Bali Climate Change Conference Blog

WARMING TO GLOBAL WARMING

2008-11-25T07:01:00.000-08:00

David Staples , Canwest News Service

Published: Monday, November 24, 2008

EDMONTON - When it comes to guilty pleasures, there is a new one in Canada - walking out the door on a winter morning and instead of shivering in bitter cold, basking in unusually warm and pleasant weather.

The negative effects of global warming have been well-documented by activist politicians and scientists such as Al Gore and David Suzuki, but the positive effects have so far received less attention.

But a group of global-warming experts, made up mainly of university economists and anthropologists, is pushing the notion that global warming might not be an unmitigated disaster, especially for certain northerly regions, such as Canada, Russia and Scandinavia.

Leading the charge is Robert Mendelsohn, an economics professor at Yale University, who says the benefits of global warming for Canada - from a longer growing season to the opening up of shipping through the Northwest Passage - will outweigh the negative effects.

"You're lucky because you're a northern-latitude country, Mendelsohn says. "If you add it all up, it's a good thing for Canada."

Such benefits could well make Canadians feel ambivalent about taking measures to stop global warming, says economist Thomas Gale Moore, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute in California.

"When it comes down to doing something about global warming, it quickly turns out to be kind of expensive and certain people . . . would look out and say, 'Wow, global warming, that's going to be nice. I don't want to spend any money stopping that.' "

Of course, not all countries will benefit from the warmer, wetter world of global warming, Mendelsohn says. Poor counties will especially struggle, as they lack the resources to adapt.

But, on the whole, moderate climate change of an additional two degrees will likely be beneficial for the world, says Benny Peiser, an anthropologist at John Moores University in Liverpool, England.

For countries like Canada and Russia, though, even more dramatic warming wouldn't be a problem, Peiser says. "They could cope with that kind of increase, though other regions might struggle."

Grave concerns about human health, and even human extinction, have been put forward in the global warming debate. British scientist James Lovelock, who predicts a rise of eight degrees in temperate areas and five degrees in the tropics this century, says the tropics will become scrub and desert, leading to unparalleled human suffering: "Before this century is over, billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable."

But Peiser considers Lovelock to be alarmist and expects the rise in temperature to follow the current slow upward trend, which will prove beneficial to human health. "Unless there is a very significant and dramatic increase in the warming, the benefits will outweigh the problems."

Humankind's affinity for warmer weather is ancient and rational, says Peiser, an expert on how past civilizations have handled natural disasters. The world's temperature has fluctuated in the past and civilizations have struggled to adapt, but the big problem has always been global cooling. "In periods of warming you always had thriving societies, and the periods that were troubling for societies were the cold periods, obviously because that's when agriculture suffers."

The Little Ice Age in Europe, which is believed to have lasted from 1300 to the mid-1800s, was a terrible time for European societies, with recurrent crop failure and starvation, Peiser says. But over the last 150 years, there's been a warming of 0.7 or 0.8 degrees, a moderate increase.

"By in large we've had fantastic progress in economic development and social development. . . . It's been extremely beneficial."

The link between warm weather and good times is so ingrained that in the 1970s, when scientists started to raise alarms about a new global cooling and a new ice age, economists such as Moore shared in the alarm. It struck him as odd, then, when only a few years later grave concerns started to be expressed about global warming, as all kinds of benefits are associated with warmer climate.

Warmer temperatures will mean more tourists for Canada, reports Richard Tol of the Economic and Social Research Institute in Ireland. The optimal annual average temperature for a tourist destination is now found in cities like Barcelona and Atlanta. Canada will see a 220-per-cent increase in tourists this century, followed by Russia at 174 per cent, Tol told USA Today.

Winter sports, such as skiing, won't be hit hard in Canada in the short term as in the U.S. - in fact, business will shift north to Canadian resorts with more snow, Mendelsohn said. "Eventually it will catch up to your own resorts, and then it will be bad."

In the long run, though, increased tourism in the summer will more than make up for any loss to winter ski resorts, Mendelsohn says.

When it's warm out, people tend to be healthier, Moore says, pointing out that diseases like the flu strike hardest in winter, not summer. A British study says that an increase of two degrees over the next 50 years will increase heat-related deaths by 2,000 in Britain, but would cut cold-related deaths by 20,000, Peiser says.

The effects of increased summer heat can be handled with more air conditioning. "As long as economies grow and living standards rise, then people will be less vulnerable to whatever the temperature is," Peiser says. "Canada won't really have a lot of problems. The main problems will be in developing or underdeveloped countries that even today have problems with high cold or high temperatures."

In his work, Mendelsohn and his colleagues look at economic impacts of global warming, but focus mostly on agriculture, because this is the realm most affected by global warming. "With agriculture we think that's going to be a big benefit for Canada," Mendelsohn says.

No new farm land is suddenly going to be developed - so no peach orchards in Yellowknife - but the current agricultural belt will get warmed up and become more productive. Some high-value crops, like corn and soybeans, that can mainly be grown in the U.S., will be grown more commonly in Canada, Mendelsohn says.

"The more the temperature rises, the bigger the benefits will be (for agriculture). As far as Canada is concerned, over the next century whether it's a two-degree rise or a five-degree rise, it's probably going to be beneficial."

Forests will become more productive, Mendelsohn says. The northern forests will expand into the tundra and the southern forests will grow better. The types of trees in different regions will change. Fire and disease might well take out old forests, but Mendelsohn says forestry companies can also be allowed to go in and take out at-risk trees. "Rather than let it be destroyed naturally, you harvest it into the marketplace and then just let the natural systems replace what should be there next."

As for the downside for agriculture, in tropical countries agriculture will decline just as the agricultural production in Canada increases. Tropical countries won't have enough water to maintain current production. Farmers there already grow crops that can barely survive hot and dry conditions. "If it gets any hotter, they basically are out of business," Mendelsohn says.

It's crucial to note that while overall precipitation is predicted to go up in Canada, that precipitation will come in winter, not in summer during the growing season, says geographer David Sauchyn, a professor at the University of Regina, who recently led a federal government study on the impacts of climate change on the prairies.

There will be opportunities for Canadian farmers, Sauchyn says, but only if they can take advantage of the increased summer heat and winter precipitation. Canada is a rich, skilled and technological country, but the federal and provincial governments will still have to follow the right policies, especially when it comes to water conservation. "The problem is that governments, provincial and federal, have shown thus far little political will to develop policy and programs to make those adaptations," Sauchyn says.

Mendelsohn's optimistic outlook for Canada is based on average annual rises in temperature and precipitation, but this overlooks how things might be in exceptionally dry and hot years, Sauchyn says.

Any gains that come from an increased growing season in some years could be wiped out by a lengthy drought, Sauchyn says.

"A shift in the distribution of water from season to season and from year to year and from basin to basin, is by far the most challenging scenario under climate change."

With global warming, the ocean level will also rise, but this shouldn't be a big issue in Canada, because most of the country's coastal areas are uninhabited, and it won't be significant if some of that land is claimed by the ocean, Mendelsohn says. Populated areas will fight back by building higher. "It turns out not to be a big issue. The land is extremely valuable and people will defend it."

Things will be more difficult, though, in impoverished and low-lying areas like Bangladesh. It will be more cost effective to try to help such areas to adapt than it will be to bring in costly measures to try to rapidly end global warming, Moore says.

If Canadians conclude that global warming is a benefit, the issue will present a moral challenge, says philosophy professor Nathan Kowalsky of the University of Alberta. "Even though it's in our personal interest to perpetuate climate change, it might be better on whole to actually say, 'No, we should actually try to mitigate this right now.' . . . It's wrong for us to create global warming so that we get benefits and it basically floods other countries."

Mendelsohn agrees: "If Canada is a well-meaning member of the world community, Canadians might want to stop (global warming) because it's bad for the world.

"It's important that we start trying to control greenhouse gases . . . Eventually it's going to get too warm. Damages will far exceed the benefits."

In the end, civilization won't be brought down by global warming, Mendelsohn believes. "There's an enormous amount of adaptations we can undertake. And at least the stuff that is going to happen this century, we will be able to adapt to it.

"I'm not saying that climate change is a non-issue. It is an issue and it is going to cause damages. It's just that it's not the calamity that people say. People exaggerate how bad it is."

© Edmonton Journal 2008

Source: Canada.com

How global warming will become more dangerous

2008-11-25T06:58:00.000-08:00

Researchers at Toronto University here have found that global warming will change the molecular structure of organic matter in soil, thus altering its natural decomposition process and affecting fertility as well as releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The release of more carbon dioxide will set in motion a self-perpetuating process - more carbon dioxide will speed up global warming. In turn, speeded-up global warming will lead to more release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and so on.

"Soil contains more than twice the amount of carbon than does the atmosphere, yet, until now, scientists haven't examined this significant carbon pool closely," said a university statement quoting study leader Myrna Simpson.

"Through our research, we've sought to determine what soils are made up of at the molecular level and whether this composition will change in a warmer world," she said.

According to the researchers, it is soil organic matter which makes dirt fertile and support plant life.

Organic matter retains water in the soil and prevents erosion. Natural processes of decomposition of soil organic matter provide plants and microbes with the energy source and water they need to grow, they said.

Carbon is released into the atmosphere as a by-product of this process, the researchers added.

Since global warming is expected to speed up the decomposition of soil organic matter, it will lead to an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.

"From the perspective of agriculture, we can't afford to lose carbon from the soil because it will change soil fertility and enhance erosion," said Simpson.

"Alternatively, consider all the carbon locked up in permafrost in the Arctic. We also need to understand what will happen to the stored carbon when microbes become more active under warmer temperatures," she said.

As soil is difficult to analyse, not much has been known about its molecular composition till now. But Simpson and her team used the new nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) facility at the university to study soil's molecular structure.

During their 14-month outdoor field experiment, the team used electrodes that warmed the test soil between three and six degrees through winter and summer seasons and then analysed the molecular composition of soil samples.

From their analysis, they came to the conclusion that global warming actually changes the molecular structure of organic matter in soil.

The findings have been published in Nature Geoscience journal.

Source: The Times Of India

UN Press Conference on new United Nations in-house Climate change initiative

2008-07-31T06:36:00.001-07:00

Seeking to lead by example in addressing climate change, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was launching a "Cool UN" initiative today to reduce energy consumption and the carbon footprint of United Nations Headquarters, Michael Adlerstein, Executive Director of the Capital Master Plan, said at a Headquarters press conference this morning.

Accompanied by Janos Pasztor, Director of the Secretary-General's Climate Change Support Team, Mr. Adlerstein said the campaign would reduce the use of air conditioning, cut greenhouse gas emissions and save money. During a month-long trial period in August, the thermostats would be turned up from 72° F (22.2° C) to 77° F (25° C) in most parts of the Secretariat building and from 70° F (21.1° C) to 75° F (23.9° C) in the conference rooms, Mr. Adlerstein said. Accompanied by a relaxed "business casual" dress code, the campaign would also involve shutting down the buildings' heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems over the weekends.

Mr. Adlerstein, the official in charge of the Organization's massive renovations, said that, in launching the campaign, the Secretary-General had said: "We have succeeded in moving climate change to the top of the international agenda for action, and this means that the UN must take action itself. We must lead by example, and if we are to ask others to take action, we must do so as well."

The initiative would save some 4.4 billion pounds of steam during the month of August, or the equivalent of 300 tons of carbon dioxide in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, he said. That equalled an approximate 10 per cent reduction in energy consumption. It would also produce cash savings estimated at $100,000. If successful, the test would be extended.

In the winter months, the process would be reversed, with a 5° F reduction in the thermostat settings, he said, estimating that winter energy savings would be somewhat larger than the summer reduction, lowering energy costs by about $1 million for the year. The environmental benefit of the campaign, on a year-round basis, would result in the reduction of emissions by some 2,800 tons of carbon dioxide. The initiative would also encourage staff to explore other innovative ideas for making the United Nations a model in the global fight against climate change.

Mr. Pasztor said that, as negotiations moved forward in preparation for Copenhagen at the end of next year, climate change issues were increasingly visible on the international political agenda. "Clearly, we must act, and the Secretary-General is doing everything he can to mobilize action and, indeed, unprecedented action to move forward on climate change." People must reflect on how they live and work, and the Secretary-General was seeking to raise awareness and find solutions. He was also engaged in bringing together a coherent response to climate change by the United Nations system. The "Cool UN" initiative was part of his "leadership by example" approach.

Responding to several questions about the technical issues involved, Mr. Adlerstein said the present cooling system at Headquarters was "antique", but he felt comfortable that it was possible to raise the temperature by 5°F throughout the compound. "We'll do our best and we'll adjust as the next couple of weeks progress." As for varying temperatures in different parts of the complex, there were many issues involved in old buildings like the United Nations Headquarters. "So we are doing what we can for the next year as we move into the Capital Master Plan." The changes would not solve the building's "illnesses", but they would reduce its carbon footprint.

Asked about greening measures within the Capital Master Plan framework, he said he was not yet ready to announce all of them, but steps would be taken to incorporate significant energy savings into the Plan. In fact, it would be possible to exceed the 40 per cent reduction in energy and 30 per cent reduction in water consumption that had been discussed last winter. Among other things, there was a plan to introduce wind generation in the compound for demonstration purposes. Water retention measures for landscaping and other non-potable uses had also been considered. The Capital Master Plan Office would be reporting to the General Assembly on the whole variety of measures later in the year.

In response to another question, he said that, while the current heating and cooling system ran on steam, changes under the Capital Master Plan envisioned a hybrid use of steam and electric power, which would allow the United Nations to lower its energy consumption.

Source: Isria.info

UN goes green, orders drastic cut of air-conditioning use

2008-07-31T06:28:00.000-07:00

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — The United Nations on Wednesday announced a drastic cut of air-conditioning usage at its New York headquarters for the month of August that will raise the temperature from a crisp 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 Celsius) to a balmy 77.

Under a directive from UN chief Ban Ki-moon, the air-conditioning in the 39-floor Secretariat building will be turned off on weekends.

Assuming the temperature change goes smoothly, the "Cool UN" initiative to cut down on energy costs and implement climate change solutions could be extended for a full year, saving the world body one million dollars and reducing the building's carbon dioxide emissions by 2,800 tonnes.

During the winter, the process would be reversed and the thermostat would be lowered by five degrees Fahrenheit.

"We have succeeded in moving climate change to the top of the international agenda for action, and this means that the UN must take action itself," Ban said in a statement. "We must lead by example and if we are to ask others to take action, we must do so as well."

As part of the initiative, Ban is encouraging staff, delegates and diplomats to relax clothing protocols and wear lighter attire or don their national dress rather than wear business suits as of August 1.

Asked whether the secretary general would be setting an example in this regard as well, Janos Pasztor, head of the the Secretary General Climate Support Team, told reporters: "He will be wearing lighter clothes as well, he has confirmed that."

Source: AFP

China calls for rich countries help on climate change

2008-06-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

Addressing climate change head-on is in China's best interests, but it needs developed countries to do their fair share, President Hu Jintao said in a speech reported by the Xinhua news agency.
Mr Hu called on developed countries to step up efforts on emission reduction, and provide financial and technical support for developing countries.
China will participate in next month's G8 meeting in Hokkaido, Japan, where climate change is top on the agenda. Countries are trying to set new targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions that will take effect after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
Although China is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, on a per person basis it produces far less than many developed countries.
Chinese negotiators also point out that the country is only just catching up after two centuries of industrialisation in the West.
But Chinese policy makers are increasingly worried about the impact on China of global warming, which could dry up rivers that water the arid north and intensify flooding in the south.
China also suffers from intensely polluted water and air.
"How we cope with climate change is related to the country's economic development and people's practical benefits," Mr Hu told a study session on climate change.
"It's in line with the country's basic interests.
"Our task is tough, and our time is limited.
"Party organisations and governments at all levels must give priority to emission reduction ... and drive the idea deep into people's hearts."
Mr Hu urged organisations and companies to optimise energy use, recycle resources, increase forest coverage, explore water resources scientifically and strengthen international cooperation.
He called for enhancing China's ability to monitor, forecast and withstand extreme natural disasters brought by abnormal weather.
Flooding this summer has already killed over 200 people across China, after an earthquake in Sichuan province in May left more than 80,000 dead or missing and millions homeless.
Unusual rainfall could make this summer's flooding the worst in decades, the Sichuan meteorological bureau said.
Tropical storm Fengshan killed at least 15 people in Guangzhou and Jiangxi province after it came ashore on Wednesday and was downgraded from typhoon level.
It killed hundreds in the Philippines last week.
Floodwaters released from a swollen reservoir in southern Guangdong province caused a 300-metre bridge in the Baiyun district of Guangzhou to collapse, Chinese media said on Saturday.
And a month of unusual rainfall in Beijing claimed three lives and injured eight people who were overcome by gases when they tried to unblock a flooded sewer in Miyun County.

Source: - Reuters

China calls for rich countries help on climate change

2008-06-29T05:58:00.000-07:00

Addressing climate change head-on is in China's best interests, but it needs developed countries to do their fair share, President Hu Jintao said in a speech reported by the Xinhua news agency.Mr Hu called on developed countries to step up efforts on emission reduction, and provide financial and technical support for developing countries.China will participate in next month's G8 meeting in Hokkaido, Japan, where climate change is top on the agenda. Countries are trying to set new targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions that will take effect after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.Although China is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, on a per person basis it produces far less than many developed countries. Chinese negotiators also point out that the country is only just catching up after two centuries of industrialisation in the West.But Chinese policy makers are increasingly worried about the impact on China of global warming, which could dry up rivers that water the arid north and intensify flooding in the south. China also suffers from intensely polluted water and air."How we cope with climate change is related to the country's economic development and people's practical benefits," Mr Hu told a study session on climate change."It's in line with the country's basic interests."Our task is tough, and our time is limited. "Party organisations and governments at all levels must give priority to emission reduction ... and drive the idea deep into people's hearts."Mr Hu urged organisations and companies to optimise energy use, recycle resources, increase forest coverage, explore water resources scientifically and strengthen international cooperation.He called for enhancing China's ability to monitor, forecast and withstand extreme natural disasters brought by abnormal weather.Flooding this summer has already killed over 200 people across China, after an earthquake in Sichuan province in May left more than 80,000 dead or missing and millions homeless. Unusual rainfall could make this summer's flooding the worst in decades, the Sichuan meteorological bureau said.Tropical storm Fengshan killed at least 15 people in Guangzhou and Jiangxi province after it came ashore on Wednesday and was downgraded from typhoon level. It killed hundreds in the Philippines last week.Floodwaters released from a swollen reservoir in southern Guangdong province caused a 300-metre bridge in the Baiyun district of Guangzhou to collapse, Chinese media said on Saturday.And a month of unusual rainfall in Beijing claimed three lives and injured eight people who were overcome by gases when they tried to unblock a flooded sewer in Miyun County.

