Did you know that beetles, barnacles, pikas, pine warblers, and many other
species are already on the move due to global warming? How much more will
they need to move, and how quickly, to keep pace with global warming over
the next century? Which species will be able to survive our shifting
climate? Which may not? And what can we do?

A new study by a team of scientists, including Dr. Healy Hamilton, director
of the Center for Applied Biodiversity Informatics at the California Academy
of Sciences, offers some answers to these questions. The Hamilton lab has
been developing new methods to forecast climate change impacts to species'
geographic ranges for conservation planning.

If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area on January 12, Dr. Hamilton will
give a talk entitled "Forecasting Climate Change Impacts to Species
Distributions and the Implications for Conservation Planning" at the Center
for Biological Diversity. (For details go to:
<a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/action/events/index.html" target="_new">http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/action/events/index.html</a>) The
presentation will cover her cutting-edge work and how the study's results
underscore the importance of curbing carbon pollution; it will also provide
data for conservationists who must now make plans to deal with the impacts
of global warming.

Dr. Hamilton's team has calculated that on average, ecosystems will need to
shift about a quarter mile per year to keep pace with changing temperatures
across the globe. And flatter ecosystems, such as flooded grasslands,
mangroves, and deserts, will need to move much more rapidly -- sometimes
more than a kilometer per year.

Dr. Hamilton projects that only 8% of our current protected areas have
residence times of more than 100 years. She told Science Daily, "If we want
to improve these numbers, we need to both reduce our carbon emissions and
work quickly toward expanding and connecting our global network of protected
areas." That's part of the reason why the polar bear critical habitat
designation now pending is so important and the work to protect other arctic
species, like penguins, is crucial.

This week, The Center for Biological Diversity and Turtle Island Restoration
Network filed a formal notice that they intend to sue the Obama
administration for illegally delaying protection of penguins under the
Endangered Species Act. The Department of the Interior failed to meet the
December 19, 2009 legal deadline to finalize the listings of seven penguin
species that are threatened by climate change and industrial fisheries.
Until the listings are finalized, these penguins will not receive the
Endangered Species Act protections they need to recover.

"While sea ice melts away and the oceans warm, the Obama administration is
frozen in inaction. Instead of protecting penguins and taking meaningful
steps to address global warming," said Shaye Wolf, a biologist with the
Center for Biological Diversity, "our government is dragging its feet while
penguins are marching toward extinction.

The end of another year and, depending on how you calculate it, the end of
another decade, means time for reflection and resolutions.and reflections on
past resolutions.

The end of the year on climate issues culminated in Copenhagen. The
Copenhagen climate conference is now history, but as many have noted,
including the Center for Biological Diversity, the repercussions of the
world's failure to adopt measures stronger than the so-called Copenhagen
Accord may haunt us for some time.

Below are some excerpts from the Center's last entry in their Copenhagen
blog, "On Thin Ice". For the Center's full perspective on what we needed,
what we got and why, and what happens next, go to:
<a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/climate_law_institute/350_or_bus t/copenhagen/what_happened_in_copenhagen.html" target="_new">http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/climate_law_institute/350_or_bus
t/copenhagen/what_happened_in_copenhagen.html</a>

News reports in the closing hours told a dramatic story: President Obama
crashed a secret meeting among the heads of a few rapidly industrializing
nations and came out of the meeting with an agreement that saved the talks
from collapse. Behind these reports, however, lies an infinitely more
complex - and far more troubling - reality. Ultimately, the Copenhagen
Accord reflects rather than resolves deep conflicts: divisions between
developed and developing nations, deepening rivalries among economic
competitors, and the vast distance between the emission reductions necessary
to avert disaster and the steps the world's largest emitters of greenhouse
gases are willing to take.

What We Needed: A Strong, Binding International Agreement

Scientists agree that emissions must peak within the next decade and decline
steeply thereafter. What we needed in Copenhagen was a meaningful, science
based, fair, and binding international agreement. We needed firm emissions
reduction targets and firm achievement dates, including ambitious short-term
targets. We also needed firm funding commitments and financing mechanisms to
assist the least developed but hardest hit countries in adapting to the
severe environmental changes.

What We Got: A Fill-in-the-Blanks "Accord"

The Accord nominally sets a goal of holding global temperature increases
below 2 degrees Celsius, but does not contain the targets necessary to
achieve this goal. In fact, it does not specify any targets or achievement
dates at all, but rather leaves those targets as blanks to be filled in by
the end of January 2010. Nothing in the Accord makes these fill-in-the-blank
targets legally binding.

And, if participating countries bring the targets they brought to the
conference, there is no way they can meet even the stated 2 degrees Celsius
goal, much less the more scientifically defensible 1.5 degrees Celsius goal
that the Accord states should be studied further. According to a scientific
analysis, these targets would put the world on a path toward exceeding a 3
degrees Celsius temperature increase, committing our planet to catastrophic
and irreversible climate change.

Why We Got What We Got: A Global(ized) Game of Chicken

The blame game is in full swing. Many quite understandably fault the United
States, which brought embarrassingly weak targets and an unwillingness to
enter a binding commitment, and then refused to improve those targets even
as the conference approached collapse. Others point the finger at China and
other rapidly industrializing nations, which do not want to lose economic
advantages that they are just beginning to enjoy - especially at the behest
of wealthy, industrial nations that have enjoyed the same advantages for
decades, pumping the atmosphere full of carbon in the process. And even the
small island states and others are assigned blame for their pursuit of
stringent, science-based emission reduction targets that sometimes brought
the consensus-based process to a halt.

