updates on the global warming post

Thanks to Maria for this tip-off: the New York Times is reporting that U.S. pressure has succeeded in rewording the draft of the G-8's joint statement on global warming. The Guardian's story is here. According to the Times article, the changes remove the call for prompt action.

Among the changes reflected in the May 27 draft was the deletion of an introductory statement, "Our world is warming." The annotated American copy of the document also offered comments to negotiators for the other nations like "we should avoid the term 'targets' " and "we should leave the definition of what constitutes 'ambitious' to each leader, given their respective national circumstances."

Given the high fraction of global carbon emissions that the U.S. contributes, allowing countries to decide for themselves what "ambitious" means represents a serious de-toothing of the statement, which may have some nasty repercussions as countries like China and India increase their populations' living standards. As I wrote earlier, you can find the U.N.'s numbers on global carbon emissions per capita here.

Also, remember Philip Cooney, the the chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, who resigned after allegations surfaced that he had doctored scientific reports to make it seem like global warming was a lot more controversial than it used to be? It looks like he just landed a job at an oil company. Which one? Well, remember the Herald Sun article that said this?

Also yesterday, a British newspaper claimed to have seen official papers showing pressure from oil and gas giant Exxon Mobil partly prompted President George W. Bush to reject the Kyoto protocol on climate change.

You guessed it. Cooney will hire on with Exxon this fall. Honestly, in the wake of the Valdez disaster, I'm surprised Exxon isn't paying more attention to public relations. Thanks to Polizeros for letting me know about the hiring.