There will be a focus on the environment today for two reasons. I'll be appearing on a podcast that wonders why you never hear much about global warming and clean energy anymore. This general subject matter was totally ignored as an issue in the recent mid-term elections.  However, this article says climate was a factor. What should the new Democratic Congress do about the environment? Appropriately enough, the United Nations climate summit, known this year as the Conference of the Parties 31 , began meeting today in Antalya, Turkey.  What is the Conference of the Parties? It is the supreme governing body of an international treaty  Consists of 197 countries plus the European Union.  There are 27 nations in the EU. The first gathering, COP 1, was held in Germany in 1995. A key summit was the 1997 COP 3 in Kyoto, Japan, where the Kyoto Protocol was signed.  And I was there for that gathering.  Agreement was reached for key nations to reduce greenhouse gas e...