The decision follows months of speculation over whether the president would make the trip. Obama has said for the past few weeks that he would only attend if his presence could be the impetus for a successful climate agreement.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Obama will commit to a greenhouse gas emissions cut by the United States “in the range of” 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. That’s the target set by the House climate bill passed in June. But without a Senate counterpart in place, Obama’s pledge might not carry much weight in Copenhagen. The Senate is not expected to take up climate legislation until early next year.

Obama will spend Dec. 9 in Copenhagen before flying to Oslo the next day to accept his Nobel Peace Prize. The climate conference is scheduled to run from Dec. 7 to Dec. 18.

Environmentalists have argued for some time that Obama’s presence is critical if the global community is to think that the United States — the world’s biggest carbon emitter, historically — is serious about an international treaty.

But a one-day stop in Copenhagen may not be enough. Obama “must also be willing to return to Copenhagen with the rest of the world’s leaders during the final stages of the negotiations” if necessary, Keya Chatterjee, climate director for the World Wildlife Fund, told The Post.

Other Western leaders, including Britain’s Gordon Brown and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, have already pledged to attend the conference.

Update 10:54 am: Here’s a press release just sent out by the White House:

President to Attend Copenhagen Climate Talks

Administration Announces U.S. Emission Target for Copenhagen

The White House announced today that President Obama will travel to Copenhagen on Dec. 9 to participate in the United Nations Climate Change Conference, where he is eager to work with the international community to drive progress toward a comprehensive and operational Copenhagen accord. The President has worked steadily on behalf of a positive outcome in Copenhagen throughout the year. Based on the President’s work on climate change over the past 10 months – in the Major Economies Forum, the G20, bilateral discussions and multilateral consultations – and based on progress made in recent, constructive discussions with China and India’s Leaders, the President believes it is possible to reach a meaningful agreement in Copenhagen. The President’s decision to go is a sign of his continuing commitment and leadership to find a global solution to the global threat of climate change, and to lay the foundation for a new, sustainable and prosperous clean energy future.

The White House also announced that, in the context of an overall deal in Copenhagen that includes robust mitigation contributions from China and the other emerging economies, the President is prepared to put on the table a U.S. emissions reduction target in the range of 17% below 2005 levels in 2020 and ultimately in line with final U.S. energy and climate legislation. In light of the President’s goal to reduce emissions 83% by 2050, the expected pathway set forth in this pending legislation would entail a 30% reduction below 2005 levels in 2025 and a 42% reduction below 2005 in 2030. This provisional target is in line with current legislation in both chambers of Congress and demonstrates a significant contribution to a problem that the U.S. has neglected for too long. With less than two weeks to go until the beginning of the Copenhagen conference, it is essential that the countries of the world, led by the major economies, do what it takes to produce a strong, operational agreement that will both launch us on a concerted effort to combat climate change and serve as a stepping stone to a legally binding treaty. The President is working closely with Congress to pass energy and climate legislation as soon as possible.

Underscoring President Obama’s commitment to American leadership on clean energy and combating climate change, the White House also announced today that a host of Cabinet secretaries and other top officials from across the Administration will travel to Copenhagen for the conference. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson are all scheduled to attend, along with Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley, and Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change Carol Browner.

For the first time, the U.S. delegation will have a U.S. Center at the conference, providing a unique and interactive forum to share our story with the world. In addition to working with other countries to advance American interests, U.S. delegates will keynote a series of events highlighting actions by the Obama Administration to provide domestic and global leadership in the transition to a clean energy economy. Topics will range from energy efficiency investments and global commitments to renewables policy and clean energy jobs. The following keynote events and speakers are currently scheduled:

· Wednesday, December 9th: Taking Action at Home, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson

· Thursday, December 10th: New Energy Future: the role of public lands in clean energy production and carbon capture, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar

· Friday, December 11th: Clean Energy Jobs in a Global Marketplace, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke

· Monday, December 14th: Leading in Energy Efficiency and Renewables, Energy Secretary Steven Chu

· Tuesday, December 15th: Clean Energy Investments: creating opportunities for rural economies, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack

· Thursday, December 17th: Backing Up International Agreement with Domestic Action, CEQ Chair Nancy Sutley and Assistant to the President Carol Browner

The Los Angeles Times reports:

The pioneering effort would cap greenhouse gases emitted by more than 600 power plants, refineries, cement plants and other big factories at 15% below today’s levels by 2020. And it would allow companies to buy and sell emissions allowances among themselves as a way to meet the overall goal less expensively. [...]

