Kate Sheppard

Reporter

Kate Sheppard is a staff reporter in Mother Jones' Washington bureau. She was previously the political reporter for Grist and a writing fellow at The American Prospect. She can be reached by email at ksheppard (at) motherjones (dot) com.

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Her work has also been featured in the New York Times' Room for Debate blog, the Guardian's Comment Is Free, Foreign Policy, High Country News, The Center for Public Integrity, the Washington Independent, Washington Spectator, Who Runs Gov, In These Times, and Bitch. She was raised on a vegetable farm in southern New Jersey (yes, they do exist), but has adapted well to life in the nation's capital. She misses trees and having a congressional representative with voting power, but thinks DC is pretty great anyway.

Jim Webb: Climate Curmudgeon

—By Kate Sheppard

| Tue Dec. 1, 2009 4:10 PM PST

Jim Webb is not at all happy that Barack Obama plans to travel to Copenhagen next week and pledge that the US will act to halt climate change. In a letter to Obama, Webb argues that the president does not have "unilateral power" to promise anything to the rest of the world. Instead, Webb contends, Obama should sit around and wait for the Senate to do something about the problem.

"I would like to express my concern regarding reports that the Administration may believe it has the unilateral power to commit the government of the United States to certain standards that may be agreed upon at the upcoming United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties 15 in Copenhagen, Denmark," wrote Webb. "The phrase 'politically binding' has been used."

"As you well know from your time in the Senate, only specific legislation agreed upon in the Congress, or a treaty ratified by the Senate, could actually create such a commitment on behalf of our country," Webb continued. "I would very much appreciate having this matter clarified in advance of the Copenhagen meetings."

While Webb is right that the Senate needs to ratify any international treaties, the administration also has the authority to negotiate with other nations in drafting accords.

Webb has never been particularly vocal about environmental issues. A moderate, coal-state Democrat, he's supported energy legislation but balked at capping emissions—I included basically everything he'd ever said on the subject in this short profile in July.

But in recent weeks, Webb has emerged as a major pain in the ass for Democratic leaders on climate issues. He recently announced that he is partnering with Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) on an alternative climate bill that, instead of curbing emissions, would pour massive sums into nuclear power. Cap-and-trade legislation, he said, is too "enormously complex," and, in its present form, he "would not vote for it."

So, even though he has signaled he has no plans to support a bill to cap emissions any time soon, he wants Obama to wait around for him.

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Kerry: US Must Pay "Fair Share" Of Climate Aid

—By Kate Sheppard

| Tue Dec. 1, 2009 1:35 PM PST

How much money will the rich world muster to help poorer countries adapt to the devastating effects of climate change and curb their emissions? That's one of the essential elements that negotiators must tackle at the Copenhagen climate summit next week. And the biggest question mark in the equation is the US, which has not yet specified exactly how much cash it's prepared to kick in. Now John Kerry, the key senator in the climate debate, is urging the Obama administration to be more generous.

The proposed 2010 budget from the Obama administration would devote $1.2 billion per year to international climate funds. The Waxman-Markey bill that passed the House would direct about 7 percent of the revenues of a cap-and-trade plan to international adaptation and technology funding in the initial years, which could total around $5 billion per year by 2020, according to an analysis by Resources for the Future. The proposed Senate bill offers similar levels of funding.

Obviously, there's a big difference between the numbers coming out of the White House and Capitol Hill. On Tuesday, Senate Foreign Relations committee chair John Kerry (D-Mass.) wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking the administration to address the "large gap" between the Congressional figures and the budget. Kerry wants the US should kick much more than the amount forecast in the 2010 budget, in order to demonstrate its commitment to addressing the problem of climate change. He suggested $3 billion for 2011, routed through agencies like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

"[A]s we approach the Copenhagen climate change negotiations, the global community has agreed that $10 billion is required annually in fast-start financing to support immediate international climate change priorities," wrote Kerry. "The United States must be prepared to contribute its fair share of this obligation."

As we noted yesterday, the European Union is under fire for plans to redirect existing aid money to climate rather than finding new funds. The US, too, will be under pressure to commit significant amounts of new money to help the world's most vulnerable nations. But in the middle of a lingering recession, this will be a tough political sell.

Chuck Norris Takes on Obama's Climate One World Order

—By Kate Sheppard

| Tue Dec. 1, 2009 9:14 AM PST

Chuck Norris is worried about climate change. Not the environmental effects caused by rising temperatures—that phenomenon, he thinks, is a "con game." No, he's worried that Obama and other world leaders are using global warming as an excuse to create "a one world order" when they meet in Copenhagen next week.

That's what Norris argued on a recent appearance on Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto, warning that if the US signs on to a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, "Our country as we know it now will no longer exist."

"My big worry, is that we as a nation, if we start having to be obligated to other countries ... Like, in this conference they're going to try to take our money and send it to third world countries, because of since we spend so much oil, and these other countries have suffered, then we're going to give our money to these third world countries."

In his Townhall.com column, Norris has also called attention to the phrases in draft versions of the negotiating text indicating that climate negotiations are a stealth attempt to create a unified world government:

Phrases such as "creation of new levels of cooperation," "a shift in global investment patterns," "adjust global economic growth patterns," "integrated system of financial and technology transfer mechanisms," "new agreed post-2012 institutional arrangement and legal framework," "new institutional arrangement will provide technical and financial support for developing countries," "global fund," etc., are messages that make one wonder how far this political body's arm would reach into our country and force our hands into others.

All this leads Norris to the inevitable conclusion: "Now, if that isn't one powerful intergovernmental or global-governmental group overseeing and manipulating America's and others' economic and political conditions, I don't know what is."

Video below the jump:

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Fight Over Climate Aid Threatens to Derail Copenhagen Talks

—By Kate Sheppard

| Mon Nov. 30, 2009 2:38 PM PST

Less than a week before the Copenhagen climate conference begins, confidential documents reveal that the EU is pushing to use existing aid money, not new funds, to help poorer nations reduce emissions and adapt to climate change—a stance that NGOs say could derail the entire summit.

According to documents obtained by The Guardian, EU negotiators have removed lines from a proposed draft agreement that call for a new climate fund for poor countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The text says the EU "cannot accept" proposed language that would call for climate aid to be "additional to" and "separate from" other development assistance funds.

If climate funds were to come entirely from existing pools of money, that would pose a huge problem for international negotiations. The United Nations has estimated that poor countries need as much as $170 billion per year to adapt to climate change. That's $50 billion more than developed countries spent on aid last year.

[Read more in the Blue Marble blog]

Hope For Copenhagen?

—By Kate Sheppard

| Mon Nov. 30, 2009 11:00 AM PST

The climate summit that kicks off in Copenhagen next week may turn out to be more eventful than you might expect, thanks to significant promises from the US and China in recent days.

Last week, the White House confirmed that Obama will make a pit stop at the summit and announce that the United States is committing to reducing planet-warming emissions in the neighborhood of 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

The next day, the Chinese government announced a goal of reducing their carbon intensity—the amount of greenhouse gas emitted per unit of gross domestic product—by up to 45 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. Since the US and China together are responsible for 40 percent of the world's emissions, these commitments are expected to have a real impact on the negotiations.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]