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 Nations have so dragged their feet in battling climate change that the situation has grown critical and the risk of severe economic disruption is rising, according to a draft United Nations report. Another 15 years of failure to limit carbon emissions could make the problem virtually impossible to solve with current technologies, experts found. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 A delay would most likely force future generations to develop the ability to suck greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and store them underground to preserve the livability of the planet, the report found. But it is not clear whether such technologies will ever exist at the necessary scale, and even if they do, the approach would probably be wildly expensive compared with taking steps now to slow emissions. 
 
 The report said that governments of the world were still spending far more money to subsidize fossil fuels than to accelerate the shift to cleaner energy, thus encouraging continued investment in projects like coal-burning power plants that pose a long-term climate risk. 
 
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 While the spread of technologies like solar power and wind farms might give the impression of progress, the report said, such developments are being overtaken by rising emissions from fossil fuels over the past decade, especially in fast-growing countries like China. And one of the most important sources of low-carbon energy, nuclear power, is actually declining over time as a percentage of the global energy mix, the report said. 
 
 Unless far greater efforts are made to reduce emissions, “the fundamental drivers of emissions growth are expected to persist despite major improvements in energy supply” and in the efficiency with which energy is used, the report said. 
 
 The new warnings come in a draft report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations panel of climate experts that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for its efforts to analyze and communicate the risks of climate change. The report is not final, but a draft dated Dec. 17 was leaked this week and was first reported by Reuters. The New York Times obtained a copy independently. 
 
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 Business leaders will tackle many of the problems raised in the draft next week, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where a day will be devoted to addressing the rising economic costs of climate change — and the costs to businesses and governments of solving the problem. 
 
 Within the business community, “there is an awakening of increasing economic risk — a recognition that operating conditions are changing and we need to respond,” said Dominic Waughray, head of environmental initiatives for the forum. “There has been a failure of government to address these solutions. If there is an alliance of companies that can bite off pieces of the puzzle, it might help.” 
 
 In the dry language of a technical committee, the draft outlines an increasingly dire situation. 
 
 Even as the early effects of climate change are starting to be felt around the world, the panel concluded that efforts are lagging not only in reducing emissions, but also in adapting to the climatic changes that have become inevitable. 
 
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 It is true, the report found, that the political willingness to tackle climate change is growing in many countries and new policies are spreading, but the report said these were essentially being outrun by the rapid growth of fossil fuels. 
 
 While emissions appear to have fallen in recent years in some of the wealthiest countries, that is somewhat of an illusion, the report found. The growth of international trade means many of the goods consumed in wealthy countries are now made abroad — so that those countries have, in effect, outsourced their greenhouse gas emissions to countries like China. 
 
 Emissions in the United States rose slightly in 2013, but are still about 10 percent below their 2005 levels, largely because of the newfound abundance of natural gas, which produces less greenhouse gases than burning coal. 
 
 The Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty meant to limit emissions, has “not been as successful as intended,” the report found. That is partly because some important countries like the United States refused to ratify it or later withdrew, but also because of flaws within the treaty itself, the report found. The treaty exempted developing countries from taking strong action, for instance, a decision that many experts now say was a mistake. 
 
 Efforts are underway to negotiate a new international treaty to replace Kyoto, but it is not even supposed to take effect until 2020, and it is unclear whether countries will agree on ambitious goals to limit emissions. It is equally unclear how much political support a new treaty will gain in China and the United States, the world’s largest emitters. 
 
 The Obama administration is pushing for a deal, but any treaty would have to be ratified by the Senate; many Republicans and some coal-state Democrats are wary, fearing economic damage to the country. 
 
 The new report suggests, however, that the real question is whether to take some economic pain now, or more later. 
 
 Nations have agreed to try to limit the warming of the planet to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels. Even though it will be exceedingly difficult to meet, this target would still mean vast ecological and economic damage, experts have found. But the hope is that these would come on slowly enough to be somewhat manageable; having no target would be to risk catastrophic disruption, the thinking goes. 
 
 As scientists can best figure, the target requires that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, stay below 500 parts per million. The level recently surpassed 400, and at present growth rates will surpass 500 within a few decades. 
 
 If countries permit continued high emissions growth until 2030, the draft report found, the target will most likely be impossible to meet, at least without a hugely expensive crash program to rebuild the energy system, and even that might not work. 
 
