Using new satellite technology that measures changes in mass in mountain glaciers and ice sheets, NASA geophysicist Scott Luthcke concluded that the losses amounted to enough water to fill the Chesapeake Bay 21 times.

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California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said on Thursday that he would sue the U.S. government for not granting a waiver that would allow his state to enforce new standards on motor vehicle emissions.

California needs the waiver from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to implement a state law requiring automakers to cut tailpipe carbon dioxide emissions by 25 percent on 2009 model cars.

Sixteen other states either have adopted or are considering rules similar to California’s standard.

“I am extremely disappointed by EPA’s decision to block the will of millions of people in California and 16 other states who want us to take tough action against global warming,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement.

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It overran by a day and the American delegation found itself being roundly booed, but a compromise deal on saving the planet has been hammered out at the climate change conference. Juliette Jowit, Caroline Davies and David Adam in Bali report

After tears, jeers and a dramatic eleventh-hour U-turn by the United States, a compromise deal for a new international climate change agenda was finally struck in Bali yesterday, just as talks appeared on the brink of collapse.

Amid extraordinary and emotional scenes, which at one point saw the American delegation booed at the UN climate change conference, ministers from more 180 countries thrashed out agreement after days of wrangling.

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As former vice president Al Gore urged delegates here Thursday night to “go far, quickly” in reducing greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming, international negotiators remained at an impasse over how to construct a road map leading to a worldwide climate agreement by the end of 2009.

Gore pressed officials from across the globe to move ahead with a consensus statement despite the obstacles, arguing that leaving “a large open space in your document” would allow a future U.S. administration to work more aggressively than the Bush administration to curb global warming pollution.

“My country’s been responsible for obstructing the process here in Bali, we know that,” he said to enthusiastic applause from the crowd. “Over the next two years the United States is going to be somewhere where it is not now. You must anticipate that.”

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Australian Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd has been sworn in as prime minister, following a landslide victory in parliamentary elections last week.  Immediately after the ceremony, he signed documents to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, reversing the previous administration’s policy. “This is the first official act of the new Australian government,” he said. Australia’s new stance on Kyoto will isolate the US as the only developed nation not to have ratified the treaty. Mr Rudd is due to attend the UN climate change conference in Bali next week with four of his ministers.

Mr Rudd’s appointment as prime minister ends more than 11 years of conservative government under his predecessor John Howard.

As well as signing up to the Kyoto Protocol, the new government is committed to withdrawing Australia’s combat troops from Iraq.

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Forget the Mideast peace talks. A meeting that may require even greater diplomacy will take place Monday in the Oval Office, when President Bush receives America’s Nobel Prize winners — including his one-time rival, Al Gore. A lot has happened to both men in the seven years since the 2000 election.

The president has faced terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and war; the former vice president left politics to campaign against global warming.

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The U.N.’s top climate official warned policymakers and scientists trying to hammer out a landmark report on climate change that ignoring the urgency of global warming would be “criminally irresponsible.”

Yvo de Boer’s comments came at the opening of a week-long conference that will complete a concise guide on the state of global warming and what can be done to stop the Earth from overheating. It is the fourth and last report issued this year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, co-winner of this year’s Nobel Peace prize.

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The White House significantly edited testimony prepared for a Senate hearing on the impact of climate change on health, deleting key portions citing diseases that could flourish in a warmer climate, documents obtained by The Associated Press showed Wednesday.

The White House on Wednesday denied that it had “watered down” the congressional testimony that Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, had given the day before to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.  But a draft of the testimony submitted for White House review shows that six pages of details about specific disease and other health problems that might flourish if the Earth warms were not delivered at the hearing.

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Former Vice President Al Gore Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today, along with a United Nations panel that monitors climate change, for their work educating the world about global warming and advocating for political action to control it.  The Norwegian Nobel Committee characterized Gore as “the single individual who has done most” to convince world governments and leaders that climate change is real, is caused by human activity, and poses a grave threat.

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Some of the world’s biggest greenhouse polluters took aim at President George W. Bush on Friday, calling him “isolated” and questioning his leadership on the problem of global warming.

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