffman, is a “Scientist at Work” profile of a psychologists doing his best to chart the landscape of fleeting thoughts that ordinary people have as they go through their days, musing in words, images, melodies, inchoate urges, and more. The project, as the story notes, has objectivity problems. It relies on people to describe the contents of their own mental snapshots. We are all such liars about what we’re really thinking. But nobody apparently has tried this at all until now.
Other headlines to note:
As usual, lots more. Whole Section.
Elsewhere in this week’s NYTimes:
- Charlie Petit
It IS interesting to learn that the physicists running the shakedown tests for the Dept. of Energy’s immense National Ignition Facility in Livermore are not only hoping to harness fusion for commercial electrial production, but that they call it the quest for LIFE. That means Laser Inertial Fusion Energy. This one finds in a flashy feature by Daniel Lyons in the Nov. 14 issue of Newsweek. The story asks, while acknowledging it is a longshot, Could This Lump Power the Planet?
Lyons, listed as a technology columnist, clearly has an affinity for jaw-dropping technologies and the wizardly researchers who put them together. Of those there are plenty at the Livermore Nat’l Lab, where he gets a sales job deluxe from the man in charge of this awesome machine.
However, while he does make some extra calls and finds authoritative sources who harbor deep doubts about NIF’s potential as a practical route to abundant clean energy, there are two enormous holes in this account.
The first is that he, as have many reporters before him, implies that the fusion quest is the reason that NIF exists. I thought, half way through, he might be about to provide the real reason upon encountering a paragraph with the intro phrase, “But NIF has other goals…” but, nope. This one says another purpose is to study the conditions that exist inside stars. That’s true, but inadequate. Readers are owed the real reason billions of dollars in tax money built this impressive machine: as a tool to better understand thermonuclear weapons without having to actually detonate them. It is built, that is, for the military and for national security. There is nothing wrong with that, many regard such work as essential and noble. To leave it out is puzzling.
The second is that he makes no mention of progress toward practical magnetic confinement fusion via tokamak machines. Most important, he should say something about the other fusion behemoth. It is ITER, an international project to spend even more money on a giant tokamak. It, just as plausibly (as well as implausibly) could produce an eventual limitless supply of quite green energy largely free of fossil carbon emission.
Although Lyons’s readers may not remember it, hence this piece is useful, the essential news on NIF and its gargantuan dimensions has been reported many times. Plenty of stories have had more detailed information on the physics behind the intent to implode deuterium-filled capsules with unprecedented power – unleashing mini-nova explosions. I rather enjoyed Lyons’s excitement upon seeing NIF for himself. But crucial context is missing and would not detract at all from the essential tale of a dark horse that just could conceivably ride like the cavalry to rescue the world from burning every last ton of cheap coal.
- Charlie Petit
It’s about just one fellow of middling profile in the world of climate science, and there are no troves of emails to thrill people who see conspiracies almost everywhere, but here’s a report that does slightly balance the scales on who is trying to cover up what in climate change research.
It was filed Friday at New Scientist‘s site, easily overlooked in the fury, assertions of a deal, and flop that was Copenhagen. Michael Le Page tells of a Duke University physicist who won’t let go of the detailed protocol – meaning the computer code – behind his assertion a few years ago in a refereed journal that at least half the Sun’s variation caused most of the last century’s worth of global warming.The story, conveniently, contains links to several of the key pieces of primary literature involved – including the home page of the Duke researcher which, in turn leads to some of the papers on the topic of which is an author. The story’s last sentence is an impish question, to which one suspects the answer is no.
Pic source ;
- Charlie Petit
Now What? Reporters in Copenhagen, or who monitored the fog of verbal war from afar, were in full analysis mode over the last few days. With delegations already mostly cleared from Denmark, here is a selection of look-back reports, offerings of what’s coming now, and general context on climate policy. The Tracker selected them largely from some of the weightier outlets in the English speaking world, on what happened and what may be in store for the UN’s and IPCC’s agendas on climate change.
This is hardly the end of it. Put a circle in your calendar for for COP-16 in Mexico City a year from now (and COP-17 a year later in S. Africa, and COP-18 somewhere in Asia a year after that).
* Or not. A new theme arising, as I look (mid-post) through the list below, is that the babbling UN-IPCC forum for discussion may be elbowed aside by old fashioned ad-hoc and iron-fisted diplomacy among a limited set of great powers – chiefly, the US and China. I have added asterisks to such articles.
As for COP-15′s aftermath, We’ll start with the two heaviest-weight wire services, as they have the resources to throw squads of reporters at individual pieces.
