Energy Blast – Dec 1, 2011

As UN climate talks continue, an article in Bloomberg suggests that the Obama administration has proved, not ‘a global leader on climate change, but as a major obstacle to progress’.  The European Union is apparently encouraged by China’s willingness to work on a road map to a global greenhouse-gas lowering treaty.  It will be pleased to note that Brazil has seconded China in arguing that no deal is possible at United Nations climate talks this year without a new round of targets for industrial nations under the Kyoto Protocol.  The Washington Post considers why Canada has thrown a spanner in the works of a greenhouse gas agreement: ‘not only is there a lot of money at stake, but it could prove extremely difficult for Canada to reconcile its oil bonanza with a sharp curb on carbon emission‘.   A report by Bloomberg suggests that Gazprom may be linked to Croatia’s corruption case against former Croatian Premier Ivo Sanader, who is accused of paying bribes to Hungarian refiner Mol, as the Russian exporter allegedly owns the companies through which the illicit sums were funneled.