Copyright 2008, Reuters

Global Warming Regional Campaign Coordinator

2008-06-29T05:44:00.000-07:00

Greenpeace is hiring a Global Warming Regional Campaign Coordinator responsible for the creation and implementation of regional campaign work on the Greenpeace global warming campaign and campaign skills training for Greenpeace’s growing street and door canvass (Frontline) program.

The Greenpeace global warming campaign – Project Hot Seat – is a cutting-edge grassroots campaign to push candidates for Congress to become champions on global warming. Leading up to the 2008 election, the Global Warming Regional Campaign Coordinator will lead the charge in convincing Congress to take immediate, significant action on global warming, and to make Congress accountable to the American public, not to big oil and coal companies.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Campaign Coordination and Development

• Coordinate and train a Campaign Coordinator in each Frontline canvass office through weekly one-on-one calls, conference calls, and other means
• Assist in the production of the weekly campaign update for the Frontline offices
• Hire and train one Campaign Coordinator who spends 10 hours per week coordinating campaign work in each office
• Provide phone and other trainings for Campaign Coordinators

Train Frontline Staff and Campaign Coordinators
• Manage and plan weekend regional trainings for all Frontline staff and the Campaign Coordinators to ensure that staff have the skills required to perform campaign work in a high quality manner

Collaborative Design of Campaign Pushes
• Work with manager to create several one- to two-month campaign pushes for the Greenpeace global warming campaign. Collaborate with the Grassroots, Campaigns and Communications teams to plan tactics that include events, petitioning, generating phone calls, and mobilizing Greenpeace members
• Ensure that Frontline canvass offices receive fact sheets, issue briefings, and other essential materials required for each campaign roll-out

The position does not involve canvassing or fundraising.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Field Tactics Planning Skills – the ability to quickly grasp campaign strategy, assess resources, and develop a detailed tactical plan for a field canvass program
• Ability to Train, Coach and Mentor – the ability to create and implement leadership development plans for Campaign Coordinators, particularly via the phone
• Excellent Written Communication Skills – the ability to write compelling campaign materials for use by Frontline canvass offices and staff
• Ability to Motivate a Large Team of Peers – the ability to work with peers in other departments on projects and motivate staff in each Frontline canvass office that you do not line manage
• Excellent Interpersonal Skills – an ability to work in project teams to make fast decisions and manage multiple stakeholders in a planning process
• Planning – Excellent planning and time-lining skills
• Proficiency in Excel, Word, e-mail and database programs

Experience/Accomplishments:

• A minimum of 2 years of experience in grassroots organizing
• Background of working with door-to-door or street canvasses in grassroots advocacy campaigns is helpful but not required
• Proven experience training and coaching campaign volunteers
• Proven experience in planning and implementing a successful field campaign

The position is a six-month contract with a strong possibility of becoming a long-term position. The salary is equivalent to $39,000 a year.

The position is based in Washington, DC or San Francisco.

Applicants send cover letter and resume to: amy.faulring [at] greenpeace.org

Please put “Global Warming Regional Campaign Coordinator” in the subject line of your application. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis and interviews will be scheduled immediately for qualified candidates. The position is open until filled.

Source: Grist

Destruction Of Greenhouse Gases Over Tropical Atlantic May Ease Global Warming

2008-06-29T05:38:00.000-07:00

ScienceDaily (June 26, 2008) — Large amounts of ozone -- around 50% more than predicted by the world's state-of-the-art climate models -- are being destroyed in the lower atmosphere over the tropical Atlantic Ocean. This startling discovery was made by a team of scientists from the UK's National Centre for Atmospheric Science and Universities of York and Leeds. It has particular significance because ozone in the lower atmosphere acts as a greenhouse gas and its destruction also leads to the removal of the third most abundant greenhouse gas; methane.
The findings come after analysing the first year of measurements from the new Cape Verde Atmospheric Observatory, recently set up by British, German and Cape Verdean scientists on the island of São Vicente in the tropical Atlantic. Alerted by these Observatory data, the scientists flew a research aircraft up into the atmosphere to make ozone measurements at different heights and more widely across the tropical Atlantic. The results mirrored those made at the Observatory, indicating major ozone loss in this remote area.
So, what's causing this loss? Instruments developed at the University of Leeds, and stationed at the Observatory, detected the presence of the chemicals bromine and iodine oxide over the ocean for this region. These chemicals, produced by sea spray and emissions from phytoplankton (microscopic plants in the ocean), attack the ozone, breaking it down. As the ozone is destroyed, a chemical is produced that attacks and destroys the greenhouse gas methane. Up until now it has been impossible to monitor the atmosphere of this remote region over time because of its physical inaccessibility. Including this new chemistry in climate models will provide far more accurate estimates of ozone and methane in the atmosphere and improve future climate predictions.
Professor Alastair Lewis, Director of Atmospheric Composition at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science and a lead scientist in this study, said: "At the moment this is a good news story -- more ozone and methane being destroyed than we previously thought - but the tropical Atlantic cannot be taken for granted as a permanent 'sink' for ozone. The composition of the atmosphere is in fine balance here- it will only take a small increase in nitrogen oxides from fossil fuel combustion, carried here from Europe, West Africa or North America on the trade winds, to tip the balance from a sink to a source of ozone"
Professor John Plane, University of Leeds said: "This study provides a sharp reminder that to understand how the atmosphere really works, measurement and experiment are irreplaceable. The production of iodine and bromine mid-ocean implies that destruction of ozone over the oceans could be global".
Dr Lucy Carpenter, University of York and UK co-ordinator of the Observatory added: "This observatory is a terrific facility that will enable us to keep an eye on the chemical balance of the atmosphere and feed this information into global climate models to greatly improve predictions for this region in the future".

Source: Science Daily

Global warming causing plant migration in Europe: study

2008-06-29T05:31:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Global warming has caused numerous European plant species to migrate to higher elevations over the decades, according to new research published Thursday.
The research appears in the June 27 edition of the journal Science, and has potentially "important ecological and evolutionary consequences," the study's authors wrote.
A team of international scientists working in mountainous regions of Western Europe compared the natural elevation range of 171 forest plant species between 1905 and 1985, and again between 1986 and 2005.
"Along the entire elevation range, 0 to 2,600 meters (8,500 feet) above sea level ... we show that climate warming has resulted in a significant upward shift in species optimum elevation averaging 29 meters (95 feet) per decade," the researchers wrote.
The lead author of the study was Jonathan Lenoir of AgroParisTech in Nancy, France.
The report, compiled with data from the French National Climatic Network, was conducted in six mountainous regions throughout Europe.
They include the Northern Pyrenees, the Massif Central, the Western Jura, the Vosges, the Corsican range and the alpine regions, where average temperature increases have approached one degree Celsius since the start of the 1980s, researchers said.

Source: AFP

All three US candidates are strong on global warming: UN climate chief

2008-06-06T23:56:00.000-07:00

PARIS (AFP) — UN climate chief Yvo de Boer said on Tuesday the profiles of all three US presidential candidates pointed to a major change in US policies on global warming after George W. Bush leaves the White House next January.

Yvo de Boer, who is executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said he found the stances of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain "very encouraging."

"All three presidential candidates have recognised the importance of climate change; want to act on climate change; want to develop a strong domestic policy approach; seem to favour a policy approach that goes in the direction of a cap-and-trade regime which would mesh very well with the direction in which other industrialised countries want to go; and seem to favour an international approach to climate change," de Boer said in Paris.

"So, in other words, whoever wins the presidential elections, I think that we will see a pro-active, international, market-based approach to climate change in the United States, founded on solid domestic policy."

The United States is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases which stoke man-made global warming, although by some estimates it has been overtaken by China.

Under the Bush presidency, the United States walked away from the UNFCCC's Kyoto Protocol, saying its caps on emissions by industrial countries were too costly for the US economy and unfair as big developing countries do not have such constraints.

Under a bill put before the US Senate this week, the United States would set up its own cap-and-trade system, meaning that companies would be set a ceiling of carbon emissions, and those who are below it can sell the surplus to those who are above it.

The idea behind cap-and-trade is to provide a financial incentive to reduce carbon pollution.

De Boer, speaking at a climate conference hosted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), said it was a "very exciting week in Washington" but added "let's see" if the so-called Lieberman-Warner bill becomes law.

Bush has threatened to veto the bill "in its current form," saying it would impose six trillion dollars of new costs on the US economy.

Proponents, though, say the bill, in addition to reducing carbon emissions, would raise fuel efficiency and ease dependence on foreign energy imports.

Source: AFP

Human Impacts, Climate Change Pushing Species to Extinction

2008-05-24T06:07:00.000-07:00

BONN, Germany, May 20, 2008 (ENS) - German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel Monday urged governments to take stronger action to protect the diversity of life. Opening the largest UN biodiversity gathering yet, Gabriel warned that the world is not on the right path to protect the diversity of species and said the world would not reach its agreed target of the year 2010 for reversing biodiversity loss.
Nearly 7,000 participants from 191 countries opened the United Nations Conference on Biodiversity in Bonn on Monday. Before the meeting closes on May 30, participants are expected to take steps to conserve and sustainably manage the world's biodiversity in light of what UN officials are calling "the alarming rate of loss of species, compounded by the pressures from climate change."

Gabriel called for a clear roadmap, similar to the one on climate reached in Bali last December, toward a plan to establish an international set of rules for biodiversity that would govern the providing of access and equitable sharing of the benefits.
Rules would set the terms under which users of biodiversity resources, such as pharmaceutical companies, would have access to resources.
These terms would be balanced with provisions to guarantee that the providers of these resources, such as local communities or national governments, many of which are in developing countries, receive an equitable share of any of the benefits that are produced, said the minister.
The conference is timed to coincide with the International Day for Biological Diversity on May 22.
As food prices spiral ever upwards, this year's theme for the day is "Biodiversity and Agriculture."
The Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, an international treaty, wants the Parties to highlight sustainable agriculture "not only to preserve biodiversity, but also to ensure that we will be able to feed the world, maintain agricultural livelihoods, and enhance human well being into the 21st century and beyond."

Representatives of the International Youth Conference called Biodiversity on the Edge, which took place last week in Bonn, are seeking the integration of sustainable development education into school curricula; a protocol on protected areas; no patents on living organisms; prohibition of genetically modified organisms; full and effective participation of indigenous and local communities; and measurable targets for biodiversity protection.
Urgent issues before participants include the food price crisis, the loss of forests, climate change, and efforts to eradicate poverty.
The gathering will submit its results next week to the Bonn Biodiversity Summit, which will be chaired by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The attendance of 120 heads of states and ministers is expected.
Another deadline looming over this Bonn conference to create a fair-share system was agreed by the government Parties to the treaty two years ago in Brazil.
They intend to devise a system that provides access to, and shares the benefits from the genetic resources of the world fairly between developing and developed countries.
The Bonn Biodiversity meeting is taking place at a defining moment in the history, said Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

"Every species is a vital piece in the complex puzzle of the life web of our planet. Interlinkages are what keep the puzzle glued together—for the planet to function," Djoghlaf told the participants in his opening address to the conference on Monday.
"About two thirds of the food crops that feed the world rely on pollination by insects or other animals to produce healthy fruits and seeds. Included among these are potato crops," Djoghlaf said.
"Here in Germany, there has been a 25 percent drop in bee populations across the country," he said. "In the eastern United States, bee stocks have declined by 70 percent. If pollinators disappear, so too will many species of plants. If we take away one link, the chain is broken."
Djoghlaf quoted the great physicist Albert Einstein as saying, "'If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.'"
"The unfolding global food crisis sounds like a wake-up call to the serious consequences of human activities on the ability of our planet to continue sustaining life on Earth," Djoghlaf said. "The dramatic rise in crop prices is a symptom of the unprecedented loss of agricultural biodiversity and certainly a reflection of its far-reaching impacts on humankind."
"The challenge is daunting and I call upon all states to adopt exceptional efforts," he said.
Losing the benefits that biodiversity provides would cost the world $3.1 trillion a year or six percent of the global gross national product, according to a new study by development economist Pavan Sukhdev, cited by Djoghlaf during his speech.
In Bonn, countries also will consider how to address the problem of invasive alien species, the loss of rainforest biodiversity, the degradation of marine ecosystems, and methods to value biodiversity in economic terms.
The conference will consider how to expand the successful establishment, maintenance, expansion and financing of a global network of protected areas, both on land and in marine ecosystems.
Currently over 10 percent of the terrestrial area is covered by parks and conservation areas, but the level of protection in the oceans and seas of the world is lower, according to the secretariat.
With 191 governments as Parties, the Convention on Biological Diversity, CBD, has near-universal participation among countries committed to preserving life on Earth.
From its Montreal headquarters, the CBD seeks to address all threats to biodiversity and ecosystem services, including threats from climate change.
It employs scientific assessments, develops tools, incentives and processes, transfer of technologies and good practices, and tries to engage "the full and active involvement of relevant stakeholders," including indigenous and local communities, youth, nongovernmental organizations, women and the business community.

Source: ens-newswire

Scientists start to panic over climate change

2008-05-24T06:03:00.000-07:00

Australian of the year, well-known scientist and climate change activist, Tim Flannery is sounding decidedly panicky as he suggests a technical plan to save us from climate change. The plan essentially amounts to terraforming the planet by pumping sulphur into the upper atmosphere in the hope that global dimming will counteract the effects of warming caused by greenhouse gasses. His chilling quote: “”The current burden of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is in fact more than sufficient to cause catastrophic climate change”. Let’s hope that he is wrong, or better, that in the face of impending disaster we don’t panic and multiply our problems.
The plan is no doubt intended to be a last ditch scenario to stave off massive collapse of the ecosystem and consequently civilisation as we appreciate it (at least I hope it is). I fully expect that there is some scientific thinking behind this - some, but not nearly enough. I also think that is it an unacceptable risk, but I understand why the professor and other scientists are starting to panic.
The are a number of “tipping point” scenarios that could lead to catastrophic and “irreversable” (taking millions of years to correct) failure of the global environment. This may have happened already in prehistory: the “Permian–Triassic extinction event“, is believed to have been a climate change tipping point where 70-90% of all species were wiped out (perhaps by as little as a 6 degree C change). These scenarios scare the pants off me, and hopefully you too. This is not just a matter of slapping on more sunscreen folks: the effect on our civilisations is hard to fathom, but would surely lead to the demise of millions, if not billions, of humans.
Yes, as people often mention, the climate has been hotter in the past, but they usually fail to mention (or realise) that the consequences have been dire. The current situation may be even worse - never before in history has climate changed anywhere near this rapidly, and CO2 increases do not seem to have been affected by our efforts so far. Stop second guessing it - trust in the overwhelming scientific consensus, and don’t be confused by the those seeking to muddy the facts. Work harder to pressure governments to improve their climate policy. Work harder to reduce your carbon footprint. But most of all, don’t panic!

Source: sam.stainsby.id.au

1 in 8 Birds Threatened Due to Climate

2008-05-24T05:55:00.000-07:00

Nearly every day we get another warning over the impact climate change is having on the world’s wildlife. As the predictions get ever gloomier, soon species will become extinct before the world has acted.
The latest assessment is on birds. Climate change is “significantly amplifying” the threats facing the world’s bird populations, a global assessment has concluded.
The 2008 Bird Red List warns that long-term droughts and extreme weather puts additional stress on key habitats. The assessment lists 1,226 species as threatened with extinction - one-in-eight of all bird species.
The list, reviewed every four years, is compiled by conservation charity BirdLife International. “It is very hard to precisely attribute particular changes in specific species to climate change,” said Stuart Butchart, BirdLife’s global research and indicators co-ordinator. “But there is now a whole suite of species that are clearly becoming threatened by extreme weather events and droughts.”

Source: priceofoil.org

Global Warming Lobbyist

2008-05-11T06:42:00.000-07:00

Are you an experience organizer looking to lobby Congress to stop global warming?

GLOBAL WARMING LOBBYISTWashington, DChttp://www.greenpeace.org/...obal-warming-lobbyist

Greenpeace is seeking passionate, driven, articulate, lobbyists for our campaign to pass strong national legislation to stop global warming.

The Lobbyist will assist in Greenpeace USA’s campaign to stop global warming through:
- Developing and executing a strategic legislative plan.
- Expediently building expertise in global warming policy.
- Advancing a winning strategy to build support for binding science based global warming legislation.

CAMPAIGN BACKGROUND:
Americans are seeing the impacts of global warming in their daily lives and making changes like buying more energy efficient appliances, changing light bulbs, and driving less. These small, everyday actions count, but we need leaders in Congress who are ready to tackle global warming by supporting the growth of clean, renewable energy like wind and solar, committing to ending the development of dirty coal-fired power plants and dangerous nuclear energy, and limiting how much global warming pollution gets dumped into our air.

MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES:
There are growing opportunities to address global warming in Congress. Greenpeace’s Global Warming Lobbyist will advance the strongest science based solutions and defend against steps that are insufficient, such as dirty and dangerous distractions like coal and nuclear power. The lobbyist will join Greenpeace’s global warming team in helping to develop and implement our legislative strategy.

- Assist development and implementation of Greenpeace’s lobbying strategy
- Develop and maintain relationships with Members of Congress and their staff
- Assist in quickly interpreting new legislative proposals and legislative actions into digestible and easily understood bullet points for field and media use.
- Track global warming legislation in the House and Senate and provide update to staff,
- Assist with writing and editing news releases, opinion editorials, letters to the editor, other media materials generated by the DC legislative team

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:
- At least three years experience in a full-time direct lobbying position
- Excellent communication skills including public speaking, written and oral
- Experience in successful press work
- Critical and strategic thinking abilities
- Able to keep a level head in a fast-paced campaign environment
- Commitment to strong science based solutions to global warming without compromise
- BA/BS Degree preferred or equivalent experience.