 If emissions do overshoot the target, the report found, future generations would probably have to develop ways to pull greenhouse gases out of the air. It is fairly clear this will be technically possible. It could be achieved, for instance, by growing bioenergy crops that take up carbon dioxide, burning the resulting fuel and then injecting the emissions into underground formations. But such efforts would compete with food production, already under strain. 
 
 The leaked draft is the third and final segment of a major report that the climate change panel is completing in stages. The first segment, published in September, found a 95 percent or greater likelihood that humans are the main cause of climate change. The second, due out in March, is expected to warn about the likely consequences of climate change, including risks to the food supply. 
 
 The third, focusing on policies to limit the damage, is due for publication in Berlin in April. ||||| A coalition of environmental groups is calling on President Barack Obama to put greater emphasis on combating climate change in his energy policy, pressing the administration as it weighs approving the Keystone XL pipeline. 
 
 The administration’s pursuit of increased domestic oil and gas production jeopardizes progress made toward lowering carbon pollution linked to climate change, according to a letter signed by leaders of 18 U.S. environmental organizations including the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council. 
 
 “An ‘all of the above’ strategy is a compromise that future generations can’t afford,” the groups wrote in the letter released last night. “It fails to prioritize clean energy and solutions that have already begun to replace fossil fuels, revitalize American industry, and save Americans money.” 
 
 The letter emerged as the U.S. State Department completes work on a final environmental assessment of TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s proposed $5.4 billion pipeline that would carry oil sands crude from Canada to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico coast. The project has galvanized environmental groups, which are pushing Obama to reject the project because they say it will increase greenhouse-gas emissions tied to climate change. 
 
 A draft environmental impact review by the State Department concluded the pipeline wouldn’t worsen climate change because the carbon-heavy oil would find its way to market by other means. The agency held a hearing and accepted comments for the environmental impact study, a final version of which hasn’t yet been released. Once it is complete, federal agencies will have 90 days to submit comments on the project’s national interest. 
 
 ‘Climate-Impact Lens’ 
 
 Obama has said he won’t approve Calgary-based TransCanada’s application to build Keystone if it were found to substantially boost carbon-dioxide emissions, which scientists say are raising the Earth’s temperature. 
 
 In their letter, the environmental organizations cited the Keystone project and said that “a climate-impact lens should be applied to all decisions regarding new fossil fuel development.” 
 
 The president rejected the company’s initial application to build Keystone after officials in Nebraska said the pipeline would imperil ecologically sensitive lands. TransCanada then split the project in two and applied for the rerouted northern leg in May 2012. 
 
 The letter was reported earlier by The Washington Post. 
 
 To contact the reporter on this story: Jim Snyder in Washington at jsnyder24@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net ||||| The new pressure from both sides could have an impact on critical permitting decisions on issues ranging from the Keystone XL pipeline to natural gas exports and federal coal leases. (Nati Harnik/AP) 
 
 A group of the nation’s leading environmental organizations is breaking with the administration over its energy policy, arguing that the White House needs to apply a strict climate test to all of its energy decisions or risk undermining one of the president’s top ­second-term priorities. 
 
 The rift — reflected in a letter sent to President Obama by 18 groups, including the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund and Earthjustice — signals that the administration is under pressure to confront the fossil-fuel industry or risk losing support from a critical part of its political base during an already difficult election year. 
 
 For years, the administration has pushed aggressively to limit pollution from coal-fired power plants and improve fuel efficiency in transportation while also embracing domestic production of natural gas, oil and coal under an “all of the above” energy strategy. This has angered environmental groups, which reluctantly went along until Thursday’s break. 
 
 “You can’t have it both ways,” Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in an interview. 
 
 The criticism came on the same day that the fossil-fuel industry and its congressional allies began separate efforts to challenge the administration’s environmental policies. That suggests that the White House will have to marshal additional resources to defend the work it is already doing to address climate change. 
 
 In his 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama promised to tackle climate change. How is he doing? Nia-Malika Henderson talks to Jeff Goodell of Rolling Stone about Obama's environmental policy. (The Washington Post) 
 
 The American Petroleum Institute announced a new advertising and electoral campaign that will promote domestic oil and gas production.At the same time, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) asked the Government Accountability Office to determine whether the Senate can use the Congressional Review Act to reverse a proposed rule to limit carbon emissions from new power plants. 
 
 The new pressure from both sides — one demanding that President Obama reconcile his commitment to fight climate change with his other energy policies, the other pushing him to scale back environmental regulation — could have an impact on critical permitting decisions on issues ranging from the Keystone XL pipeline to natural gas exports and federal coal leases. 
 
