There is no chance of completing a binding global treaty to reduce emissions of climate-altering gases, few if any heads of state are planning to attend, and there are no major new initiatives on the agenda. Copenhagen was crippled by an excess of expectation. Cancún is suffering from the opposite.

Not only that, but talks in Tianjin, China this week may actually be moving backward. The Times reports that a number of issues that negotiators thought they’d settled in Copenhagen last year are being looked at again.

Delegates in Tianjin, China, at the last formal meeting before the Cancún conference opens Nov. 29, are hung up over the same issues that caused the collapse of the Copenhagen meeting. Even some of the baby steps in the weak agreement that emerged from last year’s meeting, a slender document known as the Copenhagen Accord, have been reopened, to the dismay of officials who thought they had been settled.

Agreement on critical issues like short-term financial aid for vulnerable countries and monitoring and reporting of emissions by major economies appears even farther away than it was at the end of the Copenhagen meeting.

While the news doesn’t come as a surprise to people closely following the debate, it’s still frustrating. Many scientists say it is essential to reach a binding agreement to reduce world greenhouse gas emissions enough to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Environmentalists had hoped that negotiations in Tianjin and Cancun would lay the groundwork for more significant action later. But it appears that may not even be possible.

The 350 ppm goal has become something of a rallying cry for environmentalists — so much so that one group, 350.org, has been formed specifically to advocate it. Many scientists say that countries must commit to lowering CO2 levels from 392 ppm to 350 ppm to avoid catastrophic climate change.

But it seems unlikely that countries will commit to such a goal any time soon, given that talks in Tianjin, as well as December talks in Cancun, are not expected to result in a binding climate treaty. The report, released by the Center for Biological Diversity and 350.org, acknowledges that reducing emissions to these levels could be an uphill battle:

There are viable options now to begin achieving this ambitious goal but enacting them will require bold, willful steps from world leaders.

Nonetheless, the environmentalists are calling for the adoption of a plan put forward by climate scientist and activist James Hansen.

The 350-ppm-by-2100 plan can be achieved by reducing global greenhouse gas pollution to 42 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. It also requires dramatic reductions in fossil fuel emissions; carbon sequestration; and an end to large-scale deforestation.

“Uncertainty raises challenges,” Schmidt said, adding that “not just saying that it will take action, but actually showing that it will take action” is key.

China and other key countries have taken significant actions to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, leaving the United States, which has consistently failed to pass significant climate legislation, in the dust. In order to build trust at the talks next week in Tianjin, China, and later in Cancun, Mexico, the United States should come prepared to detail what it has done and will do to reduce its emissions, Schmidt said.

But the climate talks in Cancun are not expected to produce a binding climate treaty, though Schmidt said the talks will “lay some important foundations,” including potential agreements on transparency and deforestation.

As we combat the spread of deadly weapons, we’re also confronting the specter of climate change.  After making historic investments in clean energy and efficiency at home, we helped forge an accord in Copenhagen that — for the first time — commits all major economies to reduce their emissions.  We are keenly aware this is just a first step. And going forward, we will support a process in which all major economies meet our responsibilities to protect the planet while unleashing the power of clean energy to serve as an engine of growth and development.

Stern said yesterday’s meeting was “productive,” but added that “no one is expecting or anticipating in any way a legal treaty to be done” at the November U.N. meeting in Cancun, according to the Associated Press.

The United Nations climate process has been marked by anticipation and disappointment. Last year’s much-ballyhooed negotiations in Copenhagen failed to produce a binding climate treaty. And the clock is ticking. The landmark Kyoto Protocol, which the United States did not sign, expires in 2012. The current negotiations are meant to lay the groundwork for a successor to the protocol, but right now it seems unclear exactly when such an agreement can be signed.

Why is all of this so important? In short, scientists say it’s essential for all major industrial nations to commit to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. In other words, it doesn’t do anybody any good if some countries reduce their emissions and others continue to pump large amounts of carbon dioxide into the air. Emissions don’t stop at a country’s borders.

There’s quite a bit of tension on this issue between various industrialized and non-industrialized nations. The key to coming to an agreement is developing rules that non-industrialized countries and major emitters can agree to. That has proven tricky so far.

The reason? It costs a ton of money to significantly reduce emissions; you’ve got to retrofit fossil fuel power plants, build new infrastructure and develop clean energy technology. The poorer countries argue that richer nation’s should take the lead on all that because they can afford it. The richer countries note however, that every country needs to commit to some level of emissions cut.

“The real question is: “Is the blockade itself lawful?’” Guilfoyle told Quinn. “Everything else turns on that.”

Mr. Guilfoyle says that under the international Law of Armed Conflict a state that has legally established a blockade can enforce it by boarding vessels in international waters that it reasonably expects might breach the blockade.