Accountability:
The Global Warming Lobbyist is accountable to the SeniorGlobal Warming Lobbyist

Location: Washington DCTo

Apply: send resume and cover letter to Anna Wagner:

usaglobalwarmingjobs@greenpeace.org

Preferred application deadline May 23rd.

Applications accepted until position is filled.

Greenpeace encourages all interested persons to apply, regardless of sex, race, religion, national origin disabilities or sexual orientation.

Source: Greenpeace

Global warming brings tropical birds to Hong Kong, watchers say

2008-05-11T06:28:00.000-07:00

Hong Kong - The sighting of two rarely seen tropical birds in Hong Kong could be down to climate change, bird experts said Saturday. The birds - a great frigate and the white-tailed tropicbird - were both spotted around Po Toi, Hong Kong's southern most island, over the last month.
It was the first time the white-tailed tropic had ever been spotted in Hong Kong and only the fourth sighting of the frigate.
Both birds are usually seen in more tropical climates such as the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
Hong Kong Bird Watching Society Chairman Cheung Ho-fai told the South China Morning Post that their appearance could be attributed to climate change and that the nearest nesting colony of frigate birds was in Hawaii.
"The birds are very sensitive to climate change and observing them is definitely a good way to understand the changes," he said.
But he stressed that the individual sightings were not proof that their ecological habits had been effected by climate change, and that it was possible the birds could have been blown astray by a typhoon.
Climate experts claim Hong Kong could no longer have winters by the middle of this century with average temperatures rising by at least one degree Celsius in the next 20 years.

Source: Earthtimes

Cyclone Nargis and climate change

2008-05-11T06:22:00.000-07:00

While reading news about the disastrous cyclone in Myanmar last Saturday coupled with the government’s unprecedented rejection of international aid, another question skirts the edge of many people’s minds. Is this yet another demonstration of climate change at work?
It’s a reasonable question given the seriousness of the problem and the growing media attention global warming receives. In the past day or so, the Associated Press put a story on the wire titled “Is Global Warming to Blame for Burma Cyclone?” that has been picked up by dozens of papers including USA Today.
A sexy headline, sure, but there’s little to back it up. The story’s primary expert to venture a connection is Sunita Narain, director of the Indian environmental group Center for Science and Environment.
"While we can never pinpoint one disaster as the result of climate change, there is enough scientific evidence that climate change will lead to intensification of tropical cyclones," said Narain.
"Nargis is a sign of things to come," she said. "The victims of these cyclones are climate change victims and their plight should remind the rich world that it is doing too little to contain its greenhouse gas emissions."
We asked climate scientist Gavin Schmidt of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies to weigh in on the topic and received an exasperated email reply. Schmidt wrote:
“This is a non-story. I'm not sure how many times it needs to be said - but single weather events are extremely hard (read practically impossible) to attribute to climate change and no scientist worth their salt will claim otherwise.The story that is worth your while is an examination of where these ideas come from and how they are stoked by contrarians and noise makers who are always on the lookout for 'alarmist' claims that they can misquote.Do a story on how hard it is for scientific statements about uncertainty and caveats to penetrate into the public discourse.”
Climate change can be an ephemeral problem—one that’s hard for most of us to see, thus it’s seemingly everywhere. Best that we all brush up on the facts, or next thing you know it’ll be climate change that misplaced the house keys, caused the milk in the fridge to expire, and the cell phone battery to run out.

Source: plentymag

Antarctic Temperatures Lower in Contrast to Climate Change Computer Models

2008-05-11T06:07:00.000-07:00

In a recent paper published by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, scientists report that computer models of climate change specific to the Antarctic may not be as accurate as they were originally believed. Computer models based on data of Earth’s climate help scientists make predictions of climate change over time. From these mathematical models, scientist run simulations based on data collected in order to assess potential outcomes such as warming or cooling trends around the Earth. While computer models representing climate in the other continents are accurately depicting the phenomenon of increasing temperatures, the models used in Antarctica inaccurately point to larger increases in temperatures than is actually being observed. (The models show an increase of 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit or 0.2 degrees Celsius in the Antarctic versus the actual increase of 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit or 0.75 degrees Celsius).
Why the discrepancy in the Antarctic? Scientists point to a number of reasons, all of which are excellent examples to show students the ongoing investigative nature of scientific study. For starters, the conditions in Antarctica make it difficult to take weather readings (or any kind of readings for that matter) in the first place. This recent report came as a result of improved measurements in the Antarctic region that will provide more accurate data in the future. Using ice core data samples and the increased ability to take actual climate observations and comparing these to the models gives scientists a better idea of how these data compare. That said, scientists still caution that the models used today still may not be as accurate as they are in other parts of the world. NCAR scientist David Schneider states, “The current generation of climate models has improved over previous generations, but still leaves Antarctic surface temperature projections for the 21st century with a high degree of uncertainty.”
Another factor in the discrepancy between models and actual data deals with the ozone hole over Antarctica. Because of the hole, the upper layers of atmosphere over Antarctica are cooler, creating cooler temperatures in the central part of the continent. This is in contrast to warming trends in other continents, as well as the warming trend in the Antarctic Peninsula. This cooler air reduces the amount of water vapor present, something that the computer models point to as a source of increase temperatures in the region that are in contrast to actual readings.
Scientist Andrew Monaghan, a co-author of this recent report, states, “We can now compare computer simulations with observations of actual climate trends in Antarctica. This is showing us that, over the past century, most of Antarctica has not undergone the fairly dramatic warming that has affected the rest of the globe. The challenges of studying climate in this remote environment make it difficult to say what the future holds for Antarctica’s climate.”

Dr. Monaghan is a guest columnist for the upcoming June issue (Weather and Climate: From Home to the Poles) of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears.

Source: expertvoices

Birds make easy weather of climate change

2008-05-11T05:57:00.000-07:00

by: Lewis Smith, Environment Reporter
British great tits have proved themselves to be far more adaptable to climate change than their counterparts in the Netherlands.
In the past half century the great tits living in Wytham Woods (also known as the Woods of Hazel) near Oxford, have brought forward the date that they lay their eggs by an average of two weeks. The advance is a response to climate change and the timings of the egg-laying showed that the birds tracked the variations in temperature.
The British great tits, Parus major, were also able as individuals to respond to fluctuating temperatures from year to year and are the first species to demonstrate such an ability. Because they reacted individually to temperatures, which controlled the availability of vital food, they tended to choose the same time to lay their eggs.
Dutch great tits, by contrast, have been shown by previous research to be able to respond as a species only by using a scattergun approach to laying times and relying on natural selection to weed out those who laid too early or too late.
They showed a much weaker overall response to changes in the climate and the average change in laying time was several days less than the British birds. The change in laying times exhibited by the tits in Britain and the Netherlands was linked to the availability of winter moth caterpillars, Operophtera brumata.
Ben Sheldon, of the University of Oxford, said that the British birds had, so far, been able to “take climate change in their stride”. But he said that the difference between British and Dutch responses was surprising because as the same species they would have been expected to behave in much the same way.
“They are the same species. You would think of them as being pretty much interchangeable yet for some reason there’s a close tracking of the environment here but not in Holland,” he said.
“The British ones seem to be adapting better to climate change. They are showing a more appropriate response.
“The whole population seems to do the right thing. In the Dutch population fewer are doing the right thing so they aren’t doing as well. In the UK this population is doing absolutely fine.”
The study, published in the journal Science, was carried out by researchers from the University of Oxford, the University of Edinburgh and the Unite Mixte de Recherche in Montpellier, France.
Almost 10,000 records of great tits that have bred in Wytham Woods over the past 47 years were used for the study.
Great tit parents raise an average of eight chicks in each nest, though they can successfully raise as many as 15 in one go. The chicks leave the nest little more than two weeks after hatching and grow so fast that the parents have to catch about 500 caterpillars and other insects every day to feed their young.
“Having that many kids at the same time does go hand in hand with not living very long,” Professor Sheldon said.
The reason for the difference in how the British and Dutch birds adapt to the changing environment is a mystery.

Source: Timesonline

Climate Change and The Student Movement: UK Conference 6/7th June in Brighton

2008-05-11T05:51:00.000-07:00

On friday the 6th and saturday the 7th of June a large climate change conference specifically for students is being held in Brighton. This could be a very important moment for UK student engagement in climate change. Judging by the groups and people involved it is going to be a very big deal. Registration is available now on the website, open until 31st of May.Speakers will include George Marshall of COIN, Caroline Lucas MEP and speakers from Greenpeace, People and Planet and many others. The idea is to build an agenda for campaigning during o8/09. Now is the time to get things moving in a big way.

Main conference ticket fri/sat - £8 - Includes all listed workshops, keynotes and Fri crash pad accommodation. Book online now @ http://www.studentmovement.co.uk/

Extra option: Award Winning Coin Speaker Training on Sunday at the massively reduced price of £8 for the day or book the whole weekend for just £14 (limited places)

Fri/Saturday Timetable Includes:
The state we're in: science from the front line. (Caroline Lucas MEP)
Overcoming climate denial (George Marshall)

Biofuels (Biofuel watch) -
Ethical Consumption: The Solution to What? -
The Trouble With Offsetting (Carbon Trade Watch) -
The Nuclear Option (Greenpeace) -
Corporate Social Responsibility and its green limits (corporate watch) -
Zero Carbon Britain: an alternative energy strategy (Zero Carbon Britain) -
Contraction and Convergence: a global solution? (GCI) -
Political Systems: Capitalism, Socialism or Anarchy? -
Eco-nomics? (New Economics Foundation) -
Running Effective Meetings and Negotiations -
How to use the Media (New Internationalist) -
Planning Your Campaign (People and Planet)-
Non-Violent Direct Action (Seeds for Change) -
What Role Does The N.U.S have in fighting Climate Change? -
Campaigning Success: Food and Flights in Universities (Food 4 US and Eco-Uni) -
The Importance of Universities in the Climate Campaign and what you can do about it -
Students: Working with Workers (Workers Climate Action)-

Source: climatechangaction

Rain or shine, the answer to climate change can be found on your roof

2008-05-05T05:59:00.000-07:00

Hannah Fletcher
Rodney and Diana Lord are not classic eco-warriors. They live in the middle of a sea of Victorian semis in southeast London. They wear loafers and smartly pressed shirts. And while they know they really should use energy-saving light bulbs, they just “haven’t got around to it”.
Yet in 2002 the couple became unwitting ecological trendsetters when, on a plot of land in Camberwell, they built a thoroughly modern house with a thoroughly modern roof.
The flat roof, covered in hardy sedum plants, acts as a natural insulator, keeping the house warm in winter and cool in the summer. When it rains, the plants absorb more than 50 per cent of the water, helping to prevent the kind of deluges that have wreaked havoc over the past few years. The rest of the water drains off and enters a rainwater-harvesting system where it is stored in an underground tank and pumped up for household chores.
“We didn’t design it with the environment in mind,” Mr Lord, 62, admitted as he stood on his roof. “It was about comfort, convenience and aesthetics. But now we find the environmental advantages really satisfying.”
Six years on, and Britain is rushing to catch up with the Lords. As the dual consequences of climate change — flooding and drought — manifest themselves with alarming regularity, and with water bills set to increase by about 6 per cent this year, homeowners, businesses and local and national authorities are looking to their roofs to manage water and cut costs.
As a result, Britain is experiencing one of the biggest booms in Europe in the “green roof” and rainwaterharvesting industries. Sales of rainwater-harvesting systems have more than doubled every year for the past four years. An industry worth about £500,000 in 2004 has now grown to more than £10 million.
The number of green roof companies has increased fivefold in as many years. Where fewer than 10,000 square metres of sedum blanket were laid annually, that figure is now approaching 100,000.
“We’re rapidly running out of water in Britain,” said Roger Budgeons, director of Rainharvesting Systems. “Water supplies are under severe stress, and people are more aware of the issue.”
In April last year, the Government’s code for sustainable homes made it mandatory for all publicly financed new buildings to cut water usage from 150 litres per person per day to 105 — a target most easily achieved through rainwater harvesting.
This month this became a requirement for privately financed social housing as well, and insiders predict that water legislation for private homes and companies could be introduced within a few years.
Many organisations have ploughed ahead in anticipation. Hundreds of thousands of employees and customers at Marks & Spencers, B&Q, Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s, as well as prison inmates, are already flushing waste, washing floors and watering plants with rainwater.
Buried in the ground beneath these buildings are storage tanks the size of tennis courts. When it rains, water pours into the systems at the rate of one bathtubful per second.
Lisa Farnesworth, a director at Stormsaver, which has installed many of these rainwater harvesting systems, said that the companies would be reducing their mains water usage by up to 80 per cent and saving more then £10,000 a year on their water bills. In private homes, where smaller harvesting systems cost about £2,000 to install, homeowners can cut their water costs by 40 per cent.
Green roofs might not reduce your water bills but, according to Dusty Gedge, the founder of Livingroofs.org and president of the European Federation of Green Roof Associations, they can cut your air-conditioning bills.
As well as absorbing up to 60 per cent of rainwater, green roofs can lower the surrounding air temperature by up to 11C. “2005 and 2006 were exceptionally hot summers, particularly in London and Manchester,” Mr Gedge said. “Comet was selling one air-conditioning unit a second. But if we all had green roofs, we wouldn’t need air-conditioning.”
Just last month, Britain’s first policy on green roofs was produced by the Mayor of London. Sheffield, Bristol, Manchester and Birmingham are all soon to follow. “There are thousands of square metres of roof going up all over the place,” Mr Gedge said. “It’s happening. It’s really happening.”

Source: timesonline

Veto Against New Coal Plant Stands in Kansas

2008-05-05T05:55:00.000-07:00

In a show of the increasing influence of climate change concerns at the state level, the Kansas legislature failed yesterday to override Governor Kathleen Seblius’ veto of a bill that would have opened the door for expansion of Sunflower Electric Power Corp’s (“Sunflower”) coal-fired power plant in Holcomb, Kansas. Although the Kansas Senate easily approved the veto override by a vote of 32 to 7, the House fell four votes short.
Legislative leaders who supported the project told Sebelius last week to accept a compromise that would reduce the size of the project from 1,400 megawatts to 1,200 megawatts, or face a veto override. Sebelius, who had already vetoed the 1,400 megawatt power plant and proposed a single 660 megawatt facility, rejected the proposal, citing concerns over projected emissions of 11 million tons of carbon dioxide annually.
The showdown between Sebelius and the legislature resulted from a decision by Kansas Secretary of Health and Environment Rod Bremby last October to deny an air-quality permit for Sunflower on climate change grounds. Legislators argued that the decision to hold up the project would damage Kansas’ business climate and result in higher costs for electricity.

Source: ClimateIntel

Women’s rights and climate change

2008-05-05T05:52:00.000-07:00

This morning, I attended ECOSOC’s special event, “Achieving the MDG’s and coping with the challenges of climage change.” It was of course interesting, as I usually find most things related to climate change, but what I found particularly moving were the comments spoken by the delegate from Belgium (who did not speak on behalf of Belgium, but for the committee for CSW). He outlined how climate change disproportionately and negatively affects women, and spoke about how women can acts as agents of change in the mitigation of global warming.
Of course, this year’s 52nd session of the CSW chose as it’s emerging issue “Gender perspectives on climate change“, where we learned that women’s lives are effected in large part due to their domestic responsibilities. As the moderator’s summary stresses,
In Africa, for example, women have primary responsibility for food security, household water supply, and the provision of energy for cooking and heating. Conditions such as drought, deforestation and erratic rainfall have a disproportionate negative affect on their ability to carry out these duties. As climate change causes African women to work harder to secure these basic resources, they have less time to secure an education or earn an income. Girls are more likely than boys to drop out of school to help their mothers gather fuel, wood and water.
The unequal effects that climate change already has, and will likely continue to have, along the lines of gender, are rarely mentioned. As we move towards mitigation and adaptation to climate change, we must do so with a lens that prioritizes women as the large majority of those greatly affected by climate change.
The moderator’s summary, however, does not only stress women’s role as victims of climate change:
Women are not just victims of climate change; they are also powerful agents of change. Women have demonstrated unique knowledge and expertise in leading strategies to combat the effects of climate change, as well as natural disaster management, especially at the grassroots level… Women play a vital leadership role in community revitalization and natural resource management. Overall, however, women tend to be underrepresented in decision-making on sustainable development, including on climate change, and this impedes their ability to contribute their unique and valuable perspectives and expertise on the issue.
There is much work to be done to combat climate change, as was stressed in the ECOSOC chamber this morning. However, EW is always happy to see women recognized in their power and ability to be positive agents of change at the United Nations.

Source: Ecumenical Women

Gore: Cheney and global warming doubters are like those who thought earth was flat

2008-03-29T21:18:00.000-07:00

Al Gore will be on CBS-TV's 60 Minutes this Sunday night to talk about global warming and what is set to be a $300 million TV ad campaign to raise awareness about it.

According to CBS, when correspondent Lesley Stahl says to the former vice president and 2000 Democratic presidential nominee that some prominent leaders aren't convinced that humans are contributing to the problem, Gore says:

"You're talking about Dick Cheney. I think that those people are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view, they’re almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat. ... That demeans them a little bit, but it's not that far off."

CBS ends its press release about the show with a very transparent tease: "Stahl also asks Gore, an uncommitted super delegate of the Democratic Party, who he supports for his party's nomination."

AND? WHAT DID HE SAY?

We tried to get CBS to tell us more. But they're holding on to that news until Sunday at 7 p.m ET. If he sticks with what he's said before, though, Gore won't commit to either Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Source: USAtoday

Preparing for Global Warming's Health Crisis

2008-02-10T03:58:00.000-08:00

Hurricanes pound the Gulf Coast with unrelenting force. Floods deluge the Midwest. Wildfires rage out of control in California and Florida. A "red tide" of algae blooms off the West Coast, endangering marine and coastal wildlife. Dengue fever spikes in Mexico and looms over the United States.

No one can say with certainty that any single one of these events is due to global climate change. But there is little doubt among scientists that we are making unprecedented changes to our environment, with grave potential consequences already upon us and others on the horizon.

