West caught in climate trap

The Poznan climate change summit may have ended in failure, but it showed rare unity of purpose between India and China which took on the industrialised world together at the closing moments of the climate summit here. The Indian position also received support from Pakistan. Industrialised countries led by the European Union, Japan, Canada, Australia and Russia had refused to part with the money sought by developing countries to help them cope with climate change effects. That had happened behind closed doors. Then the Indian delegation chose to make the matter public in a dramatic finale.
--The Hindu, 17 December 2008

If scientific warnings are correct, [next year's climate] talks will decide whether or not global warming reaches catastrophic levels. The stakes could scarcely be higher.
--Fiona Harvey and Joshua Chaffin, Financial Times, 17 December 2008

The final climate deal means that the EU will be able to outsource 50% of its industrial emissions and around 80% of non-industrial emissions (sectors including buildings and agriculture), according to Commission estimates.
--Jennifer Rankin, European Voice, 17 December 2008

Apoplectic apocalyptic greenies threw shoes at an effigy of Kevin Rudd, broke into a woodchip mill in Tasmania and threatened to move to Europe as part of an orchestrated dummy spit against the Prime Minister's emissions scheme announced this week. Rudd must be rubbing his hands with glee as the more crazed greenies give him the appearance of being a safe pair of hands on climate change - doing just enough to placate green-aware citizens but not enough to wreck the economy.
--Miranda Devine, The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 December 2008

If I had a convincing argument that climate sensitivity is small I would send it to Nature or Science today, and I would be famous tomorrow, and the world would be happy because the climate problem is not as bad as we thought. Unfortunately, the data suggests otherwise.
--Reto Knutti, Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich

The bottom line is this: the anthropogenic influence on global temperatures, while surely omnipresent, is not of a magnitude which prevents the influence of natural variations within the earth's climate system from dominating the global temperature record for periods of years to perhaps even decades-with the downstream effects impacting the ultimate course that climate will take during the coming century. While the anthropogenic pressure towards global warming has not stopped, it most definitely has been sidetracked.
--World Climate Report, 17 December 2008