The COP18 climate change negotiations have now concluded in Doha. According to the BBC:

UN climate talks in Doha have closed with a historic shift in principle but few genuine cuts in greenhouse gases.

The summit established for the first time that rich nations should move towards compensating poor nations for losses due to climate change.

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According to the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change:c

Energy and Climate Change Secretary Edward Davey and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker will both be attending the second week of the COP18 negotiations in Doha, commencing on 3rd December

The second week of the "18th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC and the 8th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol" starts tomorrow at the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha, Qatar.

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After an expensive and thoroughly negative campaign that failed to mention climate change at all, Barack Obama has been voted another four year term in charge of a nation that pumps a lot of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere.  According to the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL for short):

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Four years ago Barack Obama was President Elect.  Here's a speech he gave at that time:

Notice his concluding remarks:

Once I take office you can be sure that the United States will once again engage vigorously in…. negotiations, and help lead the world towards a new era of global cooperation on climate change. Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all. Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high. The consequences too serious. Stopping climate change won't be easy and it won't happen overnight, but I promise you this. When I am president, any governor who's willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House. Any company that's willing to invest in clean energy will have an ally in Washington. And any nation that's willing to join the cause of combating climate change will have an ally in the United States of America.

Stopping climate change hasn't happened overnight, or over the last four years for that matter. The stakes are higher. The consequences more serious. Stopping climate change is now much harder. Whether as a result of Michael Bloomberg's last minute introduction of climate change onto the agenda or not, Mr. Obama has just been voted another four years in office by the U.S. electorate. Here's his 2012 acceptance speech:

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Having spent some days blogging about the effects of Hurricane Sandy, I had intended posting today about some of Sandy's causes. That will have to wait for a while now though, since a post about the politics of climate change has suddenly risen to the top of my to do list. My headline today comes to you courtesy of Bill Clinton, via Michael Bloomberg.

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Some more background information has come to light concerning the apparent confusion within the UK government about their renewables obligations.  The Guardian has printed what it claims is a letter dated July 9th from George Osborne to Ed Davey discussing in particular a reduction in ROCs for onshore wind. Quoting from that letter:

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We reported at the beginning of the month on the sudden demise of MF Global Inc.  If you recall Jon Corzine, an ex "Democratic" governor and senator, and (coincidentally?) also an ex CEO of Goldman Sachs, presided over the seventh largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.  The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, one of the regulators charged with keeping an eye on shady dealings on Wall Street on behalf of U.S. taxpayers, has just released a long statement about the affair. Amongst other things CFTC Commisioner Scott D. O’Malia has this to say:

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As the G20 leaders start their deliberations in Cannes today some more famous names have been putting their weight behind the campaign to introduce some kind of financial transaction tax.  On Tuesday the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams,  joined Pope Benedict XVI in calling for the introduction of what he referred to in an article in the Financial Times as

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As we reported last week, the leaders of the G20 nations (plus a few others) are on a jaunt to the Mediterranean seaside in Cannes this week. Amongst other things they are scheduled to discuss the global financial crisis. As luck would have it another item will have added itself to their agenda this morning. According to Yahoo!

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Earlier today I drove Kasia from Exeter to Bristol Airport, to catch the Ryanair flight to Poznan. She's going back to Poland for a few weeks to see her family, and part of mine!  We left in plenty of time, just in case our previous experience of long delays on the M5 motorway was repeated. As we left I grabbed my green rucksack, still full of Contemporary Art in the Community kit from our last trip. As luck would have it, whilst there was lots of rain to contend with, there were no significant delays.  Just for a change the EasyJet queue to check-in hold luggage at Bristol was almost non-existent, but the Ryanair queue was perhaps ten minutes:

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