Global Warming

The government's major financing agencies for overseas development projects reversed direction Friday, committing to scrutinize fossil-fuel facilities for their effect on global warming and pledging to help build renewable energy plants abroad. The decision was revealed in settlement agreements filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco in a lawsuit brought by two environmental groups, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, against the U.S.

The European Union fought Thursday to live up to its self-proclaimed leadership on combating climate change, with the 27 EU leaders at odds over how much to offer poorer nations to join the global battle. EU members failed to agree on a sum for climate change funding for developing countries during a first set of talks on Thursday, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said, promising to make new efforts to strike a deal on the second day of talks here today. "On climate, we are not ready yet. . . . We have not solved it," he told reporters after leading the talks.

More trees are dying in the West's forests as the region warms, a trend that could ultimately spell widespread change for mountain landscapes from the Sierra Nevada to the Rockies. Scientists who examined decades of tree mortality data from research plots around the West found the death rate had risen as average temperatures in the region increased by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit.

Addressing leaders of the world's most important economies early Thursday, President Obama wasted no time in proclaiming a new day for U.S. policy on climate change. "I know that in the past, the United States has sometimes fallen short of meeting our responsibilities," he said. "So let me be clear: Those days are over."

After months of almost single-minded focus on healthcare, President Obama is about to shift the White House spotlight to global warming -- first with a speech to the United Nations in New York on Tuesday, then later in the week at the G-20 economic conference in Pittsburgh. The renewed emphasis on climate change and reducing carbon dioxide emissions comes at a crucial time: Negotiators are entering the home stretch in the drive to unveil a comprehensive new international agreement to curb rising temperatures at a December conference in Copenhagen.

The Western Climate Initiative, touted as a model for national global warming legislation, will strain the region's electricity grid and prolong the economic recession, a business group asserted Tuesday. The initiative was launched in September by seven Western governors, including California's Arnold Schwarzenegger, and four Canadian provincial premiers. It seeks to slash regional greenhouse gas emissions by about 15% below 2005 levels in the next 12 years.

President Bush could be forcing President-elect Barack Obama to act almost immediately to curb global warming, after years of the Bush administration fighting attempts to crack down on greenhouse gas emissions. Or, depending on which interpretation prevails, Bush could be giving his successor much-needed breathing room on a volatile issue. In its final weeks, his administration has moved to close what it calls "back doors" to regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Even if by some miracle the nations of the world could bring carbon dioxide levels back to those of the pre-industrial era, it would still take 1,000 years or longer for the climate changes already triggered to be reversed, scientists said Monday. The gas already here and the heat that has been absorbed by the ocean will exert their effects for centuries, according to an analysis published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Four miles south of the Arctic Circle, the morning sky is streaked with apricot. Frozen rivers split the tundra of the Seward Peninsula, coiling into vast lakes. And on a silent, wind-whipped pond, a lone figure, sweating and panting, shovels snow off the ice. The young woman with curly reddish hair stops, scribbles data, snaps a photo, grabs a heavy metal pick and stabs at white orbs in the thick black ice.

A "cap-and-trade" system for reducing carbon emissions from power plants and other industrial facilities would cut total emissions 14% below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83% below 2005 by 2050. The proposal -- potentially one of the most far-reaching elements in the budget blueprint -- is unusually detailed. That suggests that President Obama will be less willing to negotiate with Congress over the specifics of his global warming strategy.