Global climate change is more than a weather phenomenon; it is also a major public health issue. The environmental threats are increasingly appreciated, but the human health effects have received less attention. And the effects — caused by intense weather events such as heat waves, wildfires and floods, and indirectly from changes in water, air, agriculture and infectious disease patterns — are troubling.

The World Health Organization estimates that our shifting climate is now responsible for widespread health effects, including millions of illnesses and 160,000 deaths each year, many from the spread of malaria into new areas where mosquitoes were once unable to survive. In the absence of uncontrolled greenhouse gases, the projections are far more sobering.

Public health has mostly remained on the sidelines amid policy debates on reducing greenhouse gases. That is a mistake. It is our responsibility to explain the science and advocate for policy change. Addressing the root causes of global warming has the dual benefit of dealing with the unfolding catastrophe as well as reducing other environmental air pollutants that are also causing an unacceptable burden of cardiac and respiratory illness and death.

In late January, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Nobel Prize-winner and former UCLA faculty member Al Gore warned that climate change is occurring far faster than even the worst predictions last year by the United Nations' Nobel Prize-winning scientific panel on climate change.

Forecasts that the North Pole ice cap may disappear entirely during summer months in as little as five years have led Gore to declare a "planetary emergency" unlike any other in human civilization.

The United States has a window now to prepare for some of the health consequences of global warming. The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has declared that preparing for the health threats from global warming is a top priority.

Yet President Bush's budget for fiscal 2008 is silent on this issue. A national strategy and comprehensive approach are needed — not to delay but rather to add to what we already know but conveniently disregard. We need more science, yes, but also resources and leadership to plan and implement programs that help us prepare to address current and future health consequences of the climate crisis.

At UCLA, we have an opportunity to be leaders. The School of Public Health recently hosted a first-of-its-kind summit to explore the health effects of climate change and is actively engaged in partnerships across campus to address this critical, yet insufficiently recognized, issue.

Source: UCLA

UN official: New technologies must tackle climate change

2008-02-10T03:56:00.000-08:00

NEW DELHI, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- New technologies are the only way to tackle climate change, a special adviser to the U.N. Secretary-General said here Saturday.

"Rapid economic growth and climate change mitigation cannot go together as long as we stick to current technologies," Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Earth Institute told delegates at the valedictory session of the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit.

"But there are a host of technologies that are close (to breakthroughs), such as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS)." This technology captures carbon dioxide - the main greenhouse gas that is leading to global warming - emitted by thermal power plants and sequesters it underground.

"It is possible to have your coal and climate too," Sachs said. "It is the only way to avoid end of civilization, continue economic development and high living standards."

The noted academic listed other new technologies that would be essential to tackle climate change.

"High-mileage automobiles and hybrid cars that run on a combination of electricity and petrol are about five years away.

"Buildings need to move to electricity-based heating once power generation is cleaned up.

"Then you need nuclear power. It will have to be part of the green solution. But you will have to ensure safety.

"And then you have concentrated solar power."

Sachs said policy makers must focus on these technological changes right now, rather than on economic measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. "These changes require upfront public R and D funding, especially for demonstration projects, plus a supportive regulatory environment.

"Scientists and business leaders have to work together to monitor which new technologies are working. After all this, you can have realistic carbon pricing to help the new technologies along."

Source: China view

Obama says stronger than McCain on climate change

2008-02-10T03:53:00.000-08:00

SEATTLE, Feb 8 (Reuters) - U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama promised on Friday to start working on an international pact to reduce global warming if he becomes the Democratic nominee, touting his plan to reduce U.S. emissions as stronger than that of Republican front-runner John McCain.

Global warming has become a key issue in the race for the White House, with the top candidates in both political parties seeking to put a cap on greenhouse gases blamed for rising global temperatures.

Obama, an Illinois senator who is battling New York Senator Hillary Clinton to become their party's presidential nominee, said he would start developing the U.S. position on a pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol before the general election in November.

"I've been in conversations with former Vice President (Al) Gore repeatedly, and his recommendation, which I think is sound, is that you can't wait until you are sworn into office to get started," Obama told a news conference in Seattle.

"I think we need to start reaching out to other countries ahead of time, not because I'm presumptuous, but because there's such a sense of urgency about this."

Nearly 200 nations, including the United States, agreed at U.N.-led talks in December to launch negotiations on a new pact to fight global warming. But many environmentalists say real progress will only be made once President George W. Bush, who was long a global warming skeptic, leaves office.

Obama said he would not wait until January 2009, when the new president takes office, to get started.

"The moment I secure the nomination, I want to bring together experts in this area to start putting together the U.S. position ... what we're going to be doing internally, what we can agree to with other countries," he said.

"I know that my climate change plan is stronger than John McCain's," Obama said, citing his intention to make industrial polluters pay for the right to emit greenhouse gases.

McCain told reporters on his campaign plane that he had not seen Obama's plan so could not properly judge it.

"The debate is between the carbon tax and cap and trade," he said. "I will do whatever I can to get consensus on cap and trade legislation."

Obama, Clinton, and McCain all support building a so-called "cap and trade" system that would issue big polluters such as oil companies and power producers permits to emit carbon dioxide (CO2), the main gas blamed for global warming.

Under such a system, companies that exceed their CO2 limits must buy more permits to pollute, while those that come in beneath their limits may sell the permits on a market.

Obama said his plan was superior to McCain's because it required companies to buy all of those permits up front -- a process known as auctioning.

"I've been very specific about proposing 100 percent auctioning, which makes an enormous difference in terms of how effective it's going to be," Obama said.

The European Union, which now has the biggest CO2 emissions trading scheme in the world, is changing that system to increase the amount of auctioning required.

Source: Reuters

Biofuels make climate change worse, scientific study concludes

2008-02-10T03:49:00.000-08:00

Growing crops to make biofuels results in vast amounts of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere and does nothing to stop climate change or global warming, according to the first thorough scientific audit of a biofuel's carbon budget.

Scientists have produced damning evidence to suggest that biofuels could be one of the biggest environmental con-tricks because they actually make global warming worse by adding to the man-made emissions of carbon dioxide that they are supposed to curb. Two separate studies published in the journal Science show that a range of biofuel crops now being grown to produce "green" alternatives to oil-based fossil fuels release far more carbon dioxide into the air than can be absorbed by the growing plants.

The scientists found that, in the case of some crops, it would take several centuries of growing them to pay off the "carbon debt" caused by their initial cultivation. Those environmental costs do not take into account any extra destruction to the environment, for instance the loss of biodiversity caused by clearing tracts of pristine rainforest.

"All the biofuels we use now cause habitat destruction, either directly or indirectly. Global agriculture is already producing food for six billion people. Producing food-based biofuel, too, will require that still more land be converted to agriculture," said Joe Fargioine of the US Nature Conservancy who was the lead scientist in one of the studies.

The scientists carried out the sort of analysis that has been missing in the rush to grow biofuels, encouraged by policies in the United States and Europe where proponents have been keen to extol biofuels' virtues as a green alternative to the fossil fuels used for transport.

Both studies looked at how much carbon dioxide is released when a piece of land is converted into a biofuel crop. They found that when peat lands in Indonesia are converted into palm-oil plantations, for instance, it would take 423 years to pay off the carbon debt.

The next worse case was when forested land in the Amazon is cut down to convert into soybean fields. The scientists found that it would take 319 years of making biodiesel from the soybeans to pay of the carbon debt caused by chopping down the trees in the first place.

Such conversions of land to grow corn (maize) and sugarcane for biodiesel, or palm oil and soybean for bioethanol, release between 17 and 420 times more carbon than the annual savings from replacing fossil fuels, the scientists calculated.

"This research examines the conversion of land for biofuels and asks the question 'is it worth it?' Does the carbon you lose by converting forests, grasslands and peat lands outweigh the carbon you 'save' by using biofuels instead of fossil fuels?" Dr Fargione said.

"And surprisingly the answer is 'no'. These natural areas store a lot of carbon, so converting them to croplands results in tons of carbon emitted into the atmosphere," he said.

The demand for biofuels is destroying the environment in other ways. American farmers for instance used to rotate between soybean and corn crops but the demand for biofuel has meant that they are growing corn only. As a result, Brazilian farmers are cutting down forests to grow soybean to meet the shortfall in production.

"In finding solutions to climate change, we must ensure that the cure is not worse than the disease," said Jimmie Powell, a member of the scientific team at the Nature Conservancy.

"We cannot afford to ignore the consequences of converting land for biofuels. Doing so means we might unintentionally promote fuel alternatives that are worse than the fossil fuels they are designed to replace. These findings should be incorporated into carbon emission policy going forward," Dr Powell said yesterday.

The European Union is already having second thoughts about its policy aimed at stimulating the production of biofuel. Stavros Dimas, the EU environment commissioner, admitted last month that the EU did not foresee the scale of the environmental problems raised by Europe's target of deriving 10 per cent of its transport fuel from plant material.

Professor John Pickett, chair of the recent study on biofuels commissioned by the Royal Society, said that although biofuels may play an important role in cutting greenhouse gases from transport, it is important to remember that one biofuel is not the same as another.

"The greenhouse gas savings that a biofuel can provide are dependent on how crops are grown and converted and how the fuel is used," Professor Pickett said. "Given that biofuels are already entering global markets, it will be vital to apply carbon certification and sustainability criteria to the assessment of biofuels to promote those that are good for people and the environment. This must happen at an international level so that we do not just transfer any potentially negative effects of these fuels from one place to another."

Professor Stephen Polasky of the University of Minnesota, an author of one of the studies published in Science, said that the incentives currently employed to encourage farmers to grow crops for biofuels do not take into account the carbon budget of the crop.

"We don't have the proper incentives in place because landowners are rewarded for producing palm oil and other products but not rewarded for carbon management. This creates incentives for excessive land clearing and can result in large increases in carbon emissions," Professor Polasky said.

Source: The Independent

G7 to consider climate change fund: Japan

2008-02-10T03:47:00.000-08:00

TOKYO (AFP) — Japan, Britain and the United States will propose a special fund to promote clean technologies as part of efforts to combat climate change, a Japanese official said Thursday.

The proposal will be put forward at a meeting of top finance officials from the Group of Seven industrialised nations on Saturday in Tokyo.

"Japan, Britain and the United States are currently examining a plan to establish a multilateral clean technology fund in cooperation with the World Bank," a finance ministry official told reporters.

"The three countries will explain the content of their current discussions on the fund, and we'll see how the rest of the Group of Seven members react to it," the official said on customary condition of anonymity.

It was unclear whether the plans would be included in the official statement by the G7, which also includes Canada, France, Germany and Italy.

If the idea gains traction, existing organisations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are expected to be involved.

Japan aims to take a lead in the debate over measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions when it hosts this year's Group of Eight summit, which also includes Russia, from July 7 to 9 at the northern lakeside resort of Toyako.

The world's second biggest economy after the United States, Japan is the home of the Kyoto Protocol, the landmark 1997 treaty that mandated cuts in greenhouse gas emissions heating up the planet.

Japan is far behind in meeting its Kyoto commitments as its economy recovers from recession in the 1990s.

As well as the issue of climate change, G7 powers are expected to discuss the worsening global economic outlook and recent financial market turmoil.

Source: AFP

Global Warming Could Lead to Increase in Thunderstorms

2008-02-10T03:44:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Severe thunderstorms are predicted to increase dramatically in the United States and in some cities, like Atlanta, New York, and Dallas, storms are expected to double by the end of the century due to global warming, according to research by Jeremy Pal, a professor of civil engineering and environmental science at Loyola Marymount University

Researchers who study severe weather and climate change joined forces to study the effects of global warming on the climate. Pal is one of the lead developers of the regional climate model used in this study and a co-author of "Changes in severe thunderstorm environment frequency during the 21st century caused by anthropogenically enhanced global radiative forcing." Pal said the regional climate model offers the most detailed picture available of weather and climate activity across the United States.

The regional model divides up landmass across the United States into a grid of cells spaced 25 kilometers, or 15.6 miles, apart and provides information about the conditions occurring for each cell.

"The regional model has a higher resolution than global models and provides information on the tens-of-miles scale" said Pal. "Global models give data on the hundreds-of-miles scale. The use of four different models in this study makes the results more robust."

The study results were compared to current and past environmental conditions shown to produce severe thunderstorms. Research suggested global warming would lead to an increase in humid air that fuels severe thunderstorms. However, it also suggested global warming would reduce strong winds that contribute to the storms. The increase in humid air outweighs the reduction in winds leading to an increase in severe storm occurrence.

The study also found that the increase in storm conditions occurs during the typical storm seasons for these locations and not during dry seasons when such storms could be beneficial. The findings have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

About Loyola Marymount University

Located between the Pacific Ocean and downtown Los Angeles, Loyola Marymount University is a comprehensive university offering a variety of undergraduate and graduate degrees. Founded in 1911, LMU is the largest Catholic institution of higher education on the West Coast with nearly 5,500 undergraduate students and more than 3,000 graduate and law students. Students can choose from more than 80 majors and programs in four colleges, two schools and Loyola Law School. For more LMU news and events, please visit www.lmu.edu/news.

Source:PR Newswire

Global warming threatens to devastate the Mediterranean - Feature

2008-02-10T03:42:00.000-08:00

Madrid - There is no sea like the Mediterranean, which links three continents and has contributed to the development of human civilization for millennia. Today, however, the sea the Romans called Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) evokes ugly images of pollution and concrete apartment blocks rather than that of the goddess Aphrodite rising from its foamy waves. Pollution, oil spills and global warming are affecting the Mediterranean with a frightening speed, environmental organizations warn in Spain, one of the 21 countries bordering the sea which is almost completely enclosed by land. More than 1,500 endemic or nearly endemic marine plant or animal species are under threat, Ricardo Aguilar, an expert on the Mediterranean with the environmental group Oceana, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. "It would be exaggerated to say that the Mediterranean will die, but it is in a serious danger of suffering a great impoverishment in terms of plant and animal diversity," Aguilar said. The alarm raised by groups such as Oceana can be corroborated by almost any Spanish swimmer who has seen bottles, cans, plastic bags or other types of garbage floating on the waves. Spain has also seen the beauty of its Mediterranean coast disappear beneath strings of hotels and holiday apartments, which are responsible for part of the pollution. About 200,000 ships crisscross the Mediterranean every year, releasing up to 650,000 tons of oil into the water and making the Mediterranean the world's oiliest sea. At the same time, global warming is causing the sea level, water temperature and saltiness to rise, aggravating the threat to coastal ecosystems and to underwater life. About 150 million people live around the Mediterranean, and more than 100 million tourists come to its shores annually. The most polluted parts of the Mediterranean include the coasts of highly industrialized countries - Spain, France, Italy - and river mouths with dams, Aguilar explains. In Spain, for instance, about 800 municipalities systematically disobey rules on waste water, which is poured into the sea without purifying it first, according to local press reports. The Western Mediterranean has 1,900 pieces of garbage - mainly plastic - per square kilometre on its sea bed on the average, more than any other sea, according to figures given by the environmental group Greenpeace. A plastic bottle, for instance, can take centuries to disintegrate. Ships and boats routinely release fuel and other effluent into the sea. The joint impact of such spills is more harmful than that of major environmental disasters, Aguilar says. Contamination from garbage, waste water and oil affects fish and other animals, entering the food chain and leaving local people at risk of eating the pollution they produce. At the same time, the Mediterranean will offer less and less nourishment, with 65 per cent of its fish stocks estimated to be outside safe limits because of overfishing. If the sea level continues rising with the current speed, southern Spanish shores will retrocede by about 10 metres by 2050 on the average, according to a study by the University of Cantabria. Surface water temperature has risen by up to half a degree centigrade over the past 50 years, and the water is also becoming saltier. "The excess of heat in the water is killing typical Mediterranean species such as certain corals, sea fans and sponges," Aguilar says. "Millions of corals have died in the recent years."Seaweed, fish, molluscs and crustaceans also face the threat of invading tropical species, which come in for instance on ship hulls and can now survive in the warmer water. Global warming is also damaging beach ecosystems. The rising sea meanwhile washes sand to the sea bed, where it suffocates plants, Aguilar explains. Less than 1 per cent of the Mediterranean is currently under environmental protection, while scientists recommend protective measures for up to a half of it. In Spain alone, it would cost 5 billion euros (7 billion dollars) to rescue nothing but the coastal landscape with measures such as demolishing illegally erected buildings, the Environment Ministry estimates. "Many agreements have been signed to protect the Mediterranean, but most of them are not applied. Governments still see the Mediterranean mainly as a tourist destination," Aguilar complains. Saving the Mediterranean would not be easy, as it would require joint action from countries differing from each other politically, culturally and, above all, in terms of their wealth, he admits.

Source: Earthtimes.org

Dickinson students tackle global warming through game (with video)

2008-02-10T03:39:00.000-08:00

nvesting in the stock market, reducing carbon levels and losing or misplacing billions of dollars was all just another part of the game for Dickinson College students on Saturday.

Four groups of students finished the college’s National Symposium on Global Warming with the Climate Change Game, working as corporations, governments and individuals to affect climate change and reduce carbon emission from their respective organizations.

"It puts people in charge of the global climate,” said Medard Gabel, a consultant with Big Picture, Small World, which designed the climate game and helps educate students and corporate offices on the subject matter. “It’s about changes we need to make as a society to deal with the climate change. There are things we can do as governments, corporations, organizations and as individuals.”

Each group was given a set of strategies released by international scientists on what people could do to help alleviate the problem in their respective areas, such as raising fuel efficiency standards. From all 17 corporations, governments and organizations listed, the groups chose to represent, the Chinese government, U.S. government, Chinese individuals and Wal-Mart.

With students within the groups working against each other as “change-makers” and “keepers of the status quo,” the game wasn’t entirely easy, especially when the goal was a 200 billion ton reduction of carbon. Students also tried to outdo each other, funding certain programs and making deals or merely bribing two students representing the media outlets for preferential treatment.

“You have to keep all of your interests in mind when you’re making deals,” said senior Topher Murray, who represented the U.S. government and nonchalantly dropped a billion dollars in front of the conservative news reporter. “You’re picking and choosing what to invest in and have to think about who it will affect negatively, who it will affect positively, who matters more to me and our own self interests.”