- Charles Babington, Jennifer Loven : Obama raced clock, chaos, comedy for climate deal ; Convincingly captures the urgency and improvizational footwork of the President’s visit. Portrays him in its opening passages as a man of bold action in the face of a chaotic failure, of closed-door meetings, and of what looks like a calculated snub of the US (or perhaps portrays the president as a man forced into desperate impulsiveness and risk-taking; a man awarded by face-saving if not a lasting payoff). Additional reporting by Seth Borenstein, Michael Casey, and Charles Hutzler in Copenhagen, H. Josef Hebert in DC, and Cara Ana in Beijing.
- Seth Borenstein: Climate Reality: Voluntary efforts not enough ; Instant context. The hed somewhat undermines the strength of a twist in the story – which leads with all the spontaneous ways that local and regional groups and individual citizens are pitching in to lower emissions. It then slaps the reader across the face saying, in essence, That’s Not Enough! Message: the job will take exactly the sort of sovereignty-sapping UN-umbrella covered int’l agreement that conservatives and nationalists here and abroad are so determined to block. Those are my words, not Seth’s, but that’s how it looks.
- Charles J. Hanley: Climate talks end with eye on next year;
- Peter Griffiths : Gordon Brown says ‘handful’ of states wrecked climate talks ; Good, just a handful, huh? The bad news – one of that handful is more than a handful all by itself. Additional reporting by William James.
- Gerard Wynn, Alister Doyle: U.N. climate talks end with bare minimum agreement ; The upshot: This is a letter of intent, not a deal. It gives a tidy summary of what the soft agreement entails, and the bare margin by which even that occurred. Additional reporting by Anna Ringstrom, John Acher, Richard Cowan, David Fogarty, Pete Harrison, Emma Graham-Harrison, Alister Bull.
- * Gerard Wynn: Climate deal highlights U.N. flaws ; See also a consonant piece in NYTimes roundup, from Climate Wire. Additional reporting from Richard Cowan, Emma Graham-Harrison, Alister Bull.
- * E&E Climate Wire (via NYTimes) Lisa Friedman: Some Climate Experts Seek Alternative to U.N. Process ; One of the several insightful, forward-looking pieces surmising the UN’s unsuitability for deciding this issue (and illustration why insiders pay big bucks for Energy & Environment’s slew of daily e-newsletters).
- James Kanter: An Air of Frustration for Europe at Climate Talks ; More good stuff on the frantic last hours, including suspicion that snow in the US drove a lot of it, and suspicions how globalized industries might game the system blurrily taking shape ; Additional reporting from Yasmine Ryan ;
- James Kanter: One Real Accomplishment: Getting Some Money Flowing ; $100 billion per year! Story is mostly on pledges, little on prospects they’ll be honored. Somehow, one suspects, another 60-vote cloture drama in the US Senate will arise over this.
- Andrew C. Revkin (DotEarth blog) : Just go to the blog and scan Revkins’ posts. Inside reports, color, background and, notably, one called “The Missing ‘P’ word – and its recognition that for all its climate policy flaws China has done one big thing via its ethically suspect but stupendously consequential one-child policy. NOTE: Today is Andy’s last day at NYT – he blogs on what’s next. ;
- NYT Climate Talks page for more.
- * Ben Webster, Francis Elliott: Gordon Brown calls for new group to police global environment issues ; Chasing a solution to the problematic idea that this is not a job for the UN.
- Ben Webster, Sam Coates, Philippe Naughton: deadlock wrapped up as a deal ; One activist calls the statement “like a G8 communique,” and that’s not praise.
- Jonathan Watts: China’s quiet satisfaction at tough tactics and goalless draw ; ie, maybe Obama got the headlines. Wen got what he wanted without a word in public or with anybody outside his posse, other than Obama.
- John Vidal, Jonathan Watts: The last-ditch drama that saved the deal from collapse ; This version gives some credit to Obama, but not as much as AP did, to keeping talks moving. Also a bizarre demand by China that Europe do less.
- Michael White: Copenhagen may go down as a useful fresh start ; A somewhat jumbled assembly of thoughts from a reasonable man, one of the paper’s editors, who knows little science but seems to have a knack for seeing through fog.
- Ailun Yang : China ended up as useful scapegoat ; Almost 180 degrees from Watts’s piece above – China got hit sideways by the politics of Copenhagen, it says here. The writer is not reporter – she works for Greenpeace.
- More from Guardian’s army in Copenhagen here.
- Geoffrey Lean: Activists who contributed nothing but obstruction ; The Tracker was not there, but can imagine writing exactly such a piece as this after having to negotiate throngs of loons while others (including serious, activist NGOs) were trying to get work done. Nice line about the polar bears in the crowd.
- Andrew Gilligan: Blood, sweat and recrimination… Copenhagen was a disaster ; Exasperation oozes and drips from this piece…
- Geoffrey Lean: A world at war over its future ;
- Louise Gray: Report card ; What the agreements, such as they are, say.
