Backyard
Nature's Direct Feed from |
Backyard
Nature's Direct Feed from |
Last updated on November 21st, 2009
| Copenhagen " how the Danes will salvage a deal: Click here |
| New Scientist: It's official: the organisers of the Copenhagen climate conference conceded last weekend that it cannot deliver a final, legally binding deal. Danish prime minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the conference host, is hoping for a "political deal", followed by a legal one in 2010. The question now is how specific the political deal will be. Speaking at a meeting of Asian leaders in Singapore, Rasmussen said the Copenhagen agreement should be "precise on specific commitments and binding on ... |
| Scientific debate sparked over carbon sink data: Click here |
| Physorg: According to research published this week in Nature Geoscience, emissions of carbon dioxide continue to outstrip the ability of the world's natural 'sinks' to absorb carbon. The new report follows another study published only ten days earlier by Dr Wolfgang Knorr in Geophysical Research Letters, which concludes that a decline in the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans to absorb CO2 cannot be detected within the available data. Both studies involved researchers ... |
| Copenhagen might be a flop, but India must cut carbon: Ramesh: Click here |
| New Kerala: Expressing apprehension that the coming Copenhagen meet for hammering out a Climate Change agreement was heading towards a flop, Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh today said India must take aggressive and proactive domestic measures to cut its greenhouse gas emissions irrespective of what happened at international fora. ''These are the paradigm shift I have been calling for during the last few months,'' Mr Ramesh said speaking after releasing the UN's State ... |
| Australia: Bushfires rage as country swelters through heatwave: Click here |
| Herald Sun: |
| Australia: Heatwave 'connected to climate change': Click here |
| Special Broadcasting Service: There's a 'high chance' a heatwave sweeping Australia's southern and eastern states is related to climate change, a scientist at the Bureau of Meteorology says. Climate Meteorologist Harvey Stern says the scorching weather effecting parts of South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales at this time of the year is rare. "This (the heatwave) is a truly extreme event," Dr Stern says. "Many places have established all-time records for the first half of November." The ... |
| Wildfires Spreading as Temperatures Rise: Click here |
| Inter Press Service: Future firefighters have their work cut out for them. Perhaps nowhere does this hit home harder than in Australia, where in early 2009 a persistent drought, high winds, and record high temperatures set the stage for the worst wildfire in the country's history. On Feb. 9, now known as "Black Saturday", the mercury in Melbourne topped 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46.4 degrees Celsius) as fires burned over one million acres in the state of Victoria - destroying more than 2,000 homes and ... |
| Are the Earth's Oceans Hitting Their Carbon Cap?: Click here |
| Time Magazine: But a new paper published in the Nov. 19 issue of Nature demonstrates that the oceans' ability to absorb man-made carbon may be dwindling -- and that has worrying ramifications for future climate change. While the ocean is now absorbing more carbon in total than ever before, the waters are sucking up a smaller percentage of the CO2 emitted by humans. That could mean that there's a limit to the ocean's capacity -- and that we might be hitting it. (See the top 10 green ideas of ... |
| Listen to the Earth, Say Indigenous Peoples: Click here |
| Inter Press Service: The idea of wilderness is "an interesting concept; it is a Western concept. Our people have always lived and interacted in the environment," said Illion Merculieff, an environmental activist from the Aleut community in the north-western U.S. state of Alaska. The Aleuts have inhabited the islands and coastal areas of the Bering Sea, in the northern Pacific, for more than 10,000 years, having adapted to the extreme climate. "Adaptation is absolutely essential," according to ... |
| Vietnam: Water, Water All AroundPlus All the Risks It Brings: Click here |
| Inter Press Service: As Vietnam's big cities are increasingly deluged by floods, the infrastructure cannot keep up. At the end of October last year Hanoi suffered the worst floods in over 50 years. Some streets were under more than two metres of water, resulting in a death toll of 20, many as a result of electrocution from makeshift wiring; others from drowning. Photos of people fishing in the streets made headlines, but after the waters receded, people began to question their city's underperforming ... |
| United Kingdom: Terrorists don't install disabled toilets: Click here |
| New Statesman: In 1996, when you travelled through the mountains of Chiapas, Mexico, soldiers would get on the buses every half an hour or so to check on the passengers. They'd look at papers, search random bags and occasionally take people off for a chat. Some did not get back on. There was an ongoing guerra sucia in Chiapas. Two years earlier, when the Zapatista armies had risen up out of the jungle, there had been hundreds of casualties in the ensuing conflict. In the seven months I was there, ... |
| Households will pay extra for green electricity: Click here |
| Telegraph: The Energy Bill will introduce a £9.5 billion levy on electricity suppliers to fund the building of coal-fired power stations fitted with a new technology that takes carbon dioxide and stores it underground. The Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Incentive is likely to be passed onto customers, adding up 2-3 per cent or £17 per annum onto the average annual bill from 2020. Consumers already pay extra to help electricity companies build wind farms and other forms of renewable ... |
| Oceans' Uptake of Human-Made Carbon May Be Slowing: Click here |
| ScienceDaily: The oceans play a key role in regulating climate, absorbing more than a quarter of the carbon dioxide that humans put into the air. Now, the first year-by-year accounting of this mechanism during the industrial era suggests the oceans are struggling to keep up with rising emissions -- a finding with potentially wide implications for future climate. The study appears in the November 19 issue of the journal Nature. The researchers estimate that the oceans last year took up a record 2.3 ... |
| New Zealand's 'Kyoto forests' sow seeds for emissions surge: Click here |
| Guardian: The government of New Zealand responded with some irritation to my column last week, which castigated a national strategy for meeting its Kyoto climate targets by allowing greenhouse gas emissions to rise by 22% from 1990 to 2007. All was well, it said. The 600,000 hectares of forests that were planted in the 1990s would soak up all the excess CO2 – around 90m tonnes of it between 2008 and 2012. In fact, the country was likely to be ahead of its Kyoto target of stabilising emissions ... |
