As the world gathers in Lima to discuss next year's climate deadline, a lot of focus is on the US-China climate agreement. While alone that deal has not paved a pathway for a meaningful global agreement all the way to Paris, if you detour through New Delhi something intriguing and hopeful emerges.

Countries are meeting in Berlin today to announce how much they will give to the UN's climate adaptation fund. 

The exchange, related by a senior State Department official with direct knowledge of the Oct. 18 meeting, marked a turning point in the Obama administration’s efforts to get the world’s two biggest polluters to commit to lowering the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change.

A pledge on Wednesday from President Xi Jinping of China to help fight climate change is expected to send a strong signal, since meeting global emissions-reduction goals will require sustained efforts from Beijing in curbing the country’s addiction to coal and greatly bolstering sources of renewable energy, analysts and policy advisers say.

The issue of climate change presented a golden opportunity for Europe to flex its soft power, economic muscle and high-minded internationalism for the good of mankind. Perhaps, mused some, the EU should rebrand itself the “Environmental Union.”

As long as nation-states have distinctly different levels of energy-dependent economic development, and their self-interests are so varied, there is really no basis for the mutuality of interest required for a meaningful treaty. 
 

The impact of Ban Ki-moon’s New York summit on UN efforts to curb climate change faces its first test on Monday in Bonn, where envoys from over 190 countries meet for a week of negotiations.

The largest climate change demonstration in history took place on Sunday. According to organizers of thePeople’s Climate March, an estimated 400,000 people participated in the protest in New York. For comparison, the size of the march was comparable to the scale of the February 15 anti-war demonstration in 2003. The demonstration at the Copenhagen Summit in 2009 mobilized about 100,000 people, but US demonstrations at that time generally mobilized fewer than 1,000 people.