Many of the world's major oil and gas companies are still grappling with how to respond to the international climate change agreement that 195 nations struck in Paris last month, interviews with several industry officials revealed.
Asked to discuss the U.N. deal to slash global greenhouse gas emissions -- which could threaten the very existence of the traditional energy industry -- top multinational oil corporations shared few details. Most were vague and some were nonresponsive to questions about how and whether the agreement will affect their long-term business plans.
The U.N. climate change talks that concluded with a global agreement last month were relatively boring, a top Obama administration adviser said yesterday. That, he argued, was why they were successful.
Paul Bodnar, the National Security Council's senior director for energy and climate change, said the Paris summit afforded few of the anecdotes that gave color to past conferences.
If Republicans are preparing to launch an offensive against the historic climate change agreement the Obama administration struck in Paris last month, they're being awfully quiet about it.
While die-hard congressional opponents of President Obama's climate policies did respond to the mid-December news that nearly 200 nations had accepted a long-sought deal, those statements were fewer and less vitriolic than expected -- especially considering that the White House was claiming the accord as a cornerstone of the president's climate legacy.
Nearly a week after world leaders in Paris struck a deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions, Todd Stern, the United States' lead negotiator, is still getting standing ovations.
The lanky, bespectacled lawyer who has led the Obama administration's team at international climate negotiations for nearly seven years reflected on the build-up to the latest U.N. conference on climate change at the Brookings Institution yesterday. The room filled to standing room only quickly.
PARIS -- When Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz stepped up to the podium as the Paris climate talks entered their final week, the nuclear physicist did so with the confidence of a seasoned diplomat.
"At the risk of -- using a Brazilian analogy -- being a one-note samba," he said, "innovation is one of the foundations for increased ambition as one re-examines targets in the years ahead."
Moniz had been briefed by the U.S. negotiating team. And as the Paris talks rounded a corner, his statement in the press room of the Le Bourget conference center held the samba's three-step, two-quarter rhythm just fine.
A top adviser to President Obama predicted yesterday that the global climate accord reached in Paris five days ago would have "a profound impact" on private investments in clean energy, resulting in cheaper technologies able to compete with fossil fuels.
Brian Deese, Obama's climate aide, said the agreement will give confidence to companies and investors worldwide to launch products in emerging low-carbon markets driven by global commitments to slash emissions.
Mayors and staff from dozens of international and U.S. cities flew to Paris these past two weeks to trumpet their own efforts to cut back emissions as delegates from nearly 200 countries hashed out an agreement to do so internationally. Now, with the final U.N. text signed, local leaders are trying to figure out how to build on global momentum back at home.
Green buildings or low-carbon public transportation won't take the world all the way to its emissions reductions goals -- but, city leaders say, they can get it partway.
The climate agreement that negotiators of 195 nations forged in Paris on Saturday represents significant advances for carbon pricing, the head of the International Emissions Trading Association said yesterday.
"We were extremely satisfied to see an openness to markets," Dirk Forrister, chief executive of IETA, said on a call yesterday morning, referring to the deal's final language.
PARIS -- The United States got almost everything it wanted in the landmark climate deal struck here this weekend.
The historic agreement by 195 countries handed President Obama an international legacy on global warming without crossing any red lines drawn by U.S. negotiators. And it allowed the administration to tell the American public that it had pushed China, India and other major developing nations to shoulder an unprecedented share of the responsibility for cutting emissions.
But environmentalists are divided on whether U.S. muscle helped broker the strongest practicable deal or whether it bullied smaller countries and lost an opportunity to cut carbon to the extent that scientists say will avoid environmental catastrophe. And Republicans are already calling the deal a "paper tiger" that a GOP president could walk away from.
LE BOURGET, France -- Before America would join its first-ever global climate change accord, before the gavel would fall and the cheers and the tears and applause, before top U.S. negotiator Todd Stern would dance the night away with his staff at a Paris nightclub, there was a word to be fixed. Buried on the 36th line of the 21st page of the agreement was the word "shall." The U.S. team insisted it was a clerical error and demanded that the French conference president fix it to "should." Or, they said, they'd walk.
"The bottom line is, when I looked at that, I said, 'We cannot do this, and we will not do this. And either it changes, or President Obama and the United States will not be able to support this agreement,'" Secretary of State John Kerry told ClimateWire after the evening's drama.
