Energy and climate talks will dominate science policy this month

A brief roundup of policy news stories last week indicates that political temperatures are rising in the run up to new climate talks, and that Iran is slowly becoming more flexible over opening up its nuclear program.

Climate bill faces hurdles in Senate The climate-change bill that has been moving slowly through the Senate will face a stark political reality when it emerges for committee debate on Tuesday reports the Washington Post: With Democrats deeply divided on the issue, unless some Republican lawmakers risk the backlash for signing on to the legislation, there is almost no hope for passage.

US Envoy: No bilateral climate deal with China Todd Stern, President Obama’s envoy for climate change has dashed hopes of a bilateral deal on climate change during this month’s presidential trip to China in an interview with NPR’s Louisa Lim .

“There is no agreement per se,” Stern says, adding that there had been no intention of cutting a separate bilateral deal.

Obama’s trip will focus on clean energy cooperation, and aligning Chinese and American positions ahead of the upcoming global climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark .

The US is pushing for China to cut its greenhouse gas emissions.

“They absolutely have to cap their emissions in the sense of having them reduced significantly as compared to where their trend line is,” Stern said. “China could make a reduction twice as ambitious as the US is doing, and that would still involve their emissions going up somewhere from where they are now.”

But Beijing is resisting US pressure, arguing that it is using other measures. It already has announced a goal of improving energy efficiency by 20 percent by 2010. China also is planting trees over an area the size of California.

Jiahua Pan of the Institute for Urban & Environmental Studies in, Beijing says that negotiations will depend largely on decisive mitigation action being taken by the developed nations . China will have every reason to follow suit if the rich nations demonstrate leadership and commit to more substantial cuts than they have offered so far.

India pushes for common responsibility Rajendra K. Pachauri says in Nature that India wants to be a constructive partner in Copenhagen negotiations on climate change . The country is taking domestic action even though it cannot accept mandatory emissions limits.

UN inspectors visit uranium enrichment facility in Iran UN inspectors have received their first formal look inside Iran’s once-secret uranium enrichment facility that has raised western suspicions about the extent of their nuclear program.

The semi-official Mehr news agency reported that the four-member team visited the heavily protected facility, carved into a mountainside south of Tehran. The tour marked the first independent examination of the site, but no conclusions about the state of the facility are expected until after the next IAEA committee meeting.

Chart: How the ‘Darpa for Energy’ is slicing its $150-Million pie Wired.com has created a chart describing which area’s the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency will be handing out more than $150 million for what the agency describes as “bold, transformational” energy projects (see also DOE awards ‘Smart Grid’ and ARPA-E grants ).