Cap-and-trade, a centerpiece of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s push for flexible market-based regulations, could yield $2 billion to $4 billion per year in revenue to the state from affected industries, depending on the market value of carbon, how many allowances for greenhouse gases are auctioned, how many are given away. [...]

The state’s landmark 2006 law requires emissions of planet-heating pollutants to drop to 1990 levels by 2020. The cap-and-trade program will take effect beginning in 2012, complementing strict rules to cut emissions from automobiles and slash the carbon content of fuels.

The full text of the release is after the jump.

Inhofe Begins Hadley Center “Climategate” Investigation

Warns Participants to Retain Documents

Washington, D.C.-Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, today sent letters to several scientists, some of whom allegedly manipulated data to prove the scientific “consensus” of global warming, as well as to the inspectors general of several federal agencies, notifying them to retain documents related to the release of emails from the Hadley Center’s Climate Research Unit.

“The stakes in this controversy are significant, as it appears that the basis of federal programs, pending EPA rulemakings, and cap-and-trade legislation was contrived and fabricated,” Sen. Inhofe said. “Moreover, it appears that, in an attempt to conceal the manipulation of climate data, information disclosure laws may have been violated.

“I certainly don’t condone the manner in which these emails were released; however, now that they are in the public domain, lawmakers have an obligation to determine the extent to which the so-called ‘consensus’ of global warming, formed with billions of taxpayer dollars, was contrived in the biased minds of the world’s leading climate scientists.”

The letters are the first step in the investigation of the Hadley Center climate scandal. Last week, emails released by a computer hacker revealed that several leading climate scientists allegedly manipulated climate data and research used by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). These scientists also appear to have refused outside access to their raw data, obstructed freedom of information requests, and plotted ways to prevent the publication of papers in peer-reviewed journals by scientists who question global warming alarmism.

Case in point: a study released today by 26 leading climatologists, which finds that the climate situation is actually far more dire than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had led us to believe.

The new report, dubbed “The Copenhagen Diagnosis,” seeks to fill in the gaps since the last IPCC assessment, published in 2007 but drafted earlier. Its authors include 14 members of the IPCC, the world’s top climate change authority.

Jonathan Hiskes, who’s compared the two reports in greater depth than I have, writes:

The new diagnosis finds that arctic sea ice is melting 40 percent faster than the panel estimated just a few years ago. Another startling finding: Satellites have found that the global average for rising sea levels was 3.4 millimeters per year from 1993-2008. The IPCC estimated it would be 1.9 mm for that period—short by 80 percent.

Here’s a summary of the new report’s key findings:

Surging greenhouse gas emissions: Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2008 were nearly 40% higher than those in 1990. Even if global emission rates are stabilized at present –day levels, just 20 more years of emissions would give a 25% probability that warming exceeds 2oC. Even with zero emissions after 2030. Every year of delayed action increase the chances of exceeding 2oC warming.

Recent global temperatures demonstrate human-based warming: Over the past 25 years temperatures have increased at a rate of 0.190C per decade, in every good agreement with predictions based on greenhouse gas increases. Even over the past ten years, despite a decrease in solar forcing, the trend continues to be one of warming. Natural, short- term fluctuations are occurring as usual but there have been no significant changes in the underlying warming trend.

Acceleration of melting of ice-sheets, glaciers and ice-caps: A wide array of satellite and ice measurements now demonstrate beyond doubt that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets are losing mass at an increasing rate. Melting of glaciers and ice-caps in other parts of the world has also accelerated since 1990.

Rapid Arctic sea-ice decline: Summer-time melting of Arctic sea-ice has accelerated far beyond the expectations of climate models. This area of sea-ice melt during 2007-2009 was about 40% greater than the average prediction from IPCC AR4 climate models.