| Renewables take the lead in Australia's new power developments: Click here |
| Business Green: Wind farms will account for 20 per cent of Australian power projects coming online in the next few years, according to a government report thast credits the introduction renewable energy laws as the main driver by the recent surge in new low carbon energy projects. The study found that nine out of 18 new power developments that were either committed or under construction as of 31 October were renewable energy projects. Eight were wind farms, while one was a hydroelectricity scheme, ... |
| India PM heads to U.S. in test of ties with Obama: Click here |
| Reuters: ndia's prime minister and U.S. President Barack Obama meet next week to strengthen ties, with the emerging Asian power increasingly playing a bigger role on global issues such as climate change and trade. Manmohan Singh's three-day state visit starting on November 23 is seen by New Delhi as a touchstone of Obama's intention of sustaining a relationship that deepened under his predecessor George W. Bush. India is also widely seen as a key geopolitical player in helping bring ... |
| EU urges Russia to step up fight on climate change: Click here |
| Reuters: Russia toughened its plans to curb harmful greenhouse gas emissions on Wednesday in a rare encouraging development before United Nations climate talks next month. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said President Dmitry Medvedev had promised Russia would reduce emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020. Russia had previously said it would cut emissions by 10-15 percent. The deepening cut from a 1990 baseline nevertheless puts Russian emissions on an upward ... |
| Australian heatwave in carbon trade battle: Click here |
| Reuters: Australia's government demanded on Thursday that conservative rivals stop opposing carbon trade laws, citing a heatwave searing the country's biggest cities as evidence of Australia's vulnerability to climate change. With Australia on bushfire alert, the government said record temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) across three states this week showed the need to act urgently against climate change. "November this year has seen a long and intense heatwave across ... |
| As controversial as his message, Gore insists on switch to clean energy and a new politics: Click here |
| Oregonian: Though we're pumping more global warming pollutants into the air, fewer of us believe we're really changing the climate. And the prospects for agreements within and among nations to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide keep getting delayed. Now the person most responsible for raising public consciousness on climate change, Nobel laureate and former Vice President Al Gore, is touring the country to tell us how to avert the calamities he has long projected. In ... |
| U.S. to help China develop inventory of its greenhouse gas emissions: Click here |
| Washington Post: The United States and China have agreed to cooperate on developing an inventory of China's greenhouse gas emissions, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday, an initiative that appears be a response to criticism of Beijing's data collection. Several senators whose votes are key to passage of domestic climate legislation, including Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), have questioned whether they will be able to trust any greenhouse gas reductions China reports to the international ... |
| 'Climate change pushes poor women to prostitution, dangerous work': Click here |
| GMA: Effects of climate change have driven women in communities in coastal areas in poor countries like the Philippines to risk dangerous jobs, and sometimes even into the flesh trade. Suneeta Mukherjee, country representative of the United Nations Food Population Fund (UNFPA), said women in the Philippines are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change in the country. "Climate change could reduce income from farming and fishing possibly driving some women into sex work ... |
| A carbon target for Copenhagen: Click here |
| Washington Post: CLIMATE CHANGE was at the top of President Obama's agenda in China Tuesday, just three weeks before representatives from 192 countries meet in Copenhagen for a much-anticipated international climate conference. And he came tantalizingly close to saying what the rest of the world has been waiting years to hear: that next month the United States, the largest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases, will finally come to the table with a specific carbon reduction target. In a news ... |
| US Senate postpones climate bill: Click here |
| Australian: BARACK Obama will attend climate-change talks in Copenhagen next month with no domestic US laws in place to back his position, after Senate leaders confirmed yesterday that debate on legislation would be delayed until next year. The decision to put off debate on a climate-change bill that has already passed the US House of Representatives reflects a lack of time after congress has been sidetracked for weeks on far-reaching health reforms. But the delay until March - a blow to ... |
| California Requires TVs To Be More Energy Efficient: Click here |
| Associated Press: Power-hungry TVs will be banned from store shelves in California after state regulators adopted a first-in-the nation mandate to lower electricity demand. On a unanimous vote, the California Energy Commission on Wednesday required all new televisions up to 58 inches to be more energy efficient beginning in 2011. The requirement will be tougher in 2013, and only a quarter of all TVs on the market currently meet that standard. The California Energy Commission estimates that TVs ... |
| Seas Are Struggling to Absorb Emissions: Click here |
| New York Times: The Earth's oceans, which have absorbed carbon dioxide from fuel emissions since the dawn of the industrial era, have recently grown less efficient at sopping it up, new research suggests. Emissions from the burning of fossil fuels began soaring in the 1950s, and oceans largely kept up, scientists say. But the growth in the intake rate has slowed since the 1980s, and markedly so since 2000, the authors of a study write in a report in Thursday's issue of Nature. The research ... |
| Higher Temperatures May Be Behind Pine Growth: Click here |
| National Public Radio: Ancient bristlecone pine trees found in certain parts of California and Nevada have been growing at an unprecedented rate in the last 50 years. According to a recent study, this growth has most likely been caused by warmer temperatures. Malcolm Hughes, one of the study's lead researchers and a professor of dendrochronology at the University of Arizona's Laboratory for Tree-Ring Research, offers his insight. |
| Green technologies in peril as rich nations dither on climate deal: Click here |
