Acronym Days for Global Warming

Modern art?…Or global warming? [Rob Lee / Flickr]

It’s been a busy, acronym-filled — SOTU, USCAP, WEF, IPCC — fortnight in the global-warming world (and in the warming, global world). Here are the highlights and a tour through our climate archive.

Last Tuesday, George W. Bush finally did it: in his State of the Union (SOTU!) speech, the President acknowledged, however briefly, in a very public forum, the fact of global warming — without obfuscation.

A day earlier, the new United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP!) — a coalition of businesses and NGOs — pressed President Bush to back mandatory reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. The USCAP members include Caterpillar, GE, and Alcoa, all giants of American business. They’re catching on.

In the not-so-snowy Alps last week, at the World Economic Forum’s (WEF!) Annual Meeting, the business-world glitterati decided that, of all the world’s trends and changes, global warming will have the biggest impact on our future — and that it’s the challenge we’re least prepared to meet.

Today in Paris the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC!) wraps up a meeting of the world’s foremost global-warming scientists. The forthcoming report — the first of its kind since 2001 — will tighten the noose on climate-change naysayers.

Old Shows Made New

If you’re curious to know more about the interplay of climate change, politics, and business, you could check out Politics of Climate Change and Businesses Take On Climate Change. Or a variety of other shows in our global warming series.