“The world is depositing hope with you for a short while in the history of mankind,” Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told delegates at the opening ceremony of the talks, seeking to agree the first U.N. climate pact in 12 years.

But the news was good that President Obama is going to attend closing ceremonies next week, which indicates that he wants to be there for some type of agreement being signed.  What specific agreement that might be still needs to take shape, but a good sign nonetheless.

In advance of the conference, the US needed to show some type of tangible support as a sign of global leadership.  So, Mr. Obama pledged last week that the US will reduce emissions 17% by 2020 - unfortunately, not aggressive enough to solve the problem but he had to show up with something.  “The world is very much looking to the U.S. to come up with an emissions reduction target” as well as financial aid to help developing countries cut emissions and adapt to global warming, said Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention of Climate Change said.

To back up the US pledge, today we learned that the US EPA ruled that greenhouse gases endanger human health, allowing it to regulate planet-warming gases without legislation from the Senate, where a bill to cut U.S. emissions by 2020 is stalled.   So, if the Senate fails to act on the climate change bill currently before them, the EPA has the right to step in and regulate carbon under a different mandate, but with the result being the same.  This of course, has the US business community freaked out:  Read More Here

The Obama administration has been encouraged by recent announcements by China and India, two other major carbon emitters, to set targets to rein in emissions and the growing consensus on raising cash to help poor nations cope with global warming, seen as a major stumbling block to a new U.N. deal. Read more here.

But with all the good news, here is a rather sobering essay by Bill McKibben of 350.org. Just for another perspective, but let’s hope hes wrong.  Here

Lots of good stuff happening, at least today!

More to come tomorrow. Stay tuned.