But a blockade itself is illegal, he says, “if it will cause excessive damage to the civilian population in relation to the military advantage gained… so therefore intercepting a vessel on the high seas to support or enforce the blockade would not be lawful.”

You can already see where this debate is headed. The Palestinians and their supporters have argued for years that the blockade violates international law, while Israel has maintained that it’s a necessary and legal precaution for keeping arms out of the hands of Hamas, the militant Islamic group that’s ruled Gaza since 2007. And don’t for a minute think that resolution over the legality of Monday’s raid will be coming any quicker.

Fiji’s UN Ambassador, Berenado Vunibobo. He hosted a book launch for Bolton and [co-author Brett] Shaefer at the end of October.

This raises eyebrows, shall we say, because Fiji has been under military rule since since December 2006, when Commodore Bainimarama toppled the government. Since then, Human Rights Watch reports that Bainimarama has consolidated his power and detained political opponents.  Fijian troops are even barred from participating in UN Peacekeeping missions.   And, just last week, the self-appointed Bainimarama expelled top diplomats from Australia and New Zealand who criticized his regime.

Remember this the next time someone — oh, John McCain, I’m looking to you — pretends that the Bush administration was ever genuinely interested in human rights. In fairness to Bolton, he never bought in to that flimsy pretext for flexing American military power.

This is not an identical situation to Iraq. Eide says humanitarian services won’t be interrupted — how can he promise that? — and he’s also leaning on Karzai for anti-corruption measures by leveraging the prospect of a U.N. pullback. So perhaps he’s turning the attack into an advantage.

How rapid was Galbraith’s departure? So rapid that he’s still listed on the mission’s Website, smiling away, and the U.N. still cites his”many years of humanitarian and security policy experience.”

The disclosure of Iran’s nuclear facility under construction for years in secret near Qom — the second such undisclosed facility operated by Iran — deepens “a growing concern,” President Obama said in Pittsburgh this morning, “that Iran is refusing to live up to those international responsibilities, including specifically revealing all nuclear-related activities.” But notice that neither Obama, French President Nicholas Sarkozy nor British Prime Minister Gordon Brown accused Iran of a specific violation of its international nuclear responsibilities, and pivoted their case instead on Iran’s concealment. That’s because it’s not actually clear whether Iran has committed a specific violation of either the Nuclear Nonprofileration Treaty or its follow-on agreements negotiated separately with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Under the NPT, each state negotiates a safeguards agreement to the IAEA so the atomic watchdog can work out where and how to establish monitoring devices like cameras at declared facilities. “Iran’s specific safeguards agreement doesn’t say anything about the time limits for the provision of design information,” says Ivanka Barzashka, an analyst with the Federation of American Scientists’ Strategic Security Program. Specific time-frames for site or design disclosure typically occur in additional “subsidiary arrangements,” and usually provide for disclosure around 180 days before the introduction of nuclear material into a given facility. But Iran’s subsidiary arrangement with the IAEA “has not been made public as far as I know,” Barzashka says.

That said, in its Aug. 28 report, the IAEA criticizes Iran for not adopt implementing a section of its subsidiary arrangement that dealt with design notificiation. “The absence of such information results in late notification to the Agency of the construction of new facilities and changes to the design of existing facilities,” the IAEA warned. Barzashka translates that such adoption would require Iran to notify the IAEA “of the construction of a new plant, any kind of new facilities, as soon as a decision has been authorized by the government.”

And that clearly hasn’t happened. According to an U.S. intelligence official who would only speak on background, “We’ve known about this facility for years. Over time, a clearer picture evolved of Iran’s intentions and activities at this covert site — one that, it turns out, wasn’t unknown to us.”

That’s still not the same thing as a broken obligation binding under international law. But the lack of a specific broken obligation, in turn, isn’t a reason to dismiss today’s disclosure. “It adds to the fact that Iran’s behavior is ambiguous,” Barzashka says. “The issue for Iran should be to do anything to dissuade this concern, like [implementing] further transparency measures … that should be the issue Iran should address.”

Update: Just in case, maybe this post from Barzashka and her boss, Ivan Oelrich, can clarify the point:

The latest IAEA report (GOV/2009/55) states that Iran has not yet implemented early provisions of design information in accordance with the revised Code 3.1 of the Subsidiary Arrangements General Part, which would require Iran to notify the agency of the construction of new facilities or modifications to existing ones as soon as such a decision has been authorized by the government or the plant operator.  The original agreement required Iran to submit such information no later than 180 days before the introduction of nuclear material into the facility (GOV/2003/40).

So that looks like an if-then trigger for a violation. If there was some reason to suspect that Iran was going to place nuclear material for enrichment at the Qom facility within the next six months — and I’m not sure what that may have been, to be clear — then that, as well, might explain why this announcement came when it did. Thanks to reader/pal MWH for the tip.

Update 2: Much much more on that here.

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