- More from Telegraph here ;
- * Anthony Faiola, Juliet Eilperin, John Pomfret: Copenhagen climate deal shows new world order may be led by U.S., China ; Hed doesn’t go out on a limb, but the piece may sketch exactly how and why the UN framework may be out of date. One source says “The mark is being stamped on a new political world.”
- Juliet Eilperin, Anthony Faiola: Climate deal falls short of key goals ;
- Roger Harrabin: After Copenhagen / When Titans Collide: Another good news bad news start. Good: world leaders know they have to take fast, difficult steps to corral climate change. Bad: they are “hemmed in by economic and political risks.” Yet, he writes, for all the dashed hopes, some real achievement emerged.
- * Tom Brookes, Tim Nuthall (op-ed, European Climate Foundation): What did the Copenhagen climate summit achieve? ; More on the mixed bag, with a potent observation on how radically, in recent decades, geopolitics have changed when prime movers, along with the US and EU, are China, India, South Africa, and Brazil.
- Copenhagen climate summit held to ransom – Gordon Brown ;
- Stu Seidel: A Climate Accord Bitterly Sealed in Copenhagen ;
- Mark Memmott (blog) : Climate Deal Getting Some Bad Reviews ;
- Rowan Callick: China and India in no hurry to lift their climate change offers ;
- Lenore Taylor: China’s climate stonewall ;
- * Rowan Callick: Many players at Copenhagen climate summit, but pact was the work of just two ;
- Samantha Maiden: Australia faces 25% cut in greenhouse emissions to meet Copenhagen ; That’s by 2020, and is five times what the gov’t in Canberra now seeks.
.. could do much more (and what I did sure could be better organized). Send me links via “contact us” function at this site’s top to any other particularly strong, original stories from major outlets. Thanks, and apologies to the many additional smaller outlets that threw expensive resources at this challenging, opaque event.
Grist for the Mill:
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Draft Decision, CP.15. ; Convention home page.
- Charlie Petit
(English intro to Spanish lang. post) Everybody is disappointed with the poor results in Copenhagen. In Spain newspapers are much more critical of US and China, and complain that the EU has been ignored. Obama is losing popularity. Nobody dominating the news in Spanish language press still considers him a politician who brings hope for the whole planet. Yesterday El Pais presented an excellent set of reports from its correspondents in Brussels, US, China, Brazil, and Copenhagen. In Latin America, a few journalist seems to buy that “something is better than nothing”, others wonder if UN has any role at all in representing them, some talk about Lula, the words of Castro, Morales, and the role that Mexico might have in the next conference.
Por primera vez en mucho tiempo Europa acudía a una cumbre internacional unida, como un bloque con objetivos comunes, y dispuesta a ser un actor fuerte en las negociaciones de Copenhague. ¿Resultado? A sido ninguneada por EEUU y China, que han firmado un mísero e insuficiente pacto contra el cambio climático que intentan vendernos como un paso adelante y un “algo es mejor que nada”. Los periodistas que han sido enviados a la cumbre no se chupan el dedo y han sido tremendamente críticos con esta palabrería sin fondo de los gobernantes.
Ayer domingo la portada de El País –tanto on line como impresa- presentaba un fabuloso texto de Rafael Méndez “EEUU impone al mundo su ley ante el cambio climático”, en el que repasa cómo el acuerdo fue firmado sin contar con Europa ni otros países. El País ampliaba su fantástica cobertura con crónicas de Francho Barón desde Brasil (diciendo que Lula tenía un buen plan pero llegó demasiado tarde), de José Reinoso desde China (mostrando la fuerza internacional que ha ganado el eje Washington-Pekín, y la satisfacción con el pacto de los dirigentes chinos, “cuya prioridad inmediata es el desarrollo económico y la eliminación de la pobreza”), de Andreu Missé desde Bruselas (el título “los pioneros salen amargados” lo dice todo), un texto de Clemente Álvarez “Ni justo, ni ambicioso, ni vinculante” reflejando la indignación de las ONG’s por el triste resultado –si llega a eso- de la cumbre, un editorial “La cumbre parió un ratón” en la misma línea de decepción, y otra crónica de Antonio Caño desde EEUU que dejamos para el final porque merece la pena ser comentada. Primero, porque es un excelente relato de qué y cómo transcurrieron las últimas horas de los líderes mundiales en la cumbre, y los tejemanejes de esa reunión entre Obama, Wen, Lula, Singh (India) y Zuma (Sudáfrica). Pero también por el discutible papel de héroe de la cumbre que el artículo otorga a Obama, pintándolo como el político que ha sabido llegar a Copenhague, desenredar el lío que habían montado, posicionarse “al lado de los que buscan soluciones”, y cerrar un acuerdo que salvara el evento “al margen de la calidad”. Este último entrecomillado no es baladí.