There is plenty of blame to go around. Global dynamics aside, it is
impossible to deny that domestic politics in the United States cast a long
shadow in Copenhagen.

This is the resolution part: Mexico City, Washington, and Your Hometown
By the end of January 2010, at least some countries presumably will have
filled in the Accord's blank spaces with promised but nonbinding emissions
targets. The next climate conference will take place at the end of 2010 in
Mexico City.

Meanwhile, in Washington, Congress will continue to debate - or avoid
debating - a number of climate bills, all of them far weaker than the
science demands. But 2010 is an election year, and many - smarting from the
rancorous healthcare debate - have already expressed reluctance to take on
another big, contentious issue.

More promising, although under threat by climate-science deniers and others,
is the Environmental Protection Agency's burgeoning effort to regulate
greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. EPA recently released a
powerful finding that greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks endanger
public health and welfare by contributing to climate change. If EPA were to
make similar findings for other greenhouse gas sources - which both science
and the law compel - the stage would be set for comprehensive regulation and
reduction of emissions. Seeking to use the most powerful tools available
under the Act, the Center for Biological Diversity and 350.org recently
petitioned EPA to set a science-based nationwide cap on greenhouse gas
concentrations in the atmosphere. One hundred other conservation
organizations and scientists have since signed on in support of the
petition.

The Copenhagen Accord leaves a tremendous amount of work to be done. Let's
get busy.

Obviously, the big news last week was Copenhagen and what did or did not
happen. Wanted to share with you a short post on the fall out from our
allies at the Center for Biological Diversity and also think about what
needs to come next.
From the Center:

Let's start with the good: The "good" is actually not found in the accord,
but rather in the birth of a diverse global movement for climate justice
that is demanding real solutions that get us down to 350 parts per million
of carbon dioxide - demands made with a collective voice growing ever louder
and more unified.

Turning to the bad: The 12-paragraph "Copenhagen Accord" might actually
better be termed the Copenhagen "press release".because it's about as
binding.
In the end, rather than "adopting" the accord, delegates only "noted" its
existence. As one commentator said, remarking on the "accord's" existence,
it reads like a preamble to a treaty that was supposed to be agreed upon in
Copenhagen but was not.

The bad also lies in the way in which this so-called accord was reached,
with the United States sticking to a take-it-or-leave-it proposition that
put vulnerable countries in even weaker bargaining positions. As the
Center's press release noted: "We cannot make truly meaningful and historic
steps with the United States pledging to reduce CO2 emissions by only 3
percent below 1990 levels by 2020. The science demands far more."

The Ugly: Perhaps the gravest problem with the Copenhagen accord is that it
sets a goal of limiting warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius but fails
to provide the targeted reductions to meet that goal - even if those
voluntary targets were in fact completely achieved.

The accord simply reiterates the emissions reduction targets already on the
table before Copenhagen, most notably the United States' meager and frankly
embarrassing pledge to reduce emissions just 3 percent below 1990 levels by
2020.

Preliminary calculations by a team of experts led by an MIT professor found
that under the accord, even if fully implemented despite its voluntary
structure, the average global temperature is likely to rise 3.2 degrees
Celsius.

To go along with the weak and unenforceable pledges, the accord also fails
because it does not set a target date where emissions would peak and then
decline, which ideally would be around 2015.

United Nations climate chief Yvo de Boer stated: "It is very critical that
you get a peak and a decline starting soon.The opportunity to actually make
it into the scientific window of opportunity is getting smaller and
smaller."

Summing it all up, Andrew Watson, a professor at the University of East
Anglia in Britain, said: "From the evidence of the last two weeks, I would
say we have a heck of a long way still to go if, as a species, we are to
avoid the fate that usually afflicts populations that outgrow their
resources." We better get busy making the most of the "good."

We're Not Done Yet:

So what's next? A number of groups, including the Center for Biological
Diversity, Greenpeace, 350.org, Avaaz, 1Sky, Amnesty International and
others, have joined together as part of the tck tck tck alliance to unify
their web site's home pages. The goal: to demonstrate their extreme
disappointment with the outcome at Copenhagen, and to send the message that we are united, and we are not done yet.

While the United Nations climate negotiations may have ended, we don't have
the fair, science-based, and legally binding treaty that millions of people
worldwide have demanded. What we do have is a global movement of people who aren't going to go away until our demands are met.

These groups are asking everyone to pledge that in 2010, you'll join
millions of others in working for a fair, science-based, and legally binding
treaty that truly solves the grave problem of global warming before it's
simply too late.

You can sign onto the Center's pledge at:
<a href="http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2167/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=19 38" target="_new">http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2167/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=19
38</a>

The Copenhagen accord is not the best we can do, and it's not nearly good
enough. We stand at the precipice of climatic tipping points beyond which
we'll face a climate crash out of our control. We cannot make truly
meaningful and historic steps globally with the United States pledging to
reduce carbon dioxide emissions by only 3 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.
The science demands far more.

We know what must be done. We need a fair, legally binding international
agreement that returns levels of CO2 in our atmosphere to no higher than 350
parts per million. We need to take bold action in the coming months to make
this a reality.