Source: The Sentinel Online

Arroyo calls for unity against global warming

2008-02-10T03:33:00.000-08:00

CANDABA, Pampanga, Philippines --Act with solidarity against global warming.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo made this pitch for the environment on Friday as she warned that rising sea levels may swamp the country's more than 7,000 islands.

Arroyo made the call during the first Ibon-Ebun (Birds-Eggs) Festival here where she praised local officials and residents for conserving the Candaba Swamp and making it a thriving refuge for migratory birds.

The swamp, spanning 32,000 hectares in Bulacan, Pampanga and Nueva Ecija, is one of the three major wetlands in the country.

Candaba, she said, has struck the "right balance between the needs of the people and the environment." This was the festival's theme.

"In the case of our country as a whole, we have begun the Green Philippines Plan. This is a blueprint for mapping our environment and economic policies that will allow for sustainable development that does not fall on the back of the poor or erode our environment," she said.

She said efforts to heal the environment were important because of rising tides, changing weather, deforestation, and pollution of air, sea and land.

"The challenges of the environment of this side of climate change are great. Our country has more than 7,000 islands so in our country if the seas rise due to global warming, that takes on a whole new meaning. Florida in America may lose some (of its existing) coastlines but we could lose our whole nation," she said.

"Our intent is very serious. We must work together to solve this problem, like Candaba is doing its part to take care of the Candaba Swamp."

One of the great achievements of Candaba, she said, was that it has transformed the town "from one where there are floods throughout the year, people are always sick, there's very little agricultural activities and birds rarely come to one where there is a reverse of all of that."

"Every nation, developed or developing, progressive or poor, must assume the mantle of leadership and address the challenge of climate change," she said.

Bird hunters, smokers and polluters have a share of the blame, she said, but added that "all the apportionment of blame does nothing against a rising tide of global warming that will swamp our nation if we do not act with solidarity."

She added: "What we need is unity. Unity is a real aspiration that manifests itself through progress. Unity is about action, not discussion. It is about working together, not just talking together."

Source: Inquirer.net

Official: China acting on climate change

2007-12-08T01:37:00.000-08:00

BALI, Indonesia, (Xinhua) -- China is committed to strengthening ability and capacity to fight climate change and to making new contribution to protecting the global climate, said a Chinese official here on Friday.

China has set very ambitious domestic goals to combat climate change and is taking a series of practical and proactive actions including setting up regulatory, legal, financial, and economic instruments, said Su Wei, director-general of the Office of National Leading Group on Climate Change under the National Development and Reform Commission.

China is committed to controlling green house gas (GHG) emissions by 2010 and endeavors are to be made to achieve such goals as reducing energy consumption per unit GDP by 20 percent; increasing the share of renewable energy to 10 percent; stabilizing nitrous oxide emissions from industrial processes at 2005 level; controlling the growth of methane emissions; increasing the forest coverage rate to 20 percent and increasing carbon sink by 50 million tons over 2005 level, Su said at a side event for the ongoing United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali.

China is closing down those backward energy intensive plants and replacing them with advanced ones. China is also implementing the 10 priority energy conservation programs targeting at more than 1,000 key energy intensive enterprise, Su told participants at the side-event "The United Nations and China: Connecting Institutions, Technology and Partnerships to Combat Climate Change".

For adaptation to climate change, China is trying hard to enhance capacity for disaster prevention, warning and mitigation. Efforts are also being made to improve the adaptation capacity in the agriculture, water resources, ecosystems, health, tourism, and other sectors. The formulation of national adaptation strategy is well underway.

China has a much higher expectation in technology development and transfer, and very much like to have an effective technology transfer mechanism under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said Su.

China's technology need covers both mitigation and adaptation technologies as China is a very diversified economy and is now in the process of industrialization.

Due to the natural endowment of resources and the increasing demand of productivity for the world market, China has an enormous task of deploying clean and less-carbon technologies and know-how for energy efficiency, renewable and nuclear energy, said Su.

Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and U.N. Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in China Khalid Malik also delivered speech at the event.

UN chief to attend Bali climate meet during Asia tour

2007-12-08T01:35:00.000-08:00

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — UN chief Ban Ki-moon was to embark on a four-nation Asian tour Saturday highlighted by his attendance at the climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia, his spokeswoman said Friday.

Ban was to begin with a two-day official visit to Thailand on Monday, during which he was to call on King Bhumibol Adulyadej and confer with Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, Michele Montas said.

The secretary general was also to hold talks at the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific in the Thai capital before heading for Bali Tuesday.

Delegates from more than 180 nations are gathered for the December 3-14 meeting, which is tasked with setting down a blueprint to slash greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires.

Thursday the UN chief said he favored a binding cap on greenhouse gas emissions but noted that the coming climate change conference in Indonesia should instead focus first on setting a timeline for a deal by 2009.

"Our ultimate goal is a comprehensive agreement on climate change that all nations can embrace," the secretary general said. "In Bali, we need to set an agenda -- a roadmap to a better future, coupled with a timeline that produces a deal by 2009."

Next Friday, Ban was to travel to Dili for an official visit to East Timor where he was to meet with government officials, women's groups and inspect camps for displaced persons as well as the UN mission which is helping the government stabilize the tiny Pacific territory.

East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, was separated from Jakarta following a 1999 independence vote marred by deadly violence inflicted by the Indonesian military and its militia allies.

Indonesia had invaded East Timor, which is formally known as Timor-Leste, in 1975.

On December 15, Ban was to head for Jakarta for a 24-hour official visit that will feature talks with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The next day, he was to make a brief stopover in Tokyo for talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura before heading back to New York.

From New York, he was to fly to Paris to attend a conference of donor countries on December 17 focusing on financial and economic aid to the Palestinian Authority.

In the French capital, the UN secretary general was also to take part in a meeting of the Middle East peace diplomatic quartet as well as in talks between the four -- the United Nations, the United States, Russia and the European Union -- and the Arab League.

Ban was due back in New York on December 18.

Climate change can create jobs: UN

2007-12-08T01:34:00.000-08:00

NAIROBI: The cost of adopting responsible policies on climate change for global economies could be balanced by the creation of millions of "green jobs," the United Nations said on Thursday.

In a statement released as thousands of delegates gathered in Bali for a key meeting on climate change, UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Chief Achim Steiner called for a major boost to so-called clean industries.

"Millions of new jobs are among the many silver, if not indeed gold-plated linings on the cloud of climate change," said Steiner, also UN under-secretary general.

"Talk of environmental sustainability and climate change often emphasises the costs, but downplays the significant employment opportunities from the transition to a global economy that is not only resource efficient and without the huge emissions of greenhouse gases, but one that also restores environmental and social values," he added.

Steiner was referring to the preliminary findings of a report on "green jobs" due to be released next year and commissioned by Nairobi-based UNEP, the International Labour Organisation and the International Trade Union Confederation.

"In the US alone, the environmental industry in 2005 generated more than 5.3 million jobs - ten times the number in the US pharmaceutical industry," a UNEP statement said, quoting the report.

It also said that "by the year 2020, Germany will have more jobs in the field of environmental technologies than in its entire automotive industry."

According to UNEP, investment in renewable energy has now reached 100 billion dollars (70 billion euros) and represents 18 percent of new investments in the power sector.

"Added together, we are clearly on the edge of something quite exciting and transformational," Steiner said, urging government officials gathered in Bali to send strong signals to promote such development.

Thunder, Hail, Fire: What Does Climate Change Mean for the U.S.?

2007-12-08T01:27:00.000-08:00

The U.S. heartland can look forward to hotter, wetter summers, according to the latest climate research. Global warming will cause more severe thunderstorms—convective cloud fronts that could produce wind gusts of 58 miles (93 kilometers) per hour, 0.75-inch (1.9-centimeter) size hailstones and even more frequent tornadoes—in the region, according to research led by atmospheric scientist Robert Trapp at Purdue University. At the same time, according to independent environmental consultant Kristie Ebi, heat waves like the one in Chicago that killed 700 people in 1995 will become more commonplace.

"Climate change is projected to increase the frequency, intensity and duration of heat waves in the Midwest," says Ebi, an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report author. "In addition, heat waves are projected to be hotter."

Of course, the U.S. Midwest is not the only region of the world that is being affected by climate change. Signs of global warming are beginning to appear everywhere: from runaway ice melt in the Arctic to slowly drowning islands in the Pacific. "Changing climate conditions are already happening," says Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, which today released a report on regional impacts in the U.S. "It is clear that there is an immediate need for strong national and international policy action."

The reports findings, in addition to increased heat waves, include:

Western Wildfires—The increasingly destructive and widespread fire seasons of recent years are likely to continue due to a combination of increased drought and land development encroaching on naturally burning landscapes, along with a climate change–induced fuel boom (enhanced plant growth and a shift to more woody species) exacerbated by fire-suppression efforts leading to more abundant plant matter to fuel violent blazes, according to ecologist Dominique Bachelet of Oregon State University in Corvallis and The Nature Conservancy. "The deadly combination of human behavior and climate change means we will likely see more wildfires like those in 2007," she says.

Gulf Coast Swamped—Human engineering efforts such as levees have reduced the ability of the wetlands of Louisiana and other Gulf Coast states to keep pace with subsiding land and rising sea levels, according to coastal scientist Robert Twilley of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. "If soil formation cannot keep pace," he says, "inundation of wetlands from rising seas will essentially drown these landscapes, and wetlands will convert to open waters." That, in turn, will make nearby communities far more vulnerable to the effects of storm surges, such as the one caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

"Dead Zones" Deader—One of a number of large and growing seasonal areas in bodies of water from which all oxygen has been leeched drives the degradation of Chesapeake Bay. A "dead zone" is a place devoid of the fish and bottom dwellers, such as the crabs and other shellfish, for which the bay is famous. Marine scientist Donald Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, warns that climate change will also complicate the already difficult task of restoring this important watershed and food source. "Climate change impacts are not straightforward," he says, "but are multiple and interactive."

source: Scientifc American

New focus on climate change

2007-12-08T01:25:00.000-08:00

The CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology will unveil a new Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research in Canberra today.

The partnership brings together researchers from around the country to study all aspects of Australian climate and weather, including bushfires, tropical cyclones, severe weather events and climate change.

The Centre's foundation director Dr Chris Mitchell said the challenges facing Australia were massive and could only be addressed through collaboration.

"For example, one of the areas of research is to continue to monitor the state of the atmosphere," he said.

"And unless we have a good understanding of how those concentrations of greenhouse gases are changing and whether or not the policy interventions we make globally are making a difference in the atmosphere we don't have the feedback loop in place.

"We're obviously going to be looking at climate change, a whole number of issues, one of them is, we've been suffering from water shortages driven by a reduction in rainfall.

"How much of this is due to climate change, how much of it is just the normal run of climate variability? We need to do some science to really understand that."

source: ABC News

U.S. must act fast to slow climate change

2007-12-08T01:24:00.000-08:00

Upon arriving at an international conference on global warming in Bali this week, a key U.S. representative sheepishly promised not to get in the way of aggressive new measures to collectively limit greenhouse gases.

"We're not here to be a roadblock," U.S. climate negotiator Harlan Watson told reporters on the island-nation. "We're committed to a successful conclusion, and we're going to work very constructively to make that happen."

Despite that assurance, Watson's statement is a rueful admission that our country — still one of the top producers of those heat-trapping gases — has effectively impeded progress in the past. Unfortunately, that hasn't changed much.

Delegates from about 190 nations are in Bali for the next two weeks to begin forging a new consensus on one of the most profound challenges of our generation: how to reduce rising levels of carbon dioxide from human activities. Scientists have concluded that higher concentrations of atmospheric CO2, mainly from burning of fossil fuels for energy, are playing havoc with the global climate and could threaten life as we know it.

The goal of conferees is to craft a workable plan of action that will eventually replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty that pledged 36 signatories to lower their carbon emissions over time. That treaty, which the U.S. Senate never ratified, is scheduled to expire in 2012.

The challenge is urgent. Floods, species extinctions, extreme droughts and melting glaciers are evidence of dramatic climate changes already under way. The symptoms could get worse unless prompt steps are taken within the next decade or sooner to reverse course.

The major sticking point, at least for the United States, has always been accepting mandatory caps on smokestack and tailpipe emissions that have been identified as the worst culprits. The Bush administration and influential American lawmakers have long claimed that binding limits on greenhouse gases would unduly burden the American economy.

The White House has also resisted mandatory caps on the grounds that China and India, which have also emerged as major sources of CO2, have steadfastly rejected them as well. However, any new global climate treaty must include even more stringent carbon controls if it is to have an effect long term.

The administration is correct to insist that every industrialized nation participate in any climate change treaty going forward. Last year, for the first time in modern history, China's rapidly expanding economy produced more carbon dioxide emissions than the United States; India isn't far behind. (In per capita terms, though, the United States still far outpaces China and India.)

However, waiting for other nations to clean up their act before we do likewise is irresponsible and borders on juvenile. It's the equivalent of a petulant teenager complaining that he should be allowed to play in moving traffic because his peers can get away with it.

The world is right to expect leadership on this issue from our country, which accounts for 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. But if delegates are waiting for the Bush administration to assume that role, they need to look elsewhere.

Congress is working on a bipartisan climate change bill that could include mandatory limits on carbon, but prospects for its passage are hard to predict. Frustrated by inaction in Washington, various state and local governments, universities, private companies and average citizens from coast to coast have begun to tackle climate issues on their own initiative.

For example, California is unilaterally trying to force automakers to raise their fuel efficiency standards, while states in the Northeast have formed a coalition focused on reducing emissions from coal-fired power plants. In a recent Supreme Court ruling, justices admonished the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failing to regulate carbon dioxide emissions as an air pollutant.

Even America's corporate interests, whom the White House insists it's trying to protect from onerous carbon regulations, are growing impatient.

In an announcement timed to coincide with the start of the Bali conference, 33 of the nation's top corporations have called for an immediate construction moratorium on coal plants and other steps to mitigate the effects of global warming.

Another encouraging development occurred last week when the newly elected prime minister of Australia, the only other westernized nation opposed to Kyoto, quickly signed the agreement.

But short of a last-minute change of heart — and policy — by the Bush administration, Americans may have to wait until the next election before their government fully joins the world community in addressing global warming.

source: ajc.com

United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali

2007-12-08T01:21:00.000-08:00

The Conference, hosted by the Government of Indonesia, brings together representatives of over 180 countries together with observers from intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, and the media. The two week period includes the sessions of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, its subsidiary bodies as well as the Meeting of the Parties of the Kyoto Protocol. A ministerial segment in the second week will conclude the Conference.

What is needed is a breakthrough in the form of a roadmap for a future international agreement on enhanced global action to fight climate change in the period after 2012, the year the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires. The main goal of the Bali Conference is threefold: to launch negotiations on a climate change deal for the post-2012 period, to set the agenda for these negotiations and to reach agreement on when these negotiations will have to be concluded.

Visit for more information http://unfccc.int/2860.php

Early Climate Change Victim: Andes Water

2007-11-24T03:03:00.001-08:00

EL ALTO, Bolivia (AP) — Twice a day, Elena Quispe draws water from a spigot on the dusty fringe of this city, fills three grimy plastic containers and pushes them in a rickety wheelbarrow to the adobe home she shares with her husband and eight children.

But the water supply is in peril. El Alto and its sister city of La Paz, the world's highest capital, depend on glaciers for at least a third of their water — more than any other urban sprawl. And those glaciers are rapidly melting because of global warming.

Informed of the threat, Quispe, a 37-year-old Aymara Indian, shows alarm on her weathered face. "Where are we going to get water? Without water how can we live?"

Scientists predict that all the glaciers in the tropical Andes will disappear by mid-century. The implications are dire not just for La Paz-El Alto but also for Quito, Ecuador, and Bogota, Colombia. More than 11 million people now live in the burgeoning cities, and El Alto alone is expanding at 5 percent a year.

The melting of the glaciers threatens not just drinking water but also crops and the hydroelectric plants on which these cities rely. The affected countries will need hundreds of millions of dollars to build reservoirs, shore up leaky distribution networks and construct gas or oil-fired plants — money they simply don't have.

"We're the ones who've contributed the least to global warming and we're getting hit with the biggest bill," laments Edson Ramirez, a Bolivian hydrologist who coordinates U.N., French- and Japanese-sponsored projects to quantify the damage exacted on fragile Andes ecosystems by richer nations that use more gas and create more pollution.

Bolivia, South America's poorest country, is responsible for just 0.03 percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions that scientists blame for global warming, says Ramirez. The United States, by contrast, contributes about one quarter.

President Evo Morales, in an Associated Press interview earlier this month, said he'll seek legal remedies if rich countries don't agree to pay for the damage they've wreaked on the developing world:

"It's not a question of cooperation. It's an obligation," he said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is urging that a new global treaty on climate change provide funding to help poor countries adapt to its damaging effects. Ban made the recommendation recently when U.N. scientists released a report saying the 40 leading industrial countries produced 46 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2004.

Starting in 2009, demand for water will outstrip supply in La Paz-El Alto, the government estimates. Without urgent, expensive projects — only now in initial planning stages — sustaining even the current population of 1.7 million will be impossible, said Oscar Paz, director of Bolivia's climate change program.

Similar fears are heard in Quito, which gets less than 10 percent of its water directly from the Antizana and Cotopaxi glaciers but much more from watersheds they feed. The Ecuadorean capital is expected to run short in 2015, even with a battery of projects already under way, including new reservoirs.

So Quitenos plan to cut a $1.1 billion tunnel through the cordillera and get Amazon basin runoff, says Edgar Ayabaca, director of the city's so-called "Western Rivers" project. He said work on the tunnel needs to begin by 2010 if supply is to continue to meet demand.

Bogota's fate is less clear. Bogota gets 70 percent of its water from alpine paramo, a fragile sponge of soil and vegetation often shrouded in clouds, which could dry up in higher temperatures.

Average temperatures in El Alto and its surrounding high plains have risen by as much as 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 30 years, estimates Felix Trujillo, head meteorologist at Bolivia's National Meteorological and Hydrological Service. And the melting of Andean equatorial glaciers has accelerated threefold since 1980, studies of Bolivian, Ecuadorean and Peruvian glaciers show.

These glaciers serve as natural shock absorbers for rain, accumulating it in the wet season and releasing it in the dry season. Their loss will lead to less rain because they help pry precipitation loose from moist air rising up from the Amazon basin, scientists say.

