The Guardian published an interesting and depressing article yesterday on China's behind-the-scenes involvement in killing Copenhagen.

A fascinating peek into the closed door meeting between Barack Obama and around 50 other international representatives during their last ditch effort to cobble together an internationally binding treaty. You might want to add some extra spike to your eggnog when you've finished reading.

[Update: I've added in analysis of the key text]

With only hours left in the Copenhagen climate treaty talks we have obtained an early version of the final agreement' draft text.

President Obama's speech wrapped up a few minutes ago with nothing new announced. But as long as this session continues there remains hope that world leaders can deliver a fair, ambitious and legally binding deal.

Things continue to evolve and according to the draft version of the agreement, the major issue of the amount of greenhouse gas emissions cuts by what year, remains unanswered.

As it stands, the text states:

Annex I Parties to the Convention commit to implement, individually or jointly, the quantified economy-wide emission targets for 2020 as listed yielding in aggregate reductions of greenhouse gas emissions of X per cent in 2020 compared to 1990 and Y per cent in 2020 compared to 2005...

Based on the best scientific research these numbers should be 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and by 80-95 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

One more day remains for negotiations at COP15 and the likelihood of breakthrough is now small.  The "fair, ambitious, and legally binding treaty" many hoped for will most likely end up as a fragmented and ambiguous outcome.  I am left wondering about the political rationale that brought us here.

The American Tea Party phenomenon unfortunately has a long arm, reaching all the way to the international climate negotiations currently underway in Copenhagen, Denmark.

With their outrageous signs and over-the-top rhetoric, the Tea Party claims can be easily dismissed as fringe players, but they are nevertheless playing a role in blocking action in Washington on the issue of climate change.

This is something the fossil fuel industry and their think tank network are very aware of and are using to their full advantage. One need not look any further than the notorious Americans for Prosperity, one of the leading groups organizing Tea Party attacks on healthcare reform, and now climate solutions.

The AFP is an organization that has recieved millions of dollars in funding over the years from the Koch Family Foundations - Koch Industries Inc., is the largest private energy company in the United States and a major Big Oil force. When it comes to funding the right-wing think tanks and the climate denial industry, Koch makes ExxonMobil look like a minor player.

AFP is a non-profit organization that will not disclose its donors when asked. However, Media Transparency shows that Americans for Prosperity, and their previous incarnation "Citizens for a Sound Economy," have received over $13 million from the Koch foundations. 

The theft and release of the University of East Anglia emails is nothing more than a "recreational distraction" to the Copenhagen climate summit, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Chair Dr. Rajendra Pachauri said at a news conference today.

Yet immediately after he said it, another senior IPCC member said he believed that his colleagues have, from the very beginning, underestimated the potential effect of the email story on public understanding of climate science - and public support for action in Copenhagen.

Pachauri (or "Pachy," as he seems to be known  among his friends) had called a news conference on the "Scientific Basis" for climate change. It wound up being a review of the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC, a reiteration of news that "the warming of the climate system is unequivocal."

The question (which I posed and which Pachauri did not answer) was whether the UNFCCC or the IPCC would have felt such a conference was necessary had the emails not been used so effectively to call the science into question.

Fifty young U.S. clean energy activists stormed the stage today in Copenhagen during a live webcast organized by Americans for Prosperity and featuring climate denier Lord Christopher Monckton. 

When the youth group interrupted the webcast to deliver the message that real Americans want clean energy and a fair climate treaty, Monckton went ballistic, calling the students “crazed Hitler youth” and “Nazis.”

The incident was not likely the intended result Americans for Prosperity hoped for as it launched the COP15 version of its "Hot Air Tour" (a.k.a. denial-a-palooza). AFP sent its team to Copenhagen "to make sure that our side of the story is told." But their live event today – complete with the student protest - was webcast to over forty climate denier rallies taking place in cities across the United States.