Susan McGinnis: Now as we told you earlier, world leaders have wrapped up climate negotiations in Tianjin, China and they are set to get together again in Mexico in late November, but what can realistically get done? Is the world willing to come together to mitigate and adapt to climate change?

Joining us now, for theMIX, Eileen Claussen, President of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and EnergyNOW Contributors, Aimee Christensen of Christensen Global Strategies; she works with companies there on climate change policies. David Kreutzer is Research Fellow in Energy Economics and Climate Change at the Heritage Foundation.

Welcome to all of you.

Eileen Claussen: Thank you.

Aimee Christensen: Thank you.

David Kreutzer: Thank you.

Susan McGinnis: Now, almost nobody believes there is going to be any substantial agreement, global agreement in Cancun. Aimee, do you think we need one 200 nations coming together to try to make this deal?

Aimee Christensen: We do need a global agreement as soon as possible for two reasons. Really, it’s to keep Heads of State focused on it as a top priority given the urgency of the challenge. It’s also the clearest way to give a signal to business that the investments are ready to be made to get the money off of the sidelines into the clean energy transition that we need to be making as soon as possible.

Susan McGinnis: David, do you think they’re focusing on the right issues in these talks?

David Kreutzer: I think they’re using a tried and failed strategy here that is you would have to get hundreds of countries to agree on huge transfers of wealth, of huge cuts in energy use, and one group is expecting to get hundreds of billions, another group is not expecting to give it to them. I think you need to look at the problems more directly. If you’re worried about food security, go after food security. If you’re worried about some other aspect of what we might get from global warming, go after that directly.

Susan McGinnis: So, what about individual agreements on different issues?

Eileen Claussen: I actually think we do need a global agreement. I think it’s the best way to keep ambition levels high, but I also think we need to be realistic. You can’t reach an agreement among hundreds of countries unless the two biggest emitters are willing to agree. And at the moment, I think the United States is not willing to take on a binding target for a very good reason and China is unwilling to take on a binding commitment of any kind at the moment. So, I think we’re talking about years of effort here.

Susan McGinnis: And even if they did take on these limits, do you think they could be effective?

David Kreutzer: No, I think that’s the main problem. That’s why we’re not getting an agreement even among a rump group is because the costs are so high and the impact on climate change would be so small even if you take the inter-governmental panel on climate changes, you know, projections, the cuts that we’re looking at, if we did cabin trade and everybody else did Kyoto, you’re talking about a fraction of a degree change in temperature.

Aimee Christensen: All evidence is to the contrary, really on the jobs spread, I am sorry, what we’ve seen when States, when countries have invested and when companies have invested in addressing climate change, the return on investment has been near-term and the impacts have been beneficial for their overall business performance and for the markets.

David Kreutzer: Yeah, I think if you’re worried about food, you invest in food productivity. If you’re worried about disease you invest in new medicines.

Eileen Claussen: I am sorry. I mean adaptation is important. I mean if you believe the science on climate change, we do have to adapt no matter how strongly we move toward a clean energy economy. So, I am not going to disagree with you there, and where I do disagree is your notion of the costs. And I think it really depends on how thoughtfully you decide to go about making this transition. I mean, obviously, there are ways to do it where the costs are going to be really high and one way is to not to do anything and then try to do it all at once when it looks like you really have to do it.

Aimee Christensen: Absolutely.

David Kreutzer: Well, no, the costs are going to be significant whether you start early or start late if you have these draconian targets that you’re aiming at that will give you pretty much no benefit.

Susan McGinnis: I want to get to this film, because I need to get your take before we go --

David Kreutzer: Okay.

Susan McGinnis: On a film that’s causing a huge uproar here in the U.S. and in Europe. A London Environmental Organization called 10:10 came out with this film. It’s about carbon footprints, lowering carbon footprints, and we have it, it starts with a teacher trying to get students to lower their carbon footprints, let’s listen to that and get your reaction.

Female Speaker: Now, no pressure at all. Would it be great to get a sense of how many of you might to do this, just a rough percentage, that’s fantastic? And there is no - Philip and Tracy, that’s fine, it’s absolutely fine your own choice. Okay class, thank you so much of today, and I will you see all tomorrow. Oh! Just before you go I just need to press this little button here. Now, everybody please remember to read chapters five and six on volcanoes and glaciations.

Susan McGinnis: We denounce that video. The children literally explode. It’s a horrific piece of video, which is why we are not going to show it to our folks today. Just wondering, I mean Eileen what is your -- exploding children, what is your sense about what this does for their cause?

Eileen Claussen: Well, I mean there are two trends in use of the media that I find horrifying. One is the use of violence, of which this is the prime example and it is absolutely shocking and it doesn’t help anyone. The other is the tendency to just gloss over the truth and the facts and I have to say I find that really disturbing as well, terrible trends.

Susan McGinnis: Okay! I mean, really, a lot of people say any publicity is a good publicity and bad news travels faster and farther.

Aimee Christensen: No, I think this is really a distraction from the real issue, which is America going to lead or is it going to follow in the transition of clean energy? Are we going to protect the polluters of the past at the expense of the industries of the future? Let’s get to the real issues, move forward on those. I lobbied for AB32 when I was at Google and it was because this was about innovation and new jobs, this is a distraction.

Susan McGinnis: Okay! Do you think this is the end of 10:10? I mean supporters are pulling out, Sony pulled out --

David Kreutzer: I think they are going to join ACORN with this video. I’m glad to hear nobody likes it, the 10:10 organizers in there are sort of a --

Susan McGinnis: They apologized; they apologized for it. And they have pulled it --

David Kreutzer: They, sort of, apologized and they said many people found it very funny. And a lot of people were there making it. So, you have to wonder what kind of attitudes people on that fringe have. There were more than 40 that were involved in that, so it’s a shame, but I don’t see anybody saying it’s good, that’s great.

Susan McGinnis: No, it was quite horrific. We are out of time now, Aimee Christensen, Eileen Claussen, and David Kreutzer thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate your insights.

David Kreutzer: Okay, thank you.