The new political climate on global warming: The first chapters of the United Nations report on climate change released last week in Paris were meant to end the debate about whether human activities, especially burning carbon, are warming the Earth. The next two sections of the report slated to be rolled out later this year will have a bigger goal: getting nations, especially the United Sates, to move beyond talk to focus on the alarming impacts and costs that may stem from spewing more emissions into the air. MarketWatch

The dire global cooling problem: I have to say, the right-wing response to the latest assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been disappointing. Take the editors of the National Review, who seem not to have read the just-released summary before they downplayed it. They note, among other things, that the IPCC’s “maximum prediction [for rises in sea levels by 2099] is 17 inches”, which simply isn’t true.  Bradford Plummer in The Guardian  

Climate challenge will heat up the global economy, Barclays predicts: Climate change will boost the global economy and dominate financial markets over the next 25 years, a leading investment bank has predicted. In a new report, Barclays Capital challenges the conventional wisdom that global warming will have a devastating impact on economic growth. Independent

PM says Australia will keep exporting coal: Australia would not end its biggest single export, coal, as part of the government’s strategy to curb greenhouse gas emissions, Prime Minister John Howard said Thursday. Scientist and author Tim Flannery, who last month was chosen as Australian of the Year for his contribution to public understanding of the environment, said late Wednesday that Australia could no longer justify being the world’s largest coal exporter given the dire consequences of global warming. Washington Post

White House issues letter defending record on warming: The White House issued a rare open letter defending President George W Bush’s record on climate change, rejecting criticisms that he has only recently awakened to the problem of global warming. The White House letter rejected media reports following the recent release of a major UN report on climate change that it said perpetuate the claim that Bush’s interest in the issue is new. France24