 The environmental groups’ initiative was perhaps more surprising, given their long support of Obama’s efforts to combat climate change. 
 
 “We believe that continued reliance on an ‘all of the above’ energy strategy would be fundamentally at odds with your goal of cutting carbon pollution and would undermine our nation’s capacity to respond to the threat of climate disruption,” the environmentalists wrote in a letter obtained by The Washington Post. “With record-high atmospheric carbon concentrations and the rising threat of extreme heat, drought, wildfires and super storms, America’s energy policies must reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, not simply reduce our dependence on foreign oil.” 
 
 The groups suggested that Obama should apply a strict climate test “to all decisions regarding new fossil fuel development,” including hydraulic fracturing and coal mining on public lands, as well as drilling in the Arctic Ocean. 
 
 Dan Utech, special assistant to the president for energy and climate change, said in an interview that the administration is “taking a number of steps under the climate action plan to drive down emissions of carbon and other greenhouse gases.” 
 
 “At the same time, obviously we’re going to keep using oil and gas for some period of time,” Utech said. “It’s better to produce these things here than import them. They go together, and they’re not really at odds.” 
 
 David Victor, a professor of international relations at the University of California at San Diego and an energy expert, wrote in an ­e-mail that several factors explain why the administration’s energy policy is plagued by internal conflicts. Since most of it is done through executive authority rather than “with clean new legislation . . . policy gets advanced on a thousand fronts, each with their own constraints.” 
 
 “Some are easy, such as some administrative standards on energy efficiency. Others are much harder, like federal lands policy,” he wrote. 
 
 Decisions about whether the administration should allow the Keystone XL pipeline to cross the Canadian border or permit new liquefied natural gas terminals to be built “are emerging as hot-button issues,” Victor added, because there is more oil and gas to be extracted “than people thought even a few years ago.” 
 
 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), co-chairman of the Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change, said in an interview that while environmentalists are right to push for a rapid transition to clean energy, senior administration officials have made it clear in recent weeks that they’re committed to pursuing that goal. 
 
 “There’s a real warming trend at the White House toward listening to ideas on how to build a bridge to a fully sustainable energy strategy,” he said. 
 
 Jack Gerard, the API president and chief executive who introduced his group’s “America’s Energy, America’s Choice” campaign at the National Press Club on Thursday, said in an interview that the president faces “a test of leadership” on whether he will seize “the chance of a generation to make the United States the energy superpower it can become.” 
 
 Lawmakers are trying to block some of the president’s climate initiatives through the omnibus spending bill that passed the Senate on Thursday night. That measure would require the administration to submit a report on its spending on global warming initiatives within 120 days of submitting its next budget request and prohibit it from trying to limit funding for overseas coal plants. 
 
 Heather Zichal, who served as Obama’s top energy and climate adviser until leaving the White House late last year, said the administration has pursued policies that target major sources of greenhouse gas emissions at a time when it faces considerable congressional opposition. 
 
 “As a whole, what this administration has done is gone after the biggest and most meaningful emissions, and they have an agenda that fits the political environment in which they operate,” she said.
– President Obama may be stuck between a melting icecap and a hard place. Environmental groups have grown weary of the administration's "all of the above" energy strategy—which has seen it hold tight to domestic natural gas, oil, and coal production even as it works to limit coal-fired power plant pollution—and the fossil-fuel industry is just as peeved. "You can't have it both ways," an environmentalist tells the Washington Post. In a letter sent to Obama yesterday, some 18 groups have announced their displeasure, showing the administration could "risk losing support from a critical part of its political base during an already difficult election year," the Post notes. "An 'all of the above' strategy is a compromise that future generations can't afford," the letter reads, per Bloomberg. It suggests what the Post calls a "strict climate test" be applied "to all decisions regarding new fossil fuel development," from ocean drilling to the Keystone XL pipeline. Yesterday was a sort of double whammy for Obama, with the American Petroleum Institute announcing a new ad push that will champion domestic oil and gas production, and with Mitch McConnell tasking the Government Accountability Office with figuring out whether the Senate can reverse these emissions limits. This, as a UN report finds our carbon emissions rose slightly last year (though they still fall below 2005 levels) and notes that governments worldwide are spending more money subsidizing fossil fuels than moving toward cleaner energy, the New York Times reports.