A thesaurus might describe those words as synonyms, but in a U.N. climate agreement they are anything but. The way they were being used in this particular section -- "developed country Parties shall continue taking the lead by undertaking economy-wide absolute emissions targets. Developing country Parties should continue enhancing their mitigation efforts" -- could have serious repercussions.
After 195 nations agreed to commit nearly all of the world's countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions, heads of state praised the accord and the people who made it happen.
President Obama said the deal "sends a powerful signal," deeming it a possible "turning point for the world." Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff called the final version balanced and long-lasting, and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said "the nations of the world have shown what unity, ambition and perseverance can do."
LE BOURGET, France -- The always-engaging and often-provocative Yvo de Boer, former head of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), took a few moments to reflect on his reign over the 2009 summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, and how the Paris summit differs.
LE BOURGET, France -- U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres declared that a "world record" was set Monday when nearly 150 world leaders arrived in Paris to kick off landmark climate negotiations.
The tens of thousands of diplomats, world leaders, activists and journalists attending landmark climate change negotiations in Paris over the next two weeks now have three new dedicated emojis to use on Twitter.
A majority of Americans want the United States to sign a binding treaty to limit the growth of greenhouse gas emissions during the United Nations climate talks beginning today in Paris.
Science agencies around the globe are building satellites, airplane-based instruments and ground-based networks to accurately monitor and verify greenhouse gas emissions, which could help nations implement the new Paris climate change accord.
LE BOURGET, France -- The "moment of truth" has arrived for the world to confront climate change or go home empty-handed, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told a hall full of weary U.N. delegates today as the leaders of the climate talks released a new draft agreement.
LE BOURGET, France -- The world today agreed to the first truly international climate change agreement when 195 countries promised to stop increasing emissions in the second half of this century.
LE BOURGET, France -- The climate talks preparing to conclude in a suburb of Paris will probably produce a deal. There are still contentious issues to be addressed, but the delegates and environmental groups roaming the halls of the cavernous meeting complex tend to be pretty hopeful that a deal will be in place sometime in the next 24 hours.
LE BOURGET, France -- Brazil has joined a new coalition of countries calling for an ambitious climate deal, parting ways with other rapidly developing economies that have long been its allies in global talks.
LE BOURGET, France -- By 9:30 a.m. local time Wednesday, two dozen junior staff working for a group called We Mean Business were squeezed around folding tables in a meeting room a stone's throw from U.N. climate negotiations. The hours were speeding toward today's flexible deadline for 196 nations to reach a deal aimed at halting the growth of carbon dioxide emissions and rebuilding the world economy around low-carbon energy. Later that morning, the squad from We Mean Business -- an umbrella group representing some of the world's largest multinational corporations -- would fan out across this sprawling tent city northeast of Paris. This was one of their last-ditch efforts to get international negotiators to include language in a final document that sets a long-term goal of decarbonizing the world economy.
LE BOURGET, France -- Climate change talks have gone into the final stretch, and despite early optimism about completing a global accord early, it now seems the negotiations will need a pair of elastic pants.
LE BOURGET, France -- Diplomats crafting a new global climate change accord pulled their first real all-nighter yesterday, working through dawn to stitch together a deal riddled with political bullet holes.
As negotiators work out the remaining details of a new climate agreement in Paris, experts and U.N. officials warn that there needs to be more attention focused on climate change-driven mass migration.
LE BOURGET, France -- The United States has joined more than 100 rich and poor countries calling themselves the "high ambition coalition" that declared tonight they will not accept a "minimalist" climate change agreement.
LE BOURGET, France -- Members of Congress who had planned to visit the U.N. climate talks here this week will now have to stay in Washington, D.C., to vote on funding the federal government.
LE BOURGET, France -- Secretary of State John Kerry will announce today that the United States is doubling to $800 million the money it will give the world's poorest countries to help them cope with the ravages of climate change, according to a source close to the negotiations.
A group of countries including the United States are poised to announce tonight that they have formed an "ambition coalition" toward a new global climate accord.
LE BOURGET, France -- Congressional Republicans threatening to block U.S. contributions to a United Nations fund for helping poor nations cope with climate change are drawing shrugs from diplomats and environmentalists here.
