G20Voice

The U.S. was given a starring role at the United Nations Climate Summit on Tuesday, but China stole the show.

Last night at Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum, Teresa Heinz read a message from her husband, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), that set the gala crowd to cheering: He and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) will introduce a climate bill in the Senate next Wednesday.

All the presentations at the 2009 Freedom Conference dealt with the specific policies of plunder which make the G-20 so execrable. I only wish more people had known about the Conference, as Soldiers and Sailors was rather far from packed.

After the event, I met up with local activists, Tom Woods and Freedom Conference organizer and Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Pittsburgh David Powell at Hemingway’s in Oakland. I talked to Powell about the G-20 and why it sucks, Libertarian positions on property rights and the environment, revolving door regulation, currencies and collapses in Iceland, Argentina and Zimbabwe. See Pittsburgh Alpha to Omega for mp3s.

After three days of an all-climate schedule in New York City, featuring Tuesday’s all-day United Nations Climate Summit, I’m now in Pittsburgh to cover the meeting of the Group of 20 (G20) major economies. My thanks to Grist and G20Voice for helping me to be here.

Given that the heads of state chewed over global warming at the United Nations Climate Summit on Tuesday, where will climate figure into tomorrow’s G20 agenda of meetings?

The President of Brazil is optimistic about the upcoming G20 in Pittsburgh and strongly defends action taken at the last G20 in this post on Huffingtonpost.com.

Friday marked the beginning of a 100-day countdown to Copenhagen, where the world’s governments will meet in December 2009 to hammer out a new agreement to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Before Denmark however, comes the last ’stop’ on the road, the next G20 in Pittsburgh. Read the rest >>