| Guardian: Vital business investment in clean technology to tackle climate change is being threatened by delays and doubts over the Copenhagen deal on climate change, senior figures have told the Guardian. Without urgent progress which will stimulate funding for renewables, nations could be locked into high-carbon energy and transport technologies for decades, inflating another unsustainable economic bubble, they fear. Achim Steiner, the head of the UN environment programme, said: "Far ... |
| Sinking Global Warming: Is There a Reliable Way to Track Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Levels?: Click here |
| Scientific American: The planet soaks up excess carbon dioxide via oceans, plants and soils, among other natural systems, locking away some of the greenhouse gases emitted by burning fossil fuels. In fact, every year these natural "sinks" absorb a larger and larger tonnage of emissions--but thanks to the increasing amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases dumped in the atmosphere by human activity, the proportion that is reabsorbed is beginning to dwindle, according to new studies. As efforts get underway ... |
| U.S. boosts coal mining oversight to fight pollution: Click here |
| Reuters: The U.S. Interior Department said on Wednesday it would immediately strengthen oversight of surface coal mining programs and draw up new regulations to protect streams polluted by mining operations. The action comes after a U.S. court in August blocked an attempt by the Obama administration to overturn a Bush administration rule that made it easier for coal mining companies to dump mountaintop debris into valley streams. The court said the department should have followed ... |
| Model Helena Christensen examines climate change in Peru: Click here |
| Agence France-Presse: Supermodel-turned-photographer Helena Christensen urged politicians and world leaders to commit to real changes at the upcoming Copenhagen climate talks, as she launched a photo exhibition in London documenting climate change in Peru. Christensen, who is half-Danish, half-Peruvian, travelled to her mother's native country to capture the effects of climate change on the indigenous people, in a joint project with Oxfam. The resulting images, a selection of colour and ... |
| Norway and Guyana sign rainforest deal: Click here |
| Independent (UK): Guyana and Norway yesterday hailed a historic agreement that will see the Scandinavian country invest $250m (£150m) to preserve the rainforests of the Latin America nation. With world leaders warning that no legally binding agreement will be possible at the climate summit in Copenhagen next month, the two comparative minnows completed one of the biggest forest conservation deals ever signed. Both sides signalled their intention to "provide the world with a working example of how ... |
| Birth control: the most effective way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions: Click here |
| Times (UK): Investing in birth control to reduce population growth could be more effective in cutting greenhouse gas emissions than building wind turbines or nuclear power stations, according to a United Nations report. Taking action to prevent one billion births by 2050 would save as much carbon dioxide as constructing 2 million giant wind turbines. The UN Population Fund report predicts that the global population could reach 10.5 billion by 2050, up from 6.8 billion today, unless urgent action ... |
| Forest Service says trees can slow climate change: Click here |
| Associated Press: National forests can be used as a carbon "sink" with vast numbers of trees absorbing carbon dioxide to help slow global warming, the Forest Service chief said Wednesday, but that goal must be balanced. He's also concerned about the risk of catastrophic wildfires that produce massive amounts of carbon dioxide. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell said his agency is trying to manage forests to combat climate change while still easing the risk of wildfires that have increased in ... |
| Women neglected by debate on climate change: Click here |
| Irish Times: WOMEN IN developing countries are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, but their plight has been largely overlooked in the debate over how to tackle the issue, according to a United Nations report published yesterday. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) report, Facing a Changing World: Women, Population and Climate Change, details how climate change threatens to widen the gap between rich and poor and amplify gender inequalities. Slower population growth in both developed ... |
| No Plan B for planet if climate deal not agreed: Click here |
| Irish Times: NEVER WAS a global conference so hyped up as a make-or-break event as the UN climate summit due to take place next month in Copenhagen. As 15,000 participants, plus many more observers, made their travel arrangements, the stage seemed set for a historic agreement that would start the recovery for a world staring into the abyss of dangerous climate change. Responsible groups throughout all 192 countries participating in the event had done their bit to sensitise those in authority as to ... |
| Climate change seen turning deadly by 2100: Click here |
| Global Times: Global temperatures will increase by an average of 6 degrees C by the end of the century as CO2 emissions continue to outstrip the ability of the world's natural "sinks" to absorb carbon, a group of scientists said Tuesday in calling for drastic action to combat such emissions. By studying 50 years of data on carbon emissions, an international team of 30 climate specialists with the Global Carbon Project deduced that the natural sinks soaking up dangerous greenhouse gases are becoming ... |
| US and China discuss climate change: Click here |
| United Press International: U.S. President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, on Tuesday pledged a "vigorous response" to climate change, saying they would work toward a global agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In a joint statement, the two nations -- the world's largest producers of greenhouse gases -- said climate change was "one of the greatest challenges of our time." They said they agreed that a "vigorous response is necessary and that international cooperation is ... |
| Women Central to Adaptation, Mitigation: Click here |
| Inter Press Service: Poor women will bear the greatest 'climate burden', says the United Nations Population Fund in its 2009 State of the World Population report, released today. The report emphasises that climate change is more than an issue of energy efficiency or industrial carbon emissions; it is also an issue of population dynamics, poverty and gender equity. Poor and vulnerable populations the world over are the ones who will be hardest hit by climate change, despite their comparatively ... |
| Report: UK skills inadequate for low-carbon economy: Click here |
| Business Green: The UK does not have the necessary skills to transition to a low-carbon economy without the help of foreign companies, according to a major new report from the Aldersgate Group to be released later today at an event in Westminster. The green business think-tank will warn that the UK's emerging low-carbon industries are facing severe skills shortages and recommend that all major environmental policies, such as increased subsidies for offshore wind or the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, ... |