LE BOURGET, France -- There's been a "meeting of the minds" between the United States and leaders of small island nations, Secretary of State John Kerry said today.
LE BOURGET, France -- Lyndon Rive, the co-founder and CEO of SolarCity Corp., sat for an interview with EnergyWire yesterday at the Petit Palais in Paris. Draped with "Earth to Paris" signs, the art museum's neoclassical exhibition hall was booming with global climate activism. California showed up with political heavyweights and star power.
LE BOURGET, France -- Everyone held their breath when Russia took the microphone. With a draft outcome of a new global climate change agreement on the table, ready to head to the world's ministers to make final high-level political decisions, the stakes Friday were high. If a country were to block it from moving forward, everything could crumble.
PARIS -- Climate skeptics donned tuxedos and walked the red carpet yesterday night to ridicule the quest for a global deal on greenhouse gases now underway in a suburb of the French capital.
LE BOURGET, France -- Should Qatar, the richest country in the world, help poorer nations deal with climate change? What about Singapore, the third-richest, where the gross domestic product per capita is five times higher than in Bulgaria? Or Saudi Arabia, where the average household income is higher than that of Italy, Spain and the Czech Republic?
LE BOURGET, France -- President Obama's top advisers have arrived in force here today to begin a final push toward a global climate accord, vowing that U.S. carbon reductions are here to stay.
LE BOURGET, France -- President Obama's top advisers have arrived in force here today to begin a final push toward a global climate accord, telling whoever will listen that U.S. carbon emissions reductions are here to stay.
LE BOURGET, France -- Todd Stern doesn't mind being the bad guy. The Obama administration's special envoy for climate change said he knows personal attacks come with the territory of pushing often-unpopular U.S. positions before the United Nations. Over the nearly seven years Stern has held the job, he has borne the brunt of the global environmental community's frustration with American climate change policy. If the criticisms weigh on him, he doesn't let it show.
As climate negotiators move toward the second phase of the landmark Paris climate negotiations, speakers at this weekend's third annual Global Landscapes Forum emphasized the importance of broader financing and political support for reducing deforestation and improving agricultural land management.
LE BOURGET, France -- From the Treaty of Versailles to the Paris Peace Accords ending the war in Vietnam, this nation has played host to some of the most consequential international agreements of modern history.
LE BOURGET, France -- Ten of the biggest Senate proponents of climate action came to Paris this weekend to tell the world not to listen to Republicans in the United States.
Medical schools in 14 countries, including India, China, Mexico and France, have pledged to teach their students to address the health impacts of climate change, the White House said today.
The significant drop in U.S. power production from coal is allowing American negotiators to make strong commitments at the Paris climate talks, the Sierra Club said today.
LE BOURGET, France -- Oil and coal companies have been an easy target for activists descending on global climate negotiations this week. To nobody's surprise, wiping out billions of dollars in future fossil fuel profits is a central theme here.
LE BOURGET, France -- You might think climate change negotiations have nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You'd be wrong. In this process, anything and everything can come into play -- and often does.
LE BOURGET, France -- In public, climate negotiators are fighting over how "legally binding" a U.N. climate agreement will be. In private, they're fighting over the words "shall implement." Four days into global negotiations here, the battle over the legal bindingness of an eventual accord continues to rage on, while also sparking heavy public confusion. That, analysts say, is because so many people are using the same phrase but loading it with different meanings.
Governments will need authoritative scientific analysis if they hope to boost their future climate change targets, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said.
LE BOURGET, France -- French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius today dismissed a U.S. House vote to gut the cornerstone of President Obama's international climate change promises, saying opposition in Congress won't derail talks here toward a new agreement.
LE BOURGET, France -- For India, it all comes down to money. The world's fourth-largest greenhouse gas emitter plays perhaps the most pivotal role of all 196 countries at U.N. climate change negotiations here. With China now moving steadily toward taking serious responsibility for its skyrocketing emissions, all eyes are now on India to see how it will play its cards.
LE BOURGET, France -- Departing Paris after two days of shoring up support for a new global climate agreement, President Obama said France's decision to host nearly 200 countries just two weeks after deadly terrorist attacks showed a "remarkable display of resolve." And he hit back against those who criticized spending time on climate change at a time when national security threats loom large. "Great nations can handle both," he said.