"All these ecosystems are changing very quickly. In fact, every year they change at a faster pace, which has all of us very alarmed," said Walter Vergara, the World Bank's lead climatologist for Latin America.

Signs of impending ecological confusion are already evident. Two years ago, Ramirez said, he discovered mosquitoes, flies and even butterflies for the first time at the base of one of the glaciers.

Another first: malaria, a lowland disease, has been reported in El Alto, which is 2 1/2 miles above sea level and gets occasional dustings of snow. An hour away at Zongo glacier, a rocky shoulder that cradled the glacier in 1991 is now 250 feet above it.

Down in El Alto, tens of thousands of the 850,000 residents lack running water. How many exactly depends who you ask. Public works director, Edwin Chuquimia, says it's more than half. The public water utility, EPSAS, says it's far less.

The city's two mostly dried-up rivers, trickling rivulets in wide washes, are putrid open sewers. Homemade wells abound. Forty percent of El Alto's water supply is lost to leaky pipes and theft, about the same rate as in Quito and Bogota.

The golden rule of the leftist Morales' government: No one profits from water sales. But critics argue that such a philosophy doesn't provide enough cash for badly needed investments.

Infrastructure projects totaling $60 million can guarantee El Alto-La Paz enough water for the next decade or so, said EPSAS director Victor Rico, but the utility has no more than $1.5 million a year to invest. Rico has secured a $5.5 million Venezuelan loan and said he has promises of a $5 million grant from the European Union, the possibility of $8 million in mixed Canadian financing, and possibly some Japanese and InterAmerican Development Bank money.

A land use dispute in El Alto has already killed a $2 million Swiss-funded initiative in March that would have built two waste water treatment plants in El Alto, said Thomas Hentschel, the project manager.

"It really hurt me, there was such need," he said. "Everything there was left up in the air."

Source: Associated Press

Climate Change breakthrough in Bali

2007-11-18T04:08:00.000-08:00

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has challenged the world's policymakers to start devising a comprehensive deal for tackling climate change at next month's summit in Bali, Indonesia, after a United Nations report released today found that global warming is unequivocal and could cause irreversible damage to the planet.

Launching the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which brings together hundreds of scientific experts, Mr. Ban said that slowing and even reversing the effects of climate change “is the defining challenge of our age.”

He also stressed the report makes clear that “concerted and sustained action now can still avoid some of the most catastrophic scenarios” in the IPCC forecasts.

“We can transform a necessity into virtue,” he said. “We can pursue new and improved ways to produce, consume and discard. We can promote environmentally friendly industries that spur development and job creation even as they reduce emissions. We can usher in a new era of global partnership, one that helps lift all boats on the rising tide of climate-friendly development.”

For this to happen, the Secretary-General said the world's industrialized countries must form a “grand bargain” with developing nations, which are the most vulnerable to the impact of climate change.

The report details how reduced rainfall in much of Africa is likely to aggravate existing water shortages and slash crop yields, rising sea levels are set to inundate small island States and melting glaciers could trigger major floods in South Asia and South America.

More heat waves and periods of heavy rainfall are deemed very likely to occur, tropical cyclones are predicted to become more intense and a dramatic decrease in the polar ice caps is also expected as air and ocean temperatures keep rising. In the worst case scenario, nearly a third of all of plant and animal species could be at risk of extinction.

It also explains that industry, agriculture and infrastructure can become far more energy-efficient, water can be more effectively conserved and used and countries can become less dependent on fossil fuels and other non-renewable sources of energy.

IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri said governments have “a wide variety of policies and instruments” available to create incentives to mitigate behaviour – especially in the area of carbon emissions.

“We need a new ethic by which every human being realizes the importance of the challenge we are facing and starts to take action through changes in lifestyle and attitude.”

The report, released in Valencia, Spain, is the synthesis of three IPCC reports issued earlier this year that examined the scientific basis of climate change, the impact it is having and ways to mitigate and adapt to the phenomenon.

It is expected to form the basis of discussions in Bali next month when world leaders gather under the auspices of the UN to try to agree to a successor pact to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions, which is due to expire by 2012.

Mr. Ban told reporters after today's launch that “the breakthrough needed in Bali is an agreement to launch for negotiations for a comprehensive climate change deal that all nations can embrace – developed and developing countries alike. Scientists have now done their work and I call on political leaders to do theirs and agree not only to launch these negotiations but also to conclude them by 2009.”

The report states that “neither adaptation nor mitigation alone can avoid all climate change impacts. However, they can complement each other and together can significantly reduce the risks of climate change.”

The Secretary-General, who is in Valencia at the end of an international trip that has taken him to both Antarctica and the Amazon rainforest, said he had witnessed first-hand the perils posed by climate change.

“I can tell you with assurance that global, sweeping, concerted action is needed now. There is no time to waste.”

UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Director Achim Steiner agreed, saying “we now have the compelling blueprint for action and in many ways the price tag for failure – from increasing acidification of the oceans to the likely extinctions of economically important biodiversity.”

Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), called for more detailed and continuing observation of the impact of climate change to help individuals, businesses and civil society make informed decisions about how best to adapt to meet their own circumstances.

Source:UN

UN unveils full danger of climate change

2007-11-18T03:20:00.000-08:00

SCIENTISTS leading global research into climate change have set out a stark vision of how the world will change if humanity fails to tackle surging greenhouse gas emissions.

A report issued yesterday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) described how a warming world would threaten billions of people with thirst and malnutrition, endanger more than half of wildlife species with extinction and initiate a melting of the Greenland ice cap that could raise global sea levels by more than 22ft.

Such warnings have been heard before but never with so much scientific certainty. The IPCC’s report was based on 29,000 observations taken around the world and published in more than 500 peer-reviewed scientific papers.

Yesterday, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, who unveiled the report in Valencia, Spain, said: “All humanity must now assume responsibility for climate change.”

Ban has just been on a trip to Antarctica and South America, where he saw melting glaciers and ice-shelves. He said: “I come to you humbled after seeing some of the most precious treasures of our planet threatened by humanity’s own hand.”

Yesterday Gordon Brown issued his own statement, calling on the world to “face up to the challenge of climate change”. The prime minister added: “Climate change poses an urgent challenge that threatens the environment but also international peace and security, prosperity and development.”

Brown is expected to give a keynote speech on climate change this week, recommitting Britain to supplying a fifth of its energy requirements from renewable sources from 2020. Previously government officials had said Britain would struggle to meet the target and lobbied to be allowed to used different statistics.

The IPCC report sets out a variety of climatic impacts, including likely temperature rises of up to 4C, or even 6C. It predicts that Arctic summer sea ice will disappear by 2080 and that weather patterns will change globally. Such changes could include heatwaves, droughts, an increase in heavy rain and more intense storms.

In Europe, rising temperatures could turn much of Spain, Italy and Greece into deserts. Northern Europe, including Britain, would face more floods, heatwaves and stronger storms. Much of Australia would become uninhabitable.

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, said one of the biggest impacts would come through rising sea levels. The report said levels were already likely to rise by 15in to 55in over the next few decades because water expands as it warms.

"This is a very important finding, likely to bring major changes to coastlines, and inundating low-lying areas, with a great effect in river deltas and low-lying islands,” said Pachauri.

Over a longer period - centuries or even millennia - rising temperatures could melt the Greenland ice cap, raising sea levels by an extra 22ft.

The report was, however, not entirely bleak. It also said that humanity had the power to stave off the worst effects of global warming at relatively low cost - but only if action was taken in the next decade.

The report is designed to provide the scientific underpinning for the Bali conference on climate change, which opens on December 3.

This will involve talks between more than 180 governments over the UN climate convention and, in particular, an extension to the 1997 Kyoto Treaty, which aims to limit global greenhouse gas emissions.

Some believe it is too late to prevent catastrophe. Among them is James Lovelock, the scientist who created the Gaia hypothesis of a self-regulating Earth, which now underlies much of climate science.

In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, published this week, he suggests it is pointless to “green” society when so much damage has been done. Lovelock, 84, predicts food shortages, wars over water and land and a population crash that could leave just 500m survivors of the current population of 6.6 billion.

Nightmare vision

How scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change believe Earth will be affected:

- The world has already warmed by an average 0.7C in the past century. Temperatures in polar regions have increased the fastest, with 5C rises in some areas.

- Another 1.3C of warming is inevitable because of greenhouse gases already released into the atmosphere.

- Alpine ski resorts will be left without snow and many rivers will dry up. In Africa up to 250m more people will suffer water shortages by 2020.

- Worldwide agriculture could be devastated, especially in parts of Africa and Asia where some crop yields could halve by 2020.

- Tidal flooding will increase. Global sea levels are rising by 3.1mm a year and accelerating. Most is due to warm water expansion.

- Emissions of CO2 - the main greenhouse gas - grew by 80% between 1970 and 2004. Its concentration in the atmosphere is the highest for 650,000 years.

- The amount of CO2 emitted by humans will rise by up to 90% by 2030 unless action is taken.

Source: Times

IPCC latest - climate change evidance "unequivocal"

2007-11-17T23:08:00.000-08:00

Last night in Valencia, the IPCC approved its Fourth Assessment Synthesis report, which sums up the key points from the three major reports published this year on climate change science, its impacts and the mitigation options. It will be the key reference document for policymakers in the coming years. (Should be anyway, unfortunately not all politicians like 'fact based' decision making.)

The IPCC is a pretty careful, conservative body, so there were no big surprises. (Our press release is here.) But the message behind these reports is becoming increasingly blunt. From the New York Times:

Members of the panel said their review of the data led them to conclude as a group and individually that reductions in greenhouse gasses had to start immediately to avert a global climate disaster that could leave island states submerged and abandoned, African crop yields decreased by 50 percent, and cause over a 5 percent decrease in global gross domestic product.
The panel, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last month, said the world would have to reverse the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by 2015 to avert major problems.

"If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late," said Rajendra Pachauri, a scientist and economist who heads the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment."

He said that since the panel began its work five years ago, scientists have recorded "much stronger trends in climate change,” like a recent melting of polar ice that had not been predicted. "That means you better start with intervention much earlier."

Clear enough for you?

Source: Greenpeace

EU commissioner hails climate change report

2007-11-17T23:05:00.000-08:00

The European Union's environment commissioner has hailed the latest report of the world's top scientific authority on climate change, and called for a radical new pact to tackle global warming.

The Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has published its starkest warning yet, declaring that the impact of global warming could be "abrupt or irreversible" and no country would be spared.

UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon seized on the report to demand that world leaders smash the deadlock on how to deal with the greenhouse-gas peril when they stage a key conference on the Indonesian island of Bali in December.

EU environment commissioner Stavros Dimas echoed the call in a statement released in Brussels, calling the fourth assessment report of the IPCC "a milestone in our scientific knowledge about climate change and the grave threats global warming poses to the planet."

"The report's findings amount to a stark warning that the world must act fast to slash greenhouse gas emissions if we are to prevent climate change from reaching devastating levels," he said.

"The good news is that it also shows that deep emission cuts are both technologically feasible and economically affordable.

"This synthesis report is vital reading for decision-makers everywhere ahead of the UN climate change conference in Bali starting in just over two weeks."

"The global community must respond to this scientific call for action by agreeing in Bali to launch negotiations on a comprehensive and ambitious new global climate agreement. Efforts will be needed by all major emitters if we are to have a chance of controlling climate change before it is too late."

Mr Dimas also noted that the IPCC "fully supports the EU policy that global warming must be limited to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial temperature."

The Bali conference, taking place under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is tasked with setting a "roadmap" of negotiations for intensifying cuts in carbon emissions beyond 2012, when current pledges run out under the Kyoto Protocol.

Source: ABC News

Warning of climate change menace

2007-11-17T23:01:00.000-08:00

An international conference on global warming has warned time is running out to avoid "abrupt and irreversible" climate change.

A major scientific report has shown the Earth is heading for a warmer age at a quickening pace because of human activity.

The evidence is in the warming of air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting snow and ice and rising sea levels.

United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon has warned the world must work together to fight the menace of climate change.

Mr Ban said "Concentrated and sustained action can still avoid some of the most catastrophic scenarios."

Responding to the information contained in the report, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said developed countries "must show leadership and take the first and largest responsibility".

Mr Brown will set out in the next few days various ways in which he believes emissions can be cut.

The report by a Nobel-winning UN scientific panel, will be used by political negotiators to begin talks on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the action plan for controlling greenhouse gas emissions.

It is the result of six years of research compiled by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and declares that climate systems have already unquestionably begun to change.

The report warns that hunger and disease will be more common, droughts, floods and heat waves will afflict the world's poorest regions, and more animal and plant species will vanish, unless action is taken.

Source: ITN

U.N. Chief Seeks More Climate Change Leadership

2007-11-17T22:55:00.000-08:00

VALENCIA, Spain, Nov. 17 — Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, describing climate change as “the defining challenge of our age,” released the final report of a United Nations panel on climate change here on Saturday and called on the United States and China to play “a more constructive role.”

His challenge to the world’s two greatest greenhouse gas emitters came just two weeks before the world’s energy ministers meet in Bali, Indonesia, to begin talks on creating a global climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

The United States and China are signatories to Kyoto, but Washington has not ratified the treaty, and China, along with other developing countries, is not bound by its mandatory emissions caps.

“Today the world’s scientists have spoken, clearly and in one voice,” Mr. Ban said of the report, the Synthesis Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “In Bali, I expect the world’s policymakers to do the same.”

He added, “The breakthrough needed in Bali is for a comprehensive climate change deal that all nations can embrace.”

Although Mr. Ban has no power to enforce members of the United Nations to act, his statements on Saturday increased the pressure on the United States and China, participants here said.

Members of the panel said their review of the data led them to conclude as a group and individually that reductions in greenhouse gases had to start immediately to avert a global climate disaster, which could leave island nations submerged and abandoned, reduce African crop yields by 50 percent, and cause a 5 percent decrease in global gross domestic product.

The panel’s fourth and final report summarized and integrated the most significant findings of three sections of a climate-science review that were released between January and April. Because the data had not previously been reviewed as a whole, scientists said the synthesized report was more explicit, creating new emphasis and alarm.

The first section of the review had covered climate trends; the second, the world’s ability to adapt to a warming planet; the third, strategies for reducing carbon emissions. With their mission concluded, the hundreds of IPCC scientists spoke more freely than they had previously.

“The sense of urgency when you put these pieces together is new and striking,” said Martin Parry, a British climate expert who was co-chairman of the delegation that wrote the second report. “I’ve come out of this process more pessimistic about the possibilities than I thought I would.”

The panel, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last month, said the world would have to reverse the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by 2015 to prevent serious climate disruptions.

“If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late,” said Rajendra Pachauri, a scientist and economist who heads the IPCC. “What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.”

He said that since the IPCC began its work five years ago, scientists had recorded “much stronger trends in climate change,” like a recent melting of Arctic ice that had not been predicted. “That means you better start with intervention much earlier.”

Saturday’s synthesis report was reviewed and approved by delegates from 130 nations gathered here this week. But unlike the earlier reviews, in which governments had insisted on changes that diluted the reports’ impact, this time scientists and environmental groups said there had been no major dilution of the data.

For example, this report’s summary was the first to acknowledge that the melting of the Greenland ice sheet from rising temperatures could result in a substantive sea-level rise over centuries rather than millennia.

“Many of my colleagues would consider that kind of melt a catastrophe” so rapid that mankind would not be able to adapt, said Michael Oppenheimer, a climate scientist at Princeton University who contributed to the IPCC.

“It’s extremely clear and is very explicit that the cost of inaction will be huge compared to the cost of action,” said Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute. “We can’t afford to wait for some perfect accord to replace Kyoto, for some grand agreement. We can’t afford to spend years bickering about it. We need to start acting now.”

UN Panel: Climate Change Accelerating

2007-11-17T22:53:00.000-08:00

VALENCIA, Spain (AP) — The Earth is hurtling toward a warmer climate at a quickening pace, a Nobel-winning U.N. scientific panel said in a landmark report released Saturday, warning of inevitable human suffering and the threat of extinction for some species.

As early as 2020, 75 million to 250 million people in Africa will suffer water shortages, residents of Asia's megacities will be at great risk of river and coastal flooding, Europeans can expect extensive species loss, and North Americans will experience longer and hotter heat waves and greater competition for water, the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said climate change imperils "the most precious treasures of our planet."

The potential impact of global warming is "so severe and so sweeping that only urgent, global action will do," Ban told the IPCC after it issued its fourth and final report this year.

The IPCC adopted the report, along with a summary, after five days of sometimes tense negotiations. It lays out blueprints for avoiding the worst catastrophes — and various possible outcomes, depending on how quickly and decisively action is taken.

The document says recent research has heightened concern that the poor and the elderly will suffer most from climate change; that hunger and disease will be more common; that droughts, floods and heat waves will afflict the world's poorest regions; and that more animal and plant species will vanish.

The Summary for Policymakers, and the longer version, called the synthesis report, distill thousands of pages of data and computer models from six years of research compiled by the IPCC.

The information is expected to guide policy makers meeting in Bali, Indonesia, next month to discuss an agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

The panel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year along with former Vice President Al Gore for their efforts to raise awareness about the effects of climate change.

The report is important because it is adopted by consensus, meaning countries accept the underlying science and cannot disavow its conclusions. While it does not commit governments to a specific course of action, it provides a common scientific baseline for the political talks.

The U.N. says a new global plan must be in place by 2009 to ensure a smooth transition after the expiration of the Kyoto terms, which require 36 industrial countries to radically reduce their carbon emissions by 2012.

"There are real and affordable ways to deal with climate change," Ban said. He said a new agreement should provide funding to help poor countries adopt clean energy and to adapt to changing climates.

The report says emissions of carbon, which comes primarily from fossil fuels, must stabilize by 2015 and go down after that. Otherwise the consequences could be "disastrous," said IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri.

In the best-case scenario, temperatures will continue to rise from carbon already in the atmosphere, the report said. Even if factories were shut down today and cars taken off the roads, the average sea level will reach as high as 4 1/2 feet higher than the preindustrial period, or about 1850.

"We have already committed the world to sea level rise," said Pachauri. If the Greenland ice sheet melts, the scientists couldn't even predict by how many meters the seas will rise, drowning coastal cities.