| Palm Oil-Powered Plant Supply Heat To German Homes: Click here |
| Bernama: Despite adverse publicity on palm oil, the commodity has proven its efficiency as a fuel to supply heat to nearly 35,000 German homes. A combined heat and power plant operated by Vattenhall Europe at Weigandufer, near here, has been running on natural gas, coal and a portion of palm oil supplied by Malaysia's IOI Group refinery in Rotterdam. "There is an estimated 40 miles of piping to various homes. The certified sustainable palm oil (CSPO) is doing a humble effort in keeping ... |
| Can Copenhagen still be saved?: Click here |
| Spiegel: The chances of a binding agreement being reached at the UN Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen seem slimmer than ever. But environmentalists still see a small chance of progress at the December meeting. A few short months ago, it seemed almost inconceivable that the UN Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen would end with anything less than a binding, legal agreement. The political pressure on the industrial states was too great, the expectations of their inhabitants too ... |
| Don't blame U.S. for standoff in international climate talks, senators say: Click here |
| New York Times: The Senate's failure to approve sweeping global warming legislation should not be blamed for a failure to reach a global agreement on greenhouse gas emissions at U.N. talks in Copenhagen, two key senators said today. "You know what, we'd get blamed at Copenhagen if we acted or if we didn't act," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. "It is what it is." The committee chairman, Democrat Jeff Bingaman of ... |
| Coal towns remain the heartbeat of China's economy: Click here |
| New York Times: The black metal gates clang shut, and about a dozen miners lean against the grate in blue overalls and headlamps fastened atop yellow hard hats. The ride down feels endless, dropping nearly a thousand feet into the bowels of the Jing Hua Gong mine. Once at the bottom, the elevator door opens and the men stoop and squeeze into a small locomotive. Like a bleak Disney ride, the train chugs through the darkness, passing decades of standing coal seams, taking the miners almost 2 miles into ... |
| Climate model sets tough targets: Click here |
| Nature: Carbon dioxide emissions will have to be all but eliminated by the end of this century if the world is to avoid a temperature rise of more than 2 ºC, scientists warned yesterday. And it might even be necessary to start sucking greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. The findings are the culmination of five years work by Ensembles, a major European research consortium led by the UK Met Office Hadley Centre and involving 65 other research institutes worldwide. In the first study of its ... |
| Indiana Dunes threatened by climate change, report warns: Click here |
| Chicago Tribune: About a decade ago, the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore had one of the country's largest populations of the Karner blue butterfly. The nickel-size insects feasted on the national park's bountiful wild lupine and relied on northwest Indiana's heavy snowfall to protect its eggs in winter for spring hatching. But the butterfly's population has declined in recent years, and some researchers are pointing to, among other things, warmer winters, less snowfall and other weather-related ... |
| Rising CO2 could cause catastrophic sea level rise finds Antarctic study: Click here |
| Telegraph: The British Antarctic Survey found that during past periods of high carbon dioxide, temperatures in Antarctica were up to 6C above current levels. This could cause a sea level rise of up six metres, threatening coastal cities like London, New York and San Francisco. It is the latest research to warn of the consequences of increased greenhouse gases on the Earth's climate. Yesterday a study warned that carbon dioxide produced by man is now rising at record rates putting the world on a ... |
| Dutch to pursue carbon storage project: Click here |
| Reuters: A project to capture and store carbon dioxide underground near the Dutch town of Barendrecht will go ahead in phases, the Dutch Economy and Environment ministers said on Wednesday, despite local opposition to the plan. Initially a small storage test site will be constructed, and will be followed by a larger site as long as no complications emerge in the test phase, the ministers said in a statement. The concerns of locals had been taken into account but the ministers argued that ... |
| Human Emissions Rise 2 Percent Despite GFC: Click here |
| redOrbit: Despite the economic effects of the global financial crisis (GFC), carbon dioxide emissions from human activities rose 2 percent in 2008 to an all-time high of 1.3 tons of carbon per capita per year, according to a paper published Nov. 17 in Nature Geoscience. The paper – by scientists from the internationally respected climate research group, the Global Carbon Project (GCP) – says rising emissions from fossil fuels last year were caused mainly by increased use of coal but there were ... |
| Colo. company starts work on biofuel facility: Click here |
| Associated Press: A Colorado company that has developed a process to convert wood to fuel is starting construction of what will eventually be a commercial-scale production plant. Lakewood-based ZeaChem Inc. is working with Hazen Research of Golden to build the first units of its biofuels refinery. ZeaChem President and CEO Jim Imbler says the company will transfer the modular units to Boardman, Ore., where it will eventually run a commercial refinery. ZeaChem plans to start production at a ... |
| The Sisyphus from Nairobi: How the UN's Climate Advocate Wants to Save the World: Click here |
| Spiegel: |
| U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry: Click here |
| Reuters: Carin Froehlich pegs her laundry to three clotheslines strung between trees outside her 18th-century farmhouse, knowing that her actions annoy local officials who have asked her to stop. Froehlich is among the growing number of people across America fighting for the right to dry their laundry outside against a rising tide of housing associations who oppose the practice despite its energy-saving green appeal. Although there are no formal laws in this southeast Pennsylvania town ... |
| Hidden threat: Elevated pollution levels near regional airports: Click here |
| ScienceDaily: Scientists are reporting evidence that air pollution -- a well-recognized problem at major airports -- may pose an important but largely overlooked health concern for people living near smaller regional airports. Those airports are becoming an increasingly important component of global air transport systems. The study, one of only a handful to examine airborne pollutants near regional airports, suggests that officials should pay closer attention to these overlooked emissions, which could ... |