Current sea-level rise underestimates: Satellites show great global average sea-level rise (3.4 mm/yr over the past 15 years) to be 80% above past IPCC predictions. This acceleration in sea-level rise is consistent with a doubling in contribution from melting of glaciers, ice caps and the Greenland and West-Antarctic ice-sheets.

Sea-level prediction revised: By 2100, global sea-level is likely to rise at least twice as much as projected by Working Group 1 of the IPCC AR4, for unmitigated emissions it may well exceed 1 meter. The upper limit has been estimated as – 2 meters sea-level rise by 2100. Sea-level will continue to rise for centuries after global temperature have been stabilized and several meters of sea level rise must be expected over the next few centuries.

Delay in action risks irreversible damage: Several vulnerable elements in the climate system (e.g. continental ice-sheets. Amazon rainforest, West African monsoon and others) could be pushed towards abrupt or irreversible change if warming continues in a business-as-usual way throughout this century. The risk of transgressing critical thresholds (“tipping points”) increase strongly with ongoing climate change. Thus waiting for higher levels of scientific certainty could mean that some tipping points will be crossed before they are recognized.

The turning point must come soon: If global warming is to be limited to a maximum of 2oC above pre-industrial values, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly. To stabilize climate, a decarbonized global society – with near-zero emissions of CO2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases – need to be reached well within this century. More specifically, the average annual per-capita emissions will have to shrink to well under 1 metric ton CO2 by 2050. This is 80-90% below the per-capita emissions in developed nations in 2000.

“Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’?” asked one headline. Another piece called the scandal “one of the greatest in modern science.” Today, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) called for an investigation.

So what exactly in these emails is causing such celebration among the deniers? The Daily Telegraph compiled “the most contentious quotes,” and while they’re certainly embarrassing for their authors, they don’t come close to undermining the very basis of climate science. Here are three of the six they list:

From: Michael Mann. To: Phil Jones and Gabi Hegerl (University of Edinburgh). Date: Aug 10, 2004
“Phil and I are likely to have to respond to more crap criticisms from the [global warming-denying] idiots in the near future.”

From: Phil Jones. To: Many. March 11, 2003
“I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome [global warming-denying] editor.”

From Phil Jones To: Michael Mann (Pennsylvania State University). July 8, 2004
“I can’t see either of these [global warming-denying] papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”

These emails demonstrate a deep disdain for global warming skepticism that does not befit scientists in objective pursuit of the truth. But disdain is a far cry from intentional falsification, which is what they’re being accused of. These scientists could — and maybe should — suffer consequences for presenting their findings, and those of their colleagues, in a way that jibes with their broader agenda. But that this leak threatens to undermine next month’s climate negotiations in Copenhagen strikes me as more than a bit excessive.

Under the proposed 50/50 formula, utilities that are more coal dependent will need to purchase even more allowances than they would have if all allowances were allocated based on emissions.

Well, yeah. And under the current proposed 50/50 formula, the coal burners would also have to purchase more allowances than if Congress did nothing at all. But the whole point of the bill is to discourage the use of high-emission energies like coal by making them less affordable than cleaner alternatives. Sheppard explains further why the lawmakers’ argument makes little sense in the context of the global warming debate:

Of course, this would work against the entire logic of the proposed scheme, which is to offer utilities financial incentives to switch to lower-carbon fuel sources. [...]

Right now, the climate bill needs all the votes it can get from Democrats. So enviros worry that concessions to this bloc could ultimately result in a deal in which coal plants suffer no real penalties for the carbon they pump into the atmosphere. “Dirty coal polluters know their days are numbered and are lobbying for the largest piece of the pie they can get,” said Jason Kowalski, policy coordinator at 1Sky. “It goes against the spirit of this legislation to reward the polluters that caused this problem in the first place.”

Signing on to the letter were Democratic Sens. Carl Levin (Mich.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), Russ Feingold (Wis.), Herb Kohl (Wis.), Tom Harkin (Iowa), Al Franken (Minn.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Byron Dorgan (N.D.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), Roland Burris (Ill.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Michael Bennet (Colo.), Mark Udall (Colo.) and Robert Byrd (W.Va.).

Marc Morano, the former spokesman for climate change denier-in-chief Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), features clinking champagne glasses atop his anti-climate legislation Website. Meanwhile, at the Center for American Progress, influential liberal climate blogger Joe Romm calls the development “some very good news.”

