Zeitgeist: "Davos Dialog Will Downplay Carbon, Talk Up Energy And Infrastructure"

Not a surprise for our loyal [and long-suffering -ed] readers. Here's a comment I left at Environmental Capital:

C’mon guys, get with it!
Global warming is so last year.
Everybody, from Al Gore to the blogs you link to are reinventing themselves and talking energy.
Energy production
Energy cost.
Energy security.
It’s all about framing and re-framing.
Low impact man’s time has come and gone. The eco-soirée has moved on to erudite discussions of thorium between nibbles at the canapés.
By this winter the only references to carbon among the salon crowd might be Carbonic acid (H2CO3).
You watch.
Comment by Climateer - July 22, 2008 at 8:37 am

This stuff is all political and investors must keep an ear to the political ground or risk tremendous losses. There are only two viable approaches to rentseeking investing and politicians, buy 'em or play 'em....

I meant buy the politicians.
That was seventeen months ago.
From CNBC:

Organizers may have created a low-carbon, green zone for the occasion of the 40th annual global gabfest in the Swiss mountain town on Davos, but it may no longer be the best environment for high-profile chatter on climate change.

cnbc.com

With little progress in talks at last December’s UN Copenhagen conference, and with economic growth still tepid, expect discussions of carbon emissions and climate change to take a back seat at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting this week.

“There was a lot of focus on climate change leading up to Copenhagen,” says Jon Sohn, climate change expert at law firm McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP. “It is not surprising they wouldn’t be the focus because we’re so fresh off of that.”

Carbon emissions and climate were headline items at last year's Davos conference, but this year's theme—"Rethink, Redesign, Rebuild"—promises to look at more ways to rework the world economy than simply making it low-carbon.

Jake Schmidt, international climate policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, NRDC, says while the low billing climate change is getting at Davos this year can partly be explained bu conference’s organizers rotate their themes, other venues may now be more important to top-level discussions on climate change.

“People are trying to let the dust settle” after Copenhagen, he says, adding that 75 percent of last year’s Davos sessions were on climate change. “In Copenhagen, you had a much greater engagement by heads of governments and heads of corporations than we’ve ever seen on any issue.”>>>MORE