| Oceans' ability to sequester carbon diminishing: Click here |
| Mongabay: A new study--the first of its kind--has completed an annual accounting of the oceans' intake of carbon over the past 250 years, and the news is troubling. According to the study, published in Nature, the oceans' ability to sequester carbon is struggling to keep-up with mankind's ever-growing emissions. Since 2000 researchers estimate that while every year the oceans continue to sequester more anthropogenic carbon emission, the overall proportion of carbon taken in by the oceans is ... |
| United States: Poet reduces cellulosic ethanol production costs: Click here |
| Associated Press: Poet LLC, the nation's top ethanol producer, says it is has reduced its cellulosic ethanol production cost during the past year from $4.13 per gallon to $2.35 per gallon. The Sioux Falls-based company plans to produce 25 million gallons of ethanol each year from plant waste typically left behind in farmers' fields at its corn ethanol plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa. A pilot-scale plant in Scotland, S.D., has produced about 20,000 gallons of cellulosic ethanol since it began ... |
| India adopts single pollution standard norms: Click here |
| Agence France-Presse: India on Wednesday tightened air quality rules and said it will enforce a single standard for industrial and residential pollution. The Revised National Ambient Air Quality Standards rule would lead to the use of "clean fuel" to lower emissions, Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh said. The announcement came less than a month before the December 7-18 climate change summit in Copenhagen. India, among the world's biggest polluters, has come under international pressure ... |
| Little hope for Copenhagen climate talks: Click here |
| Times of India: Leave aside a binding agreement on climate change, the 190-country Copenhagen conference on December 7 is unlikely to throw up even a political statement of high-sounding sentiments on the need to save the planet -- a statement, which countries were hoping, would give the direction for hammering out an agreement next year. The setback came in the just-concluded two-day ministerial meeting at Copenhagen on November 16-17, where persistent schisms on even most basic things such as a ... |
| Russia ready for deeper emissions cut: EU: Click here |
| Agence France-Presse: Russia is ready to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 to 25 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels, raising its target from 15 percent just weeks ahead of a UN climate summit, the EU said Wednesday. "With the Copenhagen conference starting in just over two weeks, we have made very important progress today and I very much welcome the signal from President Medvedev today of their proposed emissions reduction target of 20 to 25 percent," Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European ... |
| The cleaner alternatives to America's asphalt jungle: Click here |
| Guardian: In the 40 years since Joni Mitchell sang about paving paradise, putting up parking lots remains an American obsession. Scientists estimate that up to 10% of land in US cities is now devoted to car parks, causing environmental damage whether they are used by Humvees or hybrids. Stormwater run-off from roads, drains and parking dumps the equivalent of more than a dozen Exxon Valdez tankers of oil directly into US rivers each year, in addition to dangerous levels of heavy metals, ... |
| Indigenous groups key in climate change debate: Zoellick: Click here |
| Agence France-Presse: World Bank chief Robert Zoellick said Wednesday it was critical for indigenous people to be included in climate change talks, saying they were among groups most affected by global warming. Two weeks before the opening of a major United Nations conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Zoellick said indigenous peoples carried a "disproportionate share of the burden of climate change effects." He spoke at a Washington roundtable that brought together native and tribal group ... |
| Women 'bearing brunt' of climate change: Click here |
| CNN: On the steep, dusty slopes of the Chacaltaya mountains, thousands of meters above sea level in the Bolivian Andes, the hardy farmers tending root crops or herding llamas have no need of scientists or climatologists to measure the impact of global warming. For as long as anyone can remember, communities such as the village of Botijlaca have relied on melting ice flowing down from the Chacaltaya glacier as a source of drinking water, to irrigate their crops and water their ... |
| Venezuela's president goes cloud bombing to ease drought: Click here |
| Scotsman: VENEZUELA'S president Hugo Chavez has said he will join a team of Cuban scientists on flights to "bomb clouds" to create rain amid a severe drought that has aroused public anger due to water and electricity rationing. Chavez, who has asked Venezuelans to take three-minute showers to save water, said the Cubans had arrived in Venezuela and were preparing to fly specially equipped aircraft above the Orinoco river. "I'm going in a plane; any cloud that crosses me, I'll zap it so that it ... |
| Chinese wind turbine firm plans U.S. plant: Click here |
| Reuters: China's A-Power Energy Generation Systems <APWR.O> has signed a cooperation agreement with equity firm U.S. Renewable Energy Group to build a plant in the United States to supply wind energy turbines to renewable energy projects in North and South America. The joint announcement in Washington late on Monday came three weeks after A-Power said it planned a $1.5 billion wind farm project in West Texas along with U.S. companies, Monday's announcement said the turbine plant is ... |
| Australia: 'Code Red' as heat intensifies: Click here |
| SAPA: Australian officials issued their first ever "catastrophic" wildfire evacuation warning on Tuesday, as a parching heatwave intensified over the country's south. Created in the wake of February's devastating Black Saturday firestorm, which killed 173 people, the new warning urges residents to flee due to conditions being at their most extreme. It replaced a "stay or go" policy allowing homeowners to remain and fight extremely risky blazes, which came under heavy criticism after ... |
| Copenhagen cop-out: The 'longest suicide note in history'?: Click here |
| Politics.co.uk: Procrastinating politicians are in danger of turning next month's climate change talks in Copenhagen into little more than a talking shop, a body of leading scientists and engineers has warned. The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM), a professional body for scientists and engineers, said it was "bitterly disappointed" the talks will not deliver a legally binding instrument forcing countries to reduce CO2 emissions. Their manifesto on ... |
| Copenhagen 'must produce targets': Click here |
