"A Senate bill's target for emission cuts is akin to level US is likely to offer in Copenhagen. Ahead of the global warming talks, other nations have been waiting to see US target."

"Since the 1997 international accord to fight global warming, climate change has worsened and accelerated -- beyond some of the grimmest of warnings made back then. As the world has talked for a dozen years about what to do next, new ship passages opened through the once frozen summer sea ice of the Arctic. In Greenland and Antarctica, ice sheets have lost trillions of tons of ice. Mountain glaciers in Europe, South America, Asia and Africa are shrinking faster than before."

"The Earth’s oceans, which have absorbed carbon dioxide from fuel emissions since the dawn of the industrial era, have recently grown less efficient at sopping it up, new research suggests."

"The United States and China have agreed to cooperate on developing an inventory of China's greenhouse gas emissions, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday, an initiative that appears be a response to criticism of Beijing's data collection."

"Appearing with President Hu Jintao, President Obama on Tuesday told reporters that the United States was determined to work with China and other countries to help produce a substantive agreement in Copenhagen climate talks next month."

The peatlands of Indonesia, formed over thousands of years, used to be a vast reservoir of carbon. But now deforestation has dried them out, and they are burning, releasing back into the atmosphere as much carbon dioxide as all the cars and trucks in the U.S. The question is how economic incentives to save the peatlands can outweigh the incentives for destroying them.

"COPENHAGEN -- Environment ministers made progress on Tuesday toward a scaled-down climate deal in Copenhagen next month, with Washington facing pressure to promise deep cuts by 2020 in greenhouse gas emissions."

"The US Senate will act in early 2010 on legislation to battle climate change, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday, ending hopes of a breakthrough by next month's global talks."

"President Barack Obama says the United States and China are looking for a comprehensive deal during next month's climate change summit that will 'rally the world.'"