Yet differences remain stark on how to control carbon emissions.

While the European Union has taken the lead in enforcing the carbon emission targets outlined in Kyoto, the United States opted out of the 1997 accord.

President Bush described it as flawed because major developing countries such as India and China, which are large carbon emitters, were excluded from any obligations. He also favors a voluntary agreement.

Sharon Hays, a White House science official and head of the U.S. delegation, said the certainty of climate change was clearer now than when Bush rejected Kyoto.

"What's changed since 2001 is the scientific certainty that this is happening," she said in a conference call to reporters late Friday. "Back in 2001 the IPCC report said it is likely that humans were having an impact on the climate," but confidence in human responsibility had increased since then.

"What's new is the clarity of the signal, how clear the scientific message is," said Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s top climate change official. "The politicians have no excuse not to act."

Opening with a sweeping statement directed at climate change skeptics, the summary declares that climate systems have already begun to change.

Unless action is taken, human activity could lead to "abrupt and irreversible changes" that would make the planet unrecognizable.

Advocacy groups hailed the report as indispensable for the 10,000 delegates expected at Bali.

"We expect to see their personal copies of the Synthesis Report return from Bali, battered and worn from frequent use, with paragraphs underlined and notes in the margin," said Stephanie Tunmore of Greenpeace.

Source: The Associated Press

UN panel approves landmark report on climate change

2007-11-17T22:51:00.000-08:00

VALENCIA, Spain (AFP) - The world's leading authority on climate change adopted Saturday a landmark report that warns that the impacts of global warming are already visible, will accelerate this century and are potentially irreversible.

"The parties to the governments adopted the full report, consisting of a shorter synthesis and a longer version," said Jose Romero, a Swiss delegate and one of the reports many authors.

The document, to be formally presented later Saturday in the Spanish city of Valencia by UN chief Ban Ki-moon, encapsulates the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's latest findings on the effects of greenhouse gases.

It seeks to guide politicians facing tough decisions on cutting pollution from fossil fuels, shifting to cleaner energy, bolstering defences against extreme weather, and other issues set to intensify due to climate change.

Ban warned Saturday in a published commentary to the first IPCC overview since 2001 that the world was on the verge of a "catastrophe" due to global warming.

The draft report from the Nobel-winning IPCC, which was not expected to change significantly, said the evidence of a human role in the warming of the planet was now "unequivocal."

Retreating glaciers and loss of snow in Alpine regions, thinning Arctic summer sea ice and thawing permafrost shows that climate change is already on the march, it said.

By 2100, global average surface temperatures could rise by between 1.1 C (1.98 F) and 6.4 C (11.52 F) compared to 1980-99 levels, while sea levels will rise by between 18 and 59 centimetres (7.2 and 23.2 inches), it forecasted.

Heatwaves, rainstorms, tropical cyclones and surges in sea level are among the events expected to become more frequent, more widespread or more intense this century.

"This is the strongest document the IPCC has produced," said Hans Verolme, director of the World Wildlife Fund's Global Climate Change Program.

He said that the synthesis said more clearly than any previous version, for example, that global warming was likely to be "irreversible".

"It is a tremendous result — the overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change is here. Now the ball is in the court of politicians."

"All countries" will be affected, but poorer countries — ironically those least to blame for causing the problem — will be hit hardest and they have the least resources for coping, according to the draft report.

Publication of the report comes in the run-up to a December 3-14 conference in Bali, Indonesia, where the world's nations will gather to ponder the climate crisis.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is tasked with setting a "roadmap" of negotiations for intensifying cuts in carbon emissions beyond 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol runs out.

Carbon pollution, emitted especially by the burning of oil, gas and coal, traps heat from the Sun, thus warming the Earth's surface and inflicting changes to weather systems.

Emissions are spiralling, driven more recently by coal-fired plants in fast-growing China and India.

In its present form, Kyoto will not even make a dent in this threat.

In a commentary published in the International Herald Tribune on Saturday Ban called for urgent action on global warming, writing "I believe we are on the verge of a catastrophe if we do not act….

"I am not scare-mongering. But I believe we are nearing a tipping point," wrote the UN chief.

But he characterised the report's conclusions as "encouraging."

"The over-arching message: we can beat this. There are real and affordable ways to deal with climate change," wrote Ban.

The IPCC, which won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize — alongside former US vice president Al Gore — for its neutral and detailed assessments of global warming and its impacts, was established by the UN in 1988 to evaluate the risk of climate change.

Source: VMVZ News

Hilary Clinton Unveils Aggressive Climate Change Plan

2007-11-17T22:37:00.000-08:00

Presidential hopeful Hilary Clinton has just released an aggressive and comprehensive plan to fight climate change and significantly curb the US addiction to foreign oil.

The plan called "Powering America's Future: Hillary Clinton's Plan to Address the Energy and Climate Crisis" proposes to:

Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80% from 1990 levels by 2050 -- the level necessary to avoid the worst impacts of global warming.
Cut foreign oil imports by two-thirds from projected levels by 2030.
Transform our carbon-based economy into an efficient green economy, creating at least 5 million jobs from clean energy over the next decade.

Grist lays out the entire plan here.

Other key aspects are a new cap-and-trade program that auctions 100% of permits alongside investments to move us on the path towards energy independence and $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund, paid for in part by oil companies, to fund investments in alternative energy.

About time we've seen a presidential candidate take the climate crisis serious.

Climate change conference opens in Maldives

2007-11-17T21:53:00.000-08:00

COLOMBO, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- The world's Small Island States gathered in the Maldives on Tuesday to highlight the plight of the world's most vulnerable communities to climate change and coordinate their positions before a key UN meeting scheduled for December.

The Foreign Ministry of the Maldives said in a statement that the conference will attempt to broaden the traditional climate change debate by focusing on the human dimension of this fundamental threat to planet, people and prosperity, according to website of the ministry.

Delegates from 23 island nations will examine how global warming is affecting the lives of individual people around the world, and to agree on whether climate change fundamentally compromises individual rights and liberties.

The meeting, with the theme of "Human Dimension of Global Climate Change", will also explore ways for Small Island States to collaborate in the preparation of a new global agreement to replace the Kyoto Treaty.

Addressing the opening ceremony in the Maldivian capital of Male, Maldivian President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom said that environmental protection, preservation and security are part of an individual's basic human rights.

Gayoom called for a comprehensive international treaty to guarantee this fundamental human right to millions of people across the world.

He told the gathering of representatives of member countries of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and international environmental organizations that people should be "at the heart of climate change diplomacy."

The president urged the delegates to develop a common platform for next month's important Bali (Indonesia) conference.

He said for the Maldives and other member countries of AOSIS, environmental security was today an issue of life and death.

"We are under no illusion that time is running out for us to ensure the survival of our future generations. It is our responsibility to ensure that they are not deprived of the opportunity to grow up and to live in a safe and protected environment," the president said.

"The future we seek to build is not a zero-sum game where one lifestyle is sacrificed to save another," said Gayoom, adding that measures to counter climate change will power sustainable development, create new and better jobs and raise living standards across the world.

At the end of the two-day conference, Small Island States are expected to adopt a "Declaration on the Human Dimension of Climate Change."

The document will be accompanied by a resolution that will "operationalize" the declaration by setting out the negotiating position of Small Island States ahead of the Bali Process.

The 13th United Nations Climate Change Conference is expected to be held in Bali from Dec. 3 to 14 to formulate a roadmap for a future climate change deal.

Source: ChinaView.cn

Satellite 'sentinels' to help track climate change

2007-11-17T21:49:00.000-08:00

A European project to monitor the continent's climate from space could provide a boost in the fight against climate change.

The Global Monitoring for Environment and Security project (GMES) will eventually consist of five satellites--or "sentinels"--that will monitor different climate elements.

The project has been jointly developed by the European Commission and European Space Agency and is aimed at generating data to inform government policy for combating climate change and help plan for the effects of the changes already taking place.

Each satellite would provide different data sets, such as ocean-monitoring information (temperature, color, level) and atmospheric data.

Speaking at a panel discussion in Westminster, U.K., professor Alan O'Neill, director of the National Centre for Earth Observation, said, "I think that the GMES could be a critical contribution to an Earth information system."

The project could provide "assured continuity of crucial data sets" that could help understand and predict climate change and inform policy making in hundreds of years, he added.

Professor David Crichton, consultant on insurance and climate change, cited a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that suggests government policy now needs to focus on making the infrastructure more resilient to climate change.

There are firm plans for the first three sentinels--with launches expected in 2011 or 2012--but plans for the final two satellites are less certain due to funding issues.

O'Neill said the U.K. has to do more than it has done so far to ensure results of the data-gathering can be quickly made into policy. "If the U.K. gets its act together, it can get involved in the building of (GMES)," he said.

Stuart Martin, director of space and satellite communications at LogicaCMG, which is heavily involved in the project, said the U.K. isn't putting enough money into the GMES pot.

Michael Jack, chairman of the U.K.'s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, agreed. He said, "There is a sort of reluctance in our system to spend any money on space."

ohn Higgins, director general of IT industry association Intellect, added, "The perceptions of this topic are quite different around the world. There are actions that need to be taken."

But Jack said the U.K. decision makers need to be better informed about the project and more effort needs to be made to engage with the public around the project. "At the moment there's a yawning disconnect," he said.

Jack added there are lessons to be learned from the European Galileo project--aimed at rivaling the U.S. GPS satellite system--which has also suffered from a dearth of funding.

The U.K.'s House of Commons Select Committee on Transport has said Galileo is suffering from an "alarming" absence of information.

Source: Cnet News.com

Avoiding Climate Change: Why Americans Prevaricate and Delay on Taking Action

2007-11-17T21:40:00.000-08:00

By Kurt Campbell

Kurt Campbell is an expert on Asia and security issues who is now chief executive of the Center for a New American Security. He served in the Pentagon in the Clinton administration, in charge of Asia/Pacific issues, and earlier taught at Harvard. Kurt has written widely, for popular and academic audiences, about everything from Japan to nuclear policy. His last post was entitled: “The Inheritance on Climate.”

For all the talk of Americans being an optimistic people, anxieties and fears have long animated our national passions and perspectives. There were longstanding concerns for 50 years over various aspects of Soviet power, either in the form of an alleged missile gap or unfounded worries over communist infiltration into the United States government during the height of the Cold War. Currently, there are dire concerns over a number of new global developments, ranging from reliance on unstable regions for supplies of petrol, the increasing radicalization of Islam, the implications for China’s march on the 21st Century, to the spread of nuclear weapons.

Given this tendency to occasionally stress out over — and even hype global trends — it is all the more surprising that the US government during the Bush years has been relatively lackadaisical about the prospective threats to global security that are inherent with unchecked climate change. These include the possibility of major flooding of low lying coastal areas, the prospect of massive migrations of people across the globe, new disease vectors, species extinctions, agricultural disruptions and the collapse of global fisheries.

While there is a growing consciousness about climate change and how a sharp increase in global warming might sharply shift the natural order of the planet, there has been an inadequate appreciation in our overall political discourse about the necessity to act urgently.

Most public polls on the subject underscore two contradictory findings: one, that Americans now accept that climate change is real and must be dealt with and two, that Americans as yet do not feel that they must make personal sacrifices or alter their carbon splurging lifestyles in order to address the problem.

What accounts for this general lack of urgency on a issue that the Nobel Committee, among others, considers a profound threat to the peace and stability of the planet? The reasons are many and complex and in combination provide a daunting set of obstacles to any political effort to truly address the magnitude of the challenge ahead of us.

Probably the most important reason for this absence of urgency is the profound lack of public knowledge on issues related to climate matters, that is, beyond the simple conflation of weather with climate in the public mind. The serious national media have done a miserable job in educating the public about just what the stakes involved are when it comes to climate change — its science, causes, the politics of, and remediation efforts.

The absence of visionary political leadership at the national level is also undeniable. While it is easy to scapegoat President Bush and his team for a profound lack of initiative on all matters of climate, it must be said that on this issue he merely mirrors the dominant attitudes of obliviousness and denial among many of the American people. On climate, alas, we have gotten the president we deserve.

Many also believe that it will be possible to defer taking action into the future and that late remedial steps can be both cost effective and sufficient. However, most experts counter that urgent and current steps are infinitely preferable to waiting and hoping that late action can still work to address the magnitude of the problem. In truth, waiting will probably turn out to be a very bad option.

There is, in addition, a general if unstated belief that a “cool” new technology (sorry for the pun) will soon emerge - a veritable technical silver bullet - that will magically remove vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the skies and allow Americans to avoid the really hard choices of conservation and changes in lifestyle.

There are also powerful forces in the political arena that continue to have serious doubts about either the existence of climate change or misgiving about the implications of taking action to address the problem (or both). For instance, the lion’s share of recent funding provided to the small but busy band of climate change skeptics have come from folks associated with the oil and coal industries.

Another related issue is the potential economic impacts of introducing new energy related technologies or conservation provisions. There is a strong and growing presumption that alternative approaches should be cost effective and not put undue burdens on the already energy - stressed industrial and commercial sectors of the American business community. This is a high bar, particularly if the implications of global climate change are as dire as many experts predict.

And lastly, there is probably an unhealthy propensity on the part of many Americans to think that the enormity of the challenge is simply insurmountable, and it’s probably better to pretend that the ice caps are not melting, that worrisome climate trends are not accelerating, or to simply deny that local weather conditions are changing in ways that the old timers cannot remember ever happening before.

Taken together this is a daunting list of roadblocks, detours and demons that will provide enormous disincentives for political leadership on the matter of addressing climate change in an early and earnest way. And yet, early action is precisely what is urgently required if climate change is to be a major political preoccupation of the next president — as it must be

Source: The New York Times

9 Midwestern states join with Schwarzenegger on global-warming plan

2007-11-17T21:35:00.000-08:00

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger lauded an agreement Thursday that brings nine states in the U.S. heartland in line with his fight against global warming - his 11th such pact in little more than a year.

The latest accord was signed at a climate-change summit in Wisconsin. Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Kansas, Ohio, Wisconsin and South Dakota signed onto the pact, along with the Canadian province of Manitoba.

The pacts enlist governments - states, foreign provinces, even a coalition of European Union nations - to join a large emissions cap-and-trade system. Schwarzenegger and others believe such a program will create incentives for businesses to curb greenhouse-gas emissions by allowing them to trade and sell credits to those who don't.

"States and regions are making significant progress toward paving the way for a future federal program," Schwarzenegger said of the agreement. "Together, we're creating a network of climate initiatives that will form the foundation of an eventual national program."

Beginning Sunday, Schwarzenegger will appear in a 30-second, global-warming alert TV ad that Environmental Defense funded with $3 million to pressure Congress. The ad also features Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., a Republican, and Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat.

Next month, Schwarzenegger is expected to join former Vice President Al Gore in a presidential forum on the environment - for candidates of both parties -

in New Hampshire, shortly before the first state presidential primary.

California's governor has made high-profile appearances on global warming, including a United Nations address, while lobbying Congress and playing a role in the 2008 presidential race by drawing attention to the problem.

Schwarzenegger's aides said the agreement signed Thursday is modeled after the pact forged in February between California and the Western states of Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington. Utah has since joined.

"Today's agreement is an important milestone toward achieving a cleaner, more secure energy future," said Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

The Midwestern accord will:

• Establish greenhouse-gas reduction targets and time tables.

• Develop a market-based and multiple-sector cap-and-trade mechanism to help achieve those targets.

• Foster development of additional steps needed to achieve reduction goals, such as low-carbon fuel standards, and regional incentives and funding mechanisms.

In September 2006, the governor signed California legislation that established regulatory and market mechanisms designed to reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020.

Source: MercuryNews

U.N. Report: Global Warming Could Be 'Abrupt, Irreversible'

2007-11-17T21:31:00.000-08:00

VALENCIA, Spain — Climate change is here, and it's getting worse, the year's final report by a U.N. panel will say when it's officially released Saturday.

"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal," the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Summary for Policymakers begins in a statement meant to dispel any skepticism about climate change.

It goes on to say that global warming could lead to "abrupt and irreversible" results, such as the widespread extinction of species, according to persons familiar with the final draft who requested anonymity because the summary was not yet public.

Working until dawn Friday, negotiators hashed out week-long disputes on the language, one of its authors said.

Provisional agreement on the text — which is about 20 pages and summarizes thousands of pages of data and projections — required compromises among the more than 140 delegations, but resulted in a "good and balanced document," said Bert Metz, a Dutch scientist who helped draft the report.

The brief Summary for Policymakers is expected to get final approval later Friday after a longer version of about 70 pages is reviewed and adopted.

It is to be released at 11 a.m. Spanish time Saturday — 5 a.m. EST — by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Until then, the text is supposed to remain confidential.

The paper will be an "instant guide" to policymakers at a critical meeting next month in Indonesia, which could launch a round of complex talks on a new international accord for controlling carbon emissions and other human activity that is heating the planet.

Though it contains no previously unpublished material, the summary pulls together the central elements of three lengthy reports released earlier this year by the IPCC.

They describe observations of the changing climate, the potentially disastrous impacts of global warming and the tools available to slow the warming trend.

The document "is a clear message to policymakers," said Hans Verolme, of the World Wide Fund for Nature, one of the environmental groups acting as observers. "The scientists have done their job. They certainly deserved the Nobel Prize. Now the question is, what are the policymakers going to do with it?"

The panel shared this year's Nobel Peace Prize with Vice President Al Gore.

The meeting in the Indonesian resort of Bali starting Dec. 3 will discuss the next step in combating climate change after the measures adopted in the Kyoto Protocol expire in 2012.

The Kyoto accord, negotiated in 1997, obliges 36 industrial countries to radically reduce their carbon emissions by 2012, but has no clear plan for what happens after that date.

Though the United States rejected the Kyoto accord, it will attend the Bali meeting.

Participants in the Valencia meeting said the U.S. delegation questioned the most hard-hitting statements in the summary. But key language remained.

Delegates fought long and hard for the inclusion of issues of special interest to them: mountainous countries wanted a reference to melting glaciers; island states wanted to include warnings that oceans are becoming more acidic; poor countries insisted on firm language on "adaptation," implying international funding to help them cope with the effects of global warming.

The IPCC reports draw on the research of thousands of scientists and is reviewed by about 2,500 experts, then distilled and drafted by several hundred authors.