| BBC: Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen has said there must be firm pledges on greenhouse gas reductions at December's climate talks in Copenhagen. Mr Rasmussen said he wanted delegates to put "numbers on the table" and reach a "concrete and binding" agreement. The summit will attempt to draw up a new global climate treaty to supplant the UN's 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Earlier, US President Barack Obama said the US and China agreed on the need for a comprehensive deal in ... |
| Emulating Western lifestyles: Consumption and carbon footprints in less industrialized countries: Click here |
| Physorg: In recent decades, a new global middle class has exploded, with a total population exceeding one billion people. A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research explores the consumption attitudes of some of these members of the "new class." "Our primary interest with this new class concerns climate change," write authors Tuba Üstüner (Colorado State University) and Douglas B. Holt (University of Oxford). "Many pundits and marketing experts claim that these consumers seek to emulate ... |
| Fossil fuel CO2 emissions up by 29 percent since 2000: Click here |
| Physorg: The strongest evidence yet that the rise in atmospheric CO2 emissions continues to outstrip the ability of the world's natural 'sinks' to absorb carbon is published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience. An international team of researchers under the umbrella of the Global Carbon Project reports that over the last 50 years the average fraction of global CO2 emissions that remained in the atmosphere each year was around 43 per cent - the rest was absorbed by the Earth's carbon ... |
| Fighting climate change by turning CO2 to stone: Click here |
| Physorg: While politicians debate the best ways to cut global carbon dioxide emissions, researchers at Idaho National Laboratory's Center for Advanced Energy Studies are charging ahead on a strategy to defuse the CO2 the world already produces. They want to inject the greenhouse gas deep underground, where it would react with rocks and remain, entombed, for thousands of years. CAES scientists have been studying this novel approach -- called mineral sequestration -- for years. They have ... |
| Africa agrees climate demand bill: Click here |
| BBC: African leaders meeting in Ethiopia say they have agreed on an amount of money to demand as compensation for the impact of climate change. However, they say they are keeping the figure secret ahead of December's international talks in Copenhagen. The announcement came as a panel of 10 African nations met in Addis Ababa to finalise a common stance. The Ethiopian leader said Africa should be compensated for the damage caused by developed countries to its growth. "We ... |
| United Kingdom: Carbon market clouded by uncertainty: Click here |
| BBC: The offices of London's carbon trading companies are a little quieter than usual. The firms - many based in the City - buy and sell one of the world's newest commodities: carbon dioxide. The trade in such permits allows polluters to pay for emissions reductions made elsewhere. The market could be huge, but its future is now uncertain. It depends on how governments decide to tackle climate change beyond 2012. The trade was first created by the Kyoto protocol in ... |
| Obama's mission impossible with China: Click here |
| Christian Science Monitor: Asian diplomats often say that just showing up is a large part of successful diplomacy. If so, President Obama has given US interests a strong boost with his eight-day trip across Asia, despite the "deliverables" – like a pledge from China to set specific limits on carbon emissions – that are missing from meetings with the region's leaders. Bringing his rhetorical skills and personal popularity to bear on the many issues that Washington faces on the Pacific's western rim, he has reassured ... |
| UN: Fight climate change with free condoms: Click here |
| Associated Press: The battle against global warming could be helped if the world slowed population growth by making free condoms and family planning advice more widely available, the U.N. Population Fund said Wednesday. The agency did not recommend countries set limits on how many children people should have, but said: "Women with access to reproductive health services ... have lower fertility rates that contribute to slower growth in greenhouse gas emissions." "As the growth of population, ... |
| Population link to climate change: UN report: Click here |
| Agence France-Presse: Braking the rise in Earth's population would be a major help in the fight against global warming, according to an unprecedented UN report published on Wednesday that draws a link between demographic pressure and climate change. "Slower population growth... would help build social resilience to climate change's impacts and would contribute to a reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions in the future," the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) says. Its 104-page document emphasises that ... |
| Searching For A Miracle: Net Energy Limits And The Fate Of Industrial Society: Click here |
| Countercurrents: This report is intended as a non-technical examination of a basic question: Can any combination of known energy sources successfully supply society's energy needs at least up to the year 2100? In the end, we are left with the disturbing conclusion that all known energy sources are subject to strict limits of one kind or another. Conventional energy sources such as oil, gas, coal, and nuclear are either at or nearing the limits of their ability to grow in annual supply, and will dwindle as ... |
| Dutch Cabinet: euro1B subsidy for wind turbine park -: Click here |
| Associated Press: The Dutch government has awarded a euro1 billion ($1.5 billion) subsidy for a new wind turbine park capable of generating 430 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 400,000 households. Economic Affairs Minister Maria van der Hoeven says the project is of "the very highest importance to achieve the goals that the Cabinet has with respect to sustainable energy." The Dutch generate about 3 percent of energy from renewable sources, and target 20 percent by 2020. The park ... |
| Dozen lesser-known chemicals have strong impact on climate change: Click here |
| ScienceDaily: Purdue University and NASA examined more than a dozen chemicals, most of which are generated by humans, and have developed a blueprint for the underlying molecular machinery of global warming. The results appear in a special edition of the American Chemical Society's Journal of Physical Chemistry A, released Nov. 12. The compounds, which contain fluorine atoms, are far more efficient at blocking radiation in the "atmospheric window," said Purdue Professor Joseph Francisco, who helped ... |
| A climate change warning we ignore at our peril: Click here |