Some of the world's richest people -- hedge fund managers, technology giants, industrialists, even Republicans -- have signed on with an investor group that will seek to bridge the nearly uncrossable gap that separates promising clean-energy technology from the marketplace.
LE BOURGET, France -- The United States and China appear joined at the hip during U.N. global warming negotiations here, at least on the surface. But behind the photo ops, observers say, lies a still-deep uncertainty about how the U.S.-China relationship will play out this week as nations struggle for a new international agreement.
Conservatives on and off Capitol Hill are still deciding what to make of President Obama's pledge in Paris yesterday to join with other countries in doubling support for research and development for clean energy technologies.
LE BOURGET, France -- President Obama today declared the U.N. climate conference here an "act of defiance" against the deadly terrorist attacks that ravaged Paris two weeks ago and proclaimed that the United States will lead the global effort to tackle dangerously rising emissions.
LE BOURGET, France -- The biggest political moment in climate change history has arrived. Four years of planning, debating and hyping U.N. climate change negotiations came to a head this morning in this tightly guarded tent city on the outskirts of Paris as French President François Hollande officially opened the talks before 140 heads of state and thousands of others eager to see a new global accord.
The negotiating begins today in Paris as state leaders, environmental activists and business leaders hash out the specifics of what they hope will become an international climate agreement.
LE BOURGET, France -- President Obama and the leaders of China, India, Saudi Arabia and more than a dozen other nations tomorrow will pledge a $20 billion doubling of clean energy spending while deep-pocket investors put up billions of their own in assistance.
Technology giant Bill Gates will unveil the world's largest clean energy research and development partnership on Monday, joining in Paris with other billionaires and world leaders, several sources told E&E.
Much is riding on the climate change talks that kick off Monday in Paris. After years of planning and months of preliminary talks, negotiators will converge on the City of Light for a two-week summit they hope will produce a deal on emissions, financial assistance to poor countries and a plan for future action. If they don't reach a deal, the consequences could be serious.
President Obama will meet with the leaders of China and India when he arrives in Paris on Monday to spur momentum for a global warming accord that has become a top priority for the French government in the wake of deadly terrorist attacks.
What is happening in Paris next week? Why is it important? What is Congress' role here, and can Republicans block a Paris agreement? ClimateWire answers these questions and more in the lead-up to the U.N. climate negotiations.
President Obama will kick off his trip to Paris for the upcoming international climate negotiations by meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, White House officials announced today.
U.S. EPA's continuing mandate to implement the Clean Air Act will continue to generate new greenhouse gas emissions reductions that will allow the United States to tighten its future international climate commitments no matter who is next in the White House, Administrator Gina McCarthy said.
A bipartisan group of senators have asked Senate Appropriations Committee top brass to defend a committee-passed amendment giving the State Department free rein to make a down payment toward the Green Climate Fund in fiscal 2016.
A handful of House Energy and Commerce Democrats got a primer yesterday in countries' positions ahead of U.N. climate negotiations that start later this month.
A bipartisan trio of senators yesterday introduced a resolution aimed at checking the Obama administration's attempts to forge a new international climate change agreement at upcoming talks in Paris.
Senate Republicans have settled on a strategy to undermine President Obama's position in the United Nations Paris talks -- they'll deny him the money he's promised the world.
HONG KONG -- China's top climate envoy, Xie Zhenhua, said today that his country will not lower its post-2020 mitigation targets under any circumstances and will push for reaching a legally binding treaty in international climate change negotiations starting at the end of the month in Paris.
The United States cut a deal yesterday with wealthy countries to curb public financing for coal plants, an agreement the White House called a "major step forward" ahead of U.N. climate change negotiations in Paris this month.
Last week's deadly attacks on Paris have reignited the debate over whether climate change is a distraction from legitimate security threats like terrorism, or a contributor to them.
Climate change leaders from around the world are applauding the French government's decision to press on with a landmark U.N. conference in Paris at the end of the month, even in the wake of deadly terrorist attacks.
The French hosts of a looming U.N. climate change conference where nearly 200 nations are expected to ink a global accord went into a diplomatic tailspin yesterday after Secretary of State John Kerry suggested countries may not be legally bound to meet their emissions targets.
Australia and South Korea are pushing back hard against U.S. efforts to sway wealthy nations away from financing coal projects overseas, according to documents provided to ClimateWire.