El Mundo también presentaba en portada un artículo crítico de Pedro Cáceres “La lucha contra el cambio climático queda congelada”, quien ha hecho un excelente trabajo y firmado varias piezas online, como “Un fracaso con avances” que intenta ponderar las mínimas mejoras que se han producido. Destacar también el buen texto en el blog de Antonio Ruíz de Elvira “Volver a empezar de cero”, que ve el acuerdo como la destrucción del trabajo de dos décadas.
Sinceramente, no hemos encontrado que los diarios en América Latina otorguen tanta relevancia al resultado de la cumbre de Copenhague como en España. Hay muchas y excelentes notas, pero revisando portadas, no vemos ningún caso en que haya aparecido como noticia principal. Algunos de los buenos trabajos presentados:
La Razón (Bolivia) – La ONU avala un cuestionado pacto climático. Explica muy bien el acuerdo, incluidos los 30.000 millones que se darán a adaptación. Es crítico, explica que países como Bolivia se negaron a firmarlo porque es mínimo comparado con las expectativas, y presenta una pequeña nota hablando de cómo destacaron los líderes latinoamericanos en la cumbre.
Los Tiempos (Colombia) – Cumbre del Clima se salva del fracaso en última sesión. A pesar de destacar que sólo es una declaración de intenciones, mantiene la tesis “algo es mejor que nada”. Una nota de hoy ya calificaba de fracaso la cumbre y reflejaba las críticas internacionales que está recibiendo.
El Colombiano – Ramiro Velásquez Gómez “Peor era Nada”. Buena redacción a la que nos tiene acostumbrados Ramiro, pero en este caso es demasiado condescendiente con las críticas de los países europeos.
El Tiempo (Colombia) – Insuficiente e incompleto. Editorial extensa muy desfavorable con el pacto.
El Universal (Venezuela) – Cumbre de Copenhague finaliza con acuerdo decepcionante. Insiste en el mal trato que la prensa internacional ha dado a la resolución de la cumbre. Otra nota también muestra la decepción.
La Nación (Venezuela), califica de acuerdo mixto el resultado de la cumbre, refleja las palabras de Fidel Castro, y un artículo de Andrés Rojas Jiménez diciendo que Venezuela es el país latinoamericano que más CO2 emite por cápita.
La Nación (Argentina) Telón final y varias cuentas pendientes para la cumbre. Extenso y muy bien ponderado artículo, que a pesar de reconocer ningún acuerdo para reducir emisiones, no desprecia el dinero destinado a los países pobres.
Clarín (Argentina). La cumbre sobre el clima cerró ayer con un magro compromiso. Texto crítico que se complementa con la muy buena crónica “Todos los detalles de la historia de un fracaso”.
La Nación (Chile) Libio Pérez: “El planeta tendrá que esperar”. Buen reportaje explicando reacciones, al que acompaña un “El Planeta se quema” con una visión más crítica.
El Universal (México) Gerard Wynn: Un acuerdo climático débil que vulnera a la ONU. Destaca que el pobre acuerdo pone en entredicho la influencia las Naciones Unidas. En la nota de Jorge Ramos “Avance se dará en México: Calderón”, se explica que el presidente Felipe Calderón considera insuficiente el acuerdo alcanzado, pero confiado de que en la próxima cumbre que se realizará en México se llegue a un pacto vinculante. Buena cobertura de Jorge y de El Universal, de un tema que cada vez ocupará más páginas en México.
La Jornada (México) – Reinó en Copenhague un caos político y el trato humillante: Castro. Destaca las palabras de Fidel Castro
Milenio (México) – La cumbre climática aprueba el proyecto propuesto por EU. Artículo que se equivoca en el subtítulo “El plan establece un total de 10 mil millones de dólares entre 2010 y 2012” (son 30.000), y es muy desacertado en la frase “Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua y Sudán se oponen a que el acuerdo sea vinculante”. Por otro lado, Blanca Valádez ya firmaba el viernes el gran texto: “Fracasa Cumbre de Copenhague; líderes del mundo no logran acuerdo”
Prensa Libre (Guatemala) – Copenhague: Cumbre logra acuerdo mixto . Como en otros medios, la primera reacción ha sido de “la cumbre se salvó en el último minuto gracia a las negociaciones de EEUU y China”.
El Comercio (Perú) – Copenhague aprobó acuerdo en medio de polémica y rechazo de varios países. También considera que “se evitó el fracaso”.
El Salvador.com -Acuerdo climático pone al desnudo fallas en modelo ONU. Varios artículos en este medio, uno de los cuales da mucha coba a Obama. De las posturas menos críticas encontradas.
- Pere Estupinyà