| Independent (UK): Two years ago, the United Nation's International Panel on Climate Change forecast an increase in global temperatures by the end of the century of between 1.8C and 4C, depending on the success of nations in reducing their carbon emissions. But now an international team of scientists, led by Professor Corinne Le Quéré of the University of East Anglia, argues that the world is in fact on course for a 6C rise in temperature by 2100. These might sound like small numbers. But their implications ... |
| Climate Change Likely to Increase African Hunger Woes: Click here |
| Inter Press Service: Africa, the continent already most affected by hunger and food scarcity, is likely to see its woes increased due to climate change and the changing rain patterns it provokes, experts and scientists say. According to data gathered by the German Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research, variability in the rain patterns in Africa, especially in the Western region, has substantially increased since the early 1980s. Harald Kunstmann, director of the institute, says that while ... |
| UNFPA Puts Human Face on Climate Blowback: Click here |
| Inter Press Service: A new U.N. report on the hazards of climate change brings a fresh human perspective to an ongoing wide-ranging debate that has focused primarily on energy efficiency and industrial carbon emissions. Climate change is much more than greenhouse-gas emissions, says the study by the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), it is also population dynamics, poverty and gender equity. "As the growth of population, economies and consumption outpaces the earth's capacity to adjust, climate change ... |
| To Grab, Or To Invest: Click here |
| Inter Press Service: The World Food Security Summit in Rome this week opened up a dispute between what may be investment in farmland to some, but is seen as land grab by others. There has been widespread alarm at a recent acceleration in purchases of farmland in developing countries, above all Africa, primarily by investors from the Middle and Far East. The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the summit's host, said it is estimated that up to 20 million hectares of African land have ... |
| India: A Famed Region's Triple Whammy of Environmental Bane: Click here |
| Inter Press Service: The combined impact of tourism, climate change and changing lifestyle in this internationally renowned adventure haven has raised serious concerns among environmental groups. A booming tourism is depleting scarce water resource that has already borne the brunt of changing climate patterns. This, while a growing number of people--influenced by a steady of influx of tourists whose lifestyles are manifest to all--are shifting to a consumerist way of living that is causing further ... |
| New climate treaty could put species at risk, scientists argue: Click here |
| ScienceDaily: Plans to be discussed at the forthcoming UN climate conference in Copenhagen to cut deforestation in developing countries could save some species from extinction but inadvertently increase the risk to others, scientists believe. A team of eleven of the world's top tropical forest scientists, coordinated by the University of Leeds, warn that while cutting clearance of carbon-rich tropical forests will help reduce climate change and save species in those forests, governments could risk ... |
| Led by China, carbon pollution up despite economy: Click here |
| Associated Press: Pollution typically declines during a recession. Not this time. Despite a global economic slump, worldwide carbon dioxide pollution jumped 2 percent last year, most of the increase coming from China, according to a study published online Tuesday. "The growth in emissions since 2000 is almost entirely driven by the growth in China," said study lead author Corinne Le Quere of the University of East Anglia. "It's China and India and all the developing countries together." Carbon ... |
| Obama, Hu vow cooperation but produce few deals: Click here |
| Associated Press: President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao promised a determined, joint effort to tackle climate change, nuclear disarmament and other global troubles yet emerged from their first full-blown summit Tuesday with scant progress beyond goodwill. After two hours of talks and a separate meeting over dinner the night before, the presidents spoke of moving beyond the divisiveness over human rights, trade and military tensions that have bedeviled relations in past ... |
| World on course for catastrophic 6° rise, reveal scientists: Click here |
| Independent (UK): The world is now firmly on course for the worst-case scenario in terms of climate change, with average global temperatures rising by up to 6C by the end of the century, leading scientists said yesterday. Such a rise -- which would be much higher nearer the poles -- would have cataclysmic and irreversible consequences for the Earth, making large parts of the planet uninhabitable and threatening the basis of human civilisation. We are headed for it, the scientists said, because the ... |
| Obama aims for Copenhagen agreement that can take immediate effect: Click here |
| Times (UK): President Obama has attempted to restore confidence in international negotiations on climate change by saying that next month's UN summit in Copenhagen should deliver an agreement on emissions with "immediate operational effect'. The US President was speaking yesterday in Beijing two days after his officials had ruled out signing a legally binding treaty in Copenhagen. "Our aim is not a partial accord or a political declaration but rather an accord that covers all of the issues in the ... |
| United Kingdom: John Healey unveils proposal to do away with planning permission for wind turbines: Click here |
| Times (UK): Wind turbines standing as high as 15 metres (50ft) will be allowed on farmland and industrial estates without planning permission, under proposals to boost renewable energy. The turbines will be approved across large areas of the countryside, provided they meet noise and impact restrictions. John Healey, the housing minister, also announced plans to fast-track applications for solar panels on stadiums, schools, railway stations and offices, as part of proposals to achieve ... |
| US should follow France, boost nuclear power: senator: Click here |
| Agence France-Presse: The United States should consider following France's lead and ramping up use of nuclear power in an effort to contain global warming, a senior US senator helping craft climate change legislation said Tuesday. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who is working with Democrat John Kerry on the bill, highlighted how France now derives 80 percent of its energy from nuclear power and is presently constructing a next-generation reactor, said to be the most advanced in the ... |
| Food seed banks need $250 million, experts warn: Click here |
| Reuters: Seed banks need a further $250 million to preserve all varieties of food crops including those which may best survive future climate changes, the Global Crop Diversity Trust said Wednesday. The crop trust is the main supporter of a seed vault in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, intended as a global back-up for food crops, and says it needs more money to complete that project and support other, more accessible seed banks worldwide. "The reality is that this is a resource ... |