What gives?

Well, of course, Morano and Romm aren’t really in agreement; they’re just drawing wildly different conclusions. Morano proclaims in an email this morning, “Climate Fear Movement Collapsing at Last!” Romm takes a more nuanced position, arguing that Copenhagen has been doomed for some time now, and this recognition of reality allows for incremental progress next month and also buys American lawmakers more time to craft strong climate legislation. before global negotiations start in earnest.

Romm writes:

The new plan for Copenhagen makes the prospects for a successful international deal far more likely — and at the same time increases the chance for Senate passage of the bipartisan climate and clean energy bill that Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and John Kerry (D-MA) and Sen Lieberman (I-CT) are negotiating with the White House. [...]

Indeed, had leaders gone into Copenhagen without this recognition of the obvious and let the whole effort collapse under the weight of unrealistic expectations, that would have been all-but-fatal to the domestic bipartisan climate bill.

Now it will be obvious when the Senate takes up the bill up in the winter that the rest of the world is prepared to act — that every major country in the world has come to the table with serious targets and/or serious commitments to change their greenhouse gas emissions trajectories.  Every country but ours, that is.

Over at Grist, Dave Roberts takes a less exuberant but similarly reasoned tack:

[I]f the world’s nations had headed into Copenhagen expecting a legally binding treaty complete with targets and timetables, the result would have been disappointment, acrimony, and worst of all, wasted time. By taking some of the pressure of Copenhagen, the two-steps agreement has avoided disaster and maintained momentum. It’s also given the Obama administration time to engage in more climate diplomacy. Now if something could just be done about the Senate …

Whereas, U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (SC) and John Kerry (MA) have called for a bipartisan bill dealing with “climate change” via a “Cap & Trade” energy bill;

Whereas, the basis of Cap & Trade – global warming caused by carbon emissions – is still in doubt as evidenced by the past decade of cooling temperatures;

Whereas, the people of South Carolina can ill afford the job-killing Cap & Trade bill’s ripple effects on our state’s economy and on personal energy bills;

Whereas, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham supported TARP and has shown a willingness to discuss nationalizing U.S. banking institutions;

Whereas, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham has shown a condescending attitude toward his constituents by calling them “bigots” when they oppose his stance on amnesty for illegal aliens;

Whereas, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham has stated on many occasions that his primary concern is to “be relevant”;

Whereas, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham continues to hold the Republican Party hostage and undermines Republican leadership and party solidarity for his own benefit by joining the “Gang of 10” and the “Gang of 14”;

Whereas, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham – in the name of bipartisanship – continues to weaken the Republican brand and tarnish the ideals of freedom, rule of law, and fiscal conservatism.

Therefore, let it be resolved: The Charleston County Republican Party Executive Committee respectfully requests, with sincere sadness that the South Carolina Republican Party withdraw their resolution commending U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham and that the Charleston Country Republican Party censure U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham for many of the positions he has taken that do not represent the wishes of the people of South Carolina, such as: passing a “Cap & Trade” energy bill, bailing out banks, and granting amnesty for illegal aliens.

The Charleston County Republican Party’s executive committee took the unusual step Monday night of censuring U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham for stepping across the GOP party line.

Marc Ambinder has the full text of the resolution. Here are the key portions:

Whereas, U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (SC) and John Kerry (MA) have called for a bipartisan bill dealing with “climate change” via a “Cap & Trade” energy bill;

Whereas, the basis of Cap & Trade – global warming caused by carbon emissions – is still in doubt as evidenced by the past decade of cooling temperatures;

Whereas, the people of South Carolina can ill afford the job-killing Cap & Trade bill’s ripple effects on our state’s economy and on personal energy bills; [...]

Therefore, let it be resolved: The Charleston County Republican Party Executive Committee respectfully requests, with sincere sadness that the South Carolina Republican Party withdraw their resolution commending U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham and that the Charleston Country Republican Party censure U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham for many of the positions he has taken that do not represent the wishes of the people of South Carolina, such as: passing a “Cap & Trade” energy bill, bailing out banks, and granting amnesty for illegal aliens.

Which Republican senator will be next to step up and cross party lines on climate legislation?