Metz said the discussions that began Monday were "contentious in a number of places," and required compromise language. "If I had written it myself, I might have done it a bit different," he said, though he added he was satisfied with the outcome.

"It says in crisp language: This is the problem, and this is what we can do to stop it," said Verolme, the WWF campaigner.

Source: FOXNews.com

Antarctica shows need for action on climate change, Ban Ki-moon says

2007-11-11T05:24:00.001-08:00

11 November 2007 – Ban Ki-moon, during his historic visit to Antarctica, the first by a United Nations Secretary-General, has said warming temperatures on the continent show the growing dangers of climate change and the need for action to address it.

“It is here where our work, together, comes into focus,” Mr. Ban said in a statement issued on Friday. “We see Antarctica's beauty – and the danger global warming represents, and the urgency that we do something about it.”

The Secretary-General, who has made climate change a priority issue and is working to galvanize support for an international conference to be held in Bali in December on global commitments to stop it, said he is personally determined to push forward.

He said the landscapes on Antarctica are “rare and wonderful” but also deeply disturbing as the ice continues melting at a fast pace.

“All this may be gone, and not in the distant future, unless we act, together, now,” he warned.

“Antarctica is on the verge of a catastrophe – for the world.”

The Secretary-General offered stark figures to illustrate his point, noting that the glaciers on King George Island have shrunk by 10 per cent, while some in Admirality Bay have retreated by 25 kilometers. He also recalled how the 87-kilometer “Larsen B ice sheet” collapsed several years ago and disappeared within weeks and warned that the entire Western Antarctic Ice Shelf is at risk.

“It is all floating ice, one fifth of the entire continent. If it broke up, sea levels could rise by 6 meters or 18 feet,” he noted, pointing out that 138 tons of ice are now being lost every year.

Other “deeply worrying signs” he mentioned were the shrinking penguin population of Chabrier Rock, which has dipped by 57 per cent in the last 25 years. “What will happen to the annual march of the penguins in the future? Will there even be one?”

At the same time, grass is growing for the first time ever on King George Island, where it rains rather than snows increasingly in the summer.

“These things should alarm us all. Antarctica is a natural lab that helps us understand what is happening to our world. We must save this precious earth, including all that is here. It is a natural wonder, but above all, it is our common home,” said Mr. Ban.

source: UN news

President sees off cyclists to campaign climate change

2007-11-11T05:15:00.000-08:00

JAKARTA (Antara): President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Sunday saw off cyclists who will travel from Jakarta to Bali as part of a campaign on the climate change.

At the start held in the National Monument square, Yudhoyono gave the Red and White flags to the participating cyclists in the 1447-kilometer long trip.

“I encourage our brothers to promote cycling as it has a lot of advantages including saving the earth,” he said.

Meanwhile, State Minister for the Environment Rahmat Witoelar said the trip, dubbed Bicycle for Earth Goes to Bali, started from Sunday to Dec. 1, 2007, to greet the UN Conference on Climate Change to be held from Dec.3 to 14, 2007 in Bali.

The cycling event is participated in by 50 cyclists consisting of 15 participants of the main team who will be running the Jakarta-Bali route and 35 members of cycling communities from cities where they will pass through.

The routes are Jakarta, Karawang, Pamanukan, Cirebon, Tegal, Pekalongan, Semarang, Yogyakarta, Solo, Madiun, kertosono, Surabaya, Probolinggo, Situbondo, Banyuwangi, Tabanan, Denpasar, and Nusadua

UN climate change chief impressed by China

2007-11-11T05:08:00.000-08:00

China is taking all the necessary steps to tackle the adverse impacts of climate change, chairman of the UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Rajendra Pachauri has said.

At a media workshop organized by the UN Development Programme in Delhi last week, Pacahuri said he was impressed by what Chinese scientists and meteorologists had done to fight climate change.

Pachauri-led IPCC shared this year's Nobel Peace Prize with green campaigner and US former vice-president Al Gore.

"The facilities, capabilities and infrastructure developed by China Meteorological Administration (CMA) have served the people very well," Pachauri said.

For example, China has 2,400 observation stations to monitor weather and climate change, he said. China has a TV channel on the weather , too, and it reaches everyone.

China has been doing a great job as a developing country, Pachauri said, with its scientists showing a very positive attitude toward working with international researchers to fight climate change.

"On the Fourth Assessment Report, China has been extremely active," he said. "A number of Chinese scientists have contributed to the report. The Chinese government has been very deeply engaged in every stage of the process of the report."

The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, "Climate Change 2007", will be released in Spain next week. It will be the latest in a series of IPCC assessments providing the most comprehensive scientific evidence on climate change. China is seeking a way to develop a low-carbon economy, Pachauri said, and he will help it achieve it if he can.

source: Chinadaily

Businesses to take climate change action

2007-11-11T00:58:00.000-08:00

OVER 100 of Scotland's top business leaders were meeting in Edinburgh today to pledge action on climate change.

The Prince of Wales' Business Summit on Climate change marks the beginning of a business-led movement for increased action on the threat of carbon emissions to the planet.

Prince Charles was due to address the audience at The Hub via video-link from Wales where a simultaneous event was taking place.

John Swinney, cabinet secretary for finance and sustainable growth, was also due to speak at the summit.

Companies will be asked to make firm commitments to reduce their carbon emissions.

The event, which has been organised by Scottish Business in the Community in conjunction with the Carbon Trust, brought together senior industry figures across a range of sectors and regions.

The gathering follows on from the inaugural event in England in May and will take the number of companies making a commitment to tackling climate change in the UK to over 1500.

Samantha Barber, chief executive of Scottish Business in the Community, said: "Scottish businesses have been at the forefront of efforts to tackle climate change for some time now.

"The summit will provide a focus for collective business action on climate change - harnessing the power of business to change their operating practices."

source: Scotsman

UN chief to attend Bali conference on climate change

2007-11-07T05:25:00.000-08:00

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is planning to attend a conference on climate change on the Indonesian resort island of Bali in December this year, the executive secretary of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Yvo de Boer, said here on Thursday.

But de Boer said he had yet to obtain formal information on which countries would send officials at head of state/government level to the meeting which would bring together around 10,000 people from 189 countries.

"It is too early to say which countries will send officials at head of state/government level," de Boer told ANTARA here.

He said the Bali conference on climate change was scheduled to be conducted from December 3-14 but the presence of the UN chief has yet to be confirmed because it would depend on developments around various international issues.

Speaking at a press conference at the UN Headquarters on Thursday, de Boer said there was a strong desire from various countries and international private sectors to stem the tide of greenhouse gas emission.

He made the statement following several reports on climate change and the results of a meeting among Climate Change Convention countries in Bonn, Germany, last week.

The Bonn meeting, attended by 191 countries subscrbing to the Climate Change Convention and 173 Kyoto Protocol countries, was aimed at reducing green house gas emission until 2012 and held in a preparation of the main conference in Bali.

de Boer said it was the first time for the participants of the Bonn meeting to respond to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)`s report on an inexpensive technology to deal with climate change.

Asked what activity in Indonesia was contributing the most to climate change , de Boer said, "Illegal logging." (*)

Press briefing by Yvo de Boer at Carbon Forum Asia: Start of negotiations for post-2012 agreement crucial for health of the planet

2007-11-07T05:20:00.000-08:00

Singapore
6 November 2007
The UNFCCC Executive Secretary told stakeholders at the Carbon Forum Asia tradefair and conference that the negotiations need to begin this December to avoid a gap between the end of the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period and whatever agreement comes next. “We’ve seen several positive signals, such as the statements made by heads of state at the Secretary-General’s high level event in September in New York, and broad agreement by ministers who met in Indonesia just a few weeks ago. Nonetheless, we must stay focussed, and achieve a formal launch of negotiations in Bali in December, one that sets out a timetable and a means for moving forward,” Mr. de Boer said.
source: unfccc

Al Gore Finds New Cause Of Global Warming

2007-11-07T05:12:00.000-08:00

Nobel Prize winner, Al Gore, today announced he has single-handedly found a new major cause of global warming. Haircuts.

Liberal, wacko scientists, as usual, totally agree with Al Gore's finding. They claim that, after a haircut, when the thrown-away hair cuttings decay, they give off massive amounts of green house gases, in hues of blond, brunette and redhead. This contributes to the severe global warming crisis in America, which, according to liberals, is the worst offending nation in everything.

Along with SUV's and outdoor barbecuing, haircutting in America is a serious environmentally unfriendly act, especially when perpetrated by rich men, rich women, actors and politicians, as they get more frequent haircuts than the average poor person.

The world's hair care industry is aghast at Gore's findings. Hollywood haircutter-to-the-stars, Jose Jair, stated, "OMG, all these years when I was charging $500 for a haircut I was contributing to global warming. I'm so sorry. Now that I know, I'll have to raise my price."

And, lastly, as a result of his new findings, Al Gore has personally vowed to get all his hair cut off and, in the interests of science and the environment, go bald.

Indonesian Today (day by day in indonesia)

2007-11-03T06:57:00.001-07:00

find anything you want about Indonesia day by day in this blog

read more | digg story

International Demonstrations on Climate Change 8 December 2007

2007-11-01T07:41:00.000-07:00

Coinciding with the UN Climate Talks (MOP 3, COP 13) in Bali, Indonesia, from the 3rd to the 14th December 2007

The 'Call to Action' for these demonstrations and related events that will take place on December 8th 2007 is as follows :

"We demand that world leaders take the urgent and resolute action that is needed to prevent the catastrophic destabilisation of global climate, so that the entire world can move as rapidly as possible to a stronger emissions reductions treaty which is both equitable and effective in preventing dangerous climate change.

We also demand that the long-industrialised countries that have emitted most greenhouse gases up to now take most of the responsibility for the adaptive measures that have to be taken, especially by low-emitting countries with limited economic resources."

International Day of Action, December 8

In Indonesia, on December 8, WALHI (Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia = Friends of the Earth Indonesia) will take the lead organising at local level for the International Day of Action in Bali. WALHI will be supported by the Bali Working Group. A huge mobilization is expected. The mobilisation will be linked with the actions around the world through the global climate change action (www.globalclimatecampaign.org).

The target of the mobilisation will be the media and general public. Through the mobilisation, the NGOs and movements gathered in Bali will send a strong message to world leaders that the world can not wait for real action to fight the causes of the climate change.

WALHI will look for the most strategic place to start the action. The media coordination will be very crucial to inform the media that will be concentrated in the official venue. The intention is to organise interesting carnivals, with music and colorful banners from different groups. The announcement will need to be prepared and launched at least one month prior the action day. WALHI will organise Indonesian groups, particularly Balinese groups. It is also intended to organise an interesting action during the mobilisation inspired by local culture, i.e. giant floating life safety.

There are also plans for several other activities, such as live concert, artistic action, etc.

Indonesia a climate change perpetrator

2007-11-01T07:33:00.000-07:00

Should climate change be made the priority in Indonesia's environmental policy? I believe the answer is "yes". Indonesia should be more actively involved in global efforts to combat climate change by making this a priority among other environmental issues.

First of all, climate change will affect our lives. The 2001 IPCC report estimates, with a high degree of confidence, several impacts of climate change in tropical Asia. The report predicts climate change will increase tropical Asian countries' vulnerability to extreme climate events, including droughts and floods. Increased precipitation intensity, particularly during the summer monsoon season, could expose people in flood-prone areas to a higher risk of floods.

The IPCC report also predicts climate change will increase occurrences and the intensity of tropical cyclones, with serious consequences. Stronger tropical cyclones combined with rising sea-levels may lead to increased risk of loss of life and property in low-lying coastal areas.

Moreover, strong winds resulting from cyclones, combined with thermal and water stresses, sea level rise and increased flooding, will threaten crop production and aquaculture.

According to the report, large deltas and low-lying coastal areas in Asia could be inundated by rising sea-levels. On this particular issue, we could also refer to a study of Nicholls and Mimura, which estimates Indonesia will lose 1.9 percent of its land area with just a 0.6 meter rise in sea-levels (R.J. Nicholls and N. Mimura, 1998).

Other impacts predicted by the report include a higher incidence of heat-related and infectious diseases due to warmer and wetter conditions, increased vulnerability of freshwater supplies and threats to biodiversity resulting from land-use change and population pressures in Asia.

Given such enormous potential impacts, I see no choice but to make climate change a priority among environmental issues.

We should consider several adaptation options to minimize the magnitude of these impacts, ranging from the adjustment of harvest times and the development of new hybrids, to the protection of wetlands.

Climate change can also be mitigated with the reduction of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions. The question is, who should bear the responsibility for the reductions?

This responsibility should be differentiated according to each country's past emissions. In the climate change issue, bygones are not bygones -- polluters should pay for the damage they have caused. This can be seen in the differentiated responsibilities under UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, where the obligation to reduce emissions falls exclusively on developed countries.

Indonesia is excluded from obligation. This is certainly understandable given the current GHGs concentrations originate largely from developed countries.

For this reason, it should be noted, the responsibility to reduce emissions can no longer be considered a form of assistance given by developed countries to developing countries. Instead such a responsibility is compensation to be paid by developed countries for their past and current excessive emissions levels.

Unfortunately, the report of Wetlands International and Delft Hydraulics provides a different picture about our emissions. It says when emissions from forest and peatland destruction are accounted for, Indonesia comes hard on the heels of the U.S. and China as the main contributor to climate change. This alarming report may have serious consequences to our position in climate change negotiations.

On one hand, if the report is correct, we can no longer consider ourselves as victims of climate change. We are now a perpetrator, and one of the worst.

On the other hand such a change in status from victim to culprit may impede us in taking initiatives to induce developed countries to reduce their emissions. We cannot push developed countries unless we can significantly reduce our own emissions, and such a reduction will only occur if we make climate change the priority in our environmental policy.

Lastly, I believe we can make significant emissions reductions inexpensively. As mentioned above, Indonesia's total emissions have drastically increased due to forest and peatland destruction. Excluding emissions from forest and peatland destruction, the country's total emissions are ranked 21st, far below those of developed countries.

Indonesia's per capita emissions are lower than those of neighboring developing countries, let alone developed countries, thanks to our huge population. This means our emissions will be significantly reduced if we restore our degraded forests and peatlands, while simultaneously preventing further destruction.

The good news is, good forest and peatland management does not necessarily involve large costs. Forest and peatland degradation in Indonesia has mainly resulted from activities that are actually illegal. Those activities include illegal logging and forest fires due to land clearing using the slash-and-burn method.

Hence, it is plausible to argue that our emissions reductions first and foremost require a strong government willing to enforce our own environmental law. Let's not forget while developed countries' emissions could be seen as a symbol of economic growth and prosperity, ours are the symbol of lawlessness and ignorance, if not foolishness.

Source: The Jakarta Post

Developing nations to act on climate change: UN

2007-11-01T07:29:00.000-07:00

The politics of climate change has dominated the election campaign this week, with the debate focusing on whether developing countries should have to make commitments before Australia signs up to a new climate change agreement.

But a United Nations (UN) spokesman has told ABC Radio's AM program he is confident that developing nations will agree to get on board at the climate change meeting in Bali at the end of the year.

John Hay, the spokesman for the UN Convention on Climate Change Secretariat based in Bonn in Germany, says developing nations are ready to begin serious negotiations in Bali.

"What we expect they will be bringing is a commitment, basically," he said.

"A commitment to be engaged and a commitment to be part of a post-2012 climate change regime. And we're already seeing very good indications that this will happen."

Mr Hay says the Bali meeting will not establish a treaty with new binding targets, but will merely launch negotiations for a deal to be finalised by 2009.

He says it is likely poorer nations will commit to different types of action, such as lower targets.

"What we can expect is that countries not only look at the options of absolute targets, but also bringing, for example, parts of their economies under targets, that countries agree to finding the best solution which just fits their particular needs," he said.

"But what is quite clear is that industrialised countries must take the lead."

China, India not the villains

Greenpeace International spokesman Bill Hare has been to the UN climate change conferences every year since 1992 and says it is countries such as Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Singapore, and not China and India, that need to adopt targets.

"South Korea at one end is classified as a developing country, but it surely must take on similar targets as countries like Australia or New Zealand ultimately," he said.

"On the other hand, India is still very poor and in no way could be expected to take on binding national emission limits at this point."

The Government accused Federal Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd of a policy backflip this week, after he said a commitment by developing countries in the second phase of Kyoto was a pre-condition for Australia signing up.

But Mr Hare says the Coalition's stance has also changed.

"For the first time it said in New York in September that developing countries may not have to take the same kind of binding emission obligations as industrialised countries," he said.

"Of course no-one actually believes that will mean anything internationally because the Howard Government has got such a bad reputation internationally."

Meanwhile, Mr Hay warns there is a closing window of opportunity to get a new climate change deal.

"If negotiations are not launched this year in Bali, there is a very big danger of the climate change process, I would almost say, dissolving," he said.
source: ABC news

UN: US, Australia ready to negotiate new climate change treaty

2007-10-28T07:14:00.000-07:00

The United States and Australia, the only industrialized countries to not sign onto the Kyoto climate change treaty, are willing to join negotiations for a successor agreement in coming years, a U.N. official said Thursday.

Yvo de Boer, a leading U.N. climate official, said participants at informal talks in Indonesia this week agreed that economically developed nations must take the lead in adopting measures to halt the earth's rising temperature.

"The United States came to this meeting with a very constructive position, saying they want to see a launch of negotiations" to be concluded by 2009, he said.

A major summit will be held in December on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, where environment ministers from 80 countries will discuss a replacement for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

"The United States and Australia indicated in this meeting they are willing to begin negotiations," de Boer told reporters Thursday. "They are willing take on commitment on the future climate change regime."

The Kyoto agreement requires 36 industrial nations to reduce the heat-trapping gases emitted by power plants and other industrial, agricultural and transportation sources, but critics say it did not go far enough and are pushing for a more stringent regime next time around.

The United States, Australia and some other Western nations do not want to sign onto a new treaty setting caps on emissions unless China and India — who argue that such a deal would impede their booming economies — agree. So far, that seems unlikely.

U.S. Undersecretary of State Paula J. Dobriansky said the Indonesian talks were the "kind of discussion that needs to take place to move us forward."

Dobriansky could not say if the United States would drop its