| Obama: Rally the world for climate deal next month: Click here |
| Associated Press: President Barack Obama, with China's leader at his side, lifted his sights Tuesday for a broad interim accord at next month's climate conference that he said will lead to immediate action and "rally the world" toward a solution on global warming. Obama and President Hu Jintao talked of a joint desire to tackle climate change, but failed to move off differing positions on an root issue that could block a deal at the 192-nation conference in Copenhagen: how much each country can ... |
| Copenhagen climate change talks stall as CO2 emissions rise: Click here |
| Christian Science Monitor: Even as the Copenhagen climate change negotiations have moved into the slow lane, greenhouse gas emissions are accelerating, according to new evidence released today. Negotiators at a preparatory meeting for the December climate summit said on Tuesday that firm commitments from the US and other industrial heavyweights to curb greenhouse gas emissions at the meeting are now looking unlikely. A binding global treaty on emissions was the initial aim of the conference. Meanwhile, ... |
| U.S., China make progress in tackling climate change: Click here |
| Washington Post: Buried in the text of Tuesday's joint declaration between President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao was a hopeful clause about climate talks: The Obama administration is likely to offer emission-reduction targets at next month's climate summit, as long as the Chinese offer a proposal of their own. U.S. reluctance to set a short-term emissions goal has been a sticking point in the U.N.-sponsored talks for nearly a year. Almost all industrialized nations, and many developing ... |
| Small Islands Fear Going the Way of Atlantis: Click here |
| Inter Press Service: The world's small island states, most of which are painfully vulnerable to the ravages of climate change, have put the United Nations on notice. Dramatising the plight of Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS), Ambassador Stuart Beck of Palau warns that the 192-nation world body, which progressively kept growing from its original membership of 51 in 1945, is in danger of shrinking because some of its members may be wiped off the face of the earth. "This chilling ... |
| Brazil to Recover Leadership Role with CO2 Limits: Click here |
| Inter Press Service: Brazil's decision to adopt voluntary reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions is an indication that the planet's climate change emergency has joined strategic, economic and ideological issues as a new factor on the global political agenda. At the World Climate Change Conference to be held Dec. 7-18 in Copenhagen, the Brazilian government will table its commitment to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by between 36.1 percent and 38.9 percent of their business-as-usual levels by ... |
| Save Half the Planet, or Lose It All: Click here |
| Inter Press Service: At least half the planet must be protected if humanity is to survive the next century, declared conservationists at the conclusion of 9th World Wilderness Congress on Friday, Nov. 13. "That is what the science said, this is what many aboriginal people say," said Harvey Locke, the Wild Foundation's vice president of conservation strategy. "It's time to speak the simple truth: The whole thing unravels without protecting at least half of the planet," said Locke. A leading ... |
| United Kingdom: Biomass plants face wood supply risks: Click here |
| Business Green: The rapid expansion of the UK's biomass energy sector could be undermined unless businesses move to resolve the supply chain issues that could leave them struggling to find the wood supplies necessary to keep plants running. That is the stark warning contained in a report from analyst Verdantix, which predicts the expansion of large-scale biomass plants will leave generators largely reliant on biomass from overseas such as wood chips, elephant grass, palm kernels and olive ... |
| China, U.S. announce they'll work together on clean energy: Click here |
| McClatchy: President Barack Obama and President Hu Jintao agreed Tuesday that U.S. and Chinese scientists and engineers will work together to speed the widespread use of electric cars, buildings that need far less energy and coal-fired power plants that don't pump out gases that cause global warming. The collaboration will be a two-way street, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a phone interview from Beijing , where he was accompanying Obama. The U.S. stands to gain not only from an expanded ... |
| Climate change transforming humanitarian work: survey: Click here |
| Agence France-Presse: Climate change is the leading cause of new challenges for the humanitarian community, a survey of G20 governments commissioned by the Red Cross revealed Tuesday. As the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement gathered in Nairobi for their first ever global meeting in Africa, the "Believe in Humanity" survey warned that the humanitarian landscape was changing fast. "World powers expect humanitarian actors to face continuing or increasing humanitarian needs driven by ... |
| US, China vow action on climate change: Click here |
| CNN: China and the United States, the largest producers of greenhouse gases, will team up to fight climate change and create clean energy, their leaders said Tuesday. Chinese President Hu Jintao and President Obama said their nations will cooperate to advance technologies and work toward a global agreement on reducing carbon emissions. "As the two largest consumers and producers of energy, there can be no solution to this challenge without the efforts of both China and the United ... |
| US Senate to act on climate bill in 2010: Click here |
| Agence France-Presse: The US Senate will act in early 2010 on legislation to battle climate change, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday, ending hopes of a breakthrough by next month's global talks. "We are going to try to do that sometime in the spring," Reid told reporters, with a White House-backed push to remake US health care still dominating the Senate agenda just weeks before the congressional session ends. The decision confirms that the US Congress will not adopt ... |
| SKorea sets greenhouse gas reduction target: Click here |
| Associated Press: South Korea announced its first greenhouse gas reduction target Tuesday, pledging to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases by 4 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. The announcement came amid dimming prospects for a new global climate-change pact at next month's U.N. conference in Copenhagen. South Korea is not among countries that must cut emissions under the existing Kyoto Protocol, and Tuesday's voluntary target-setting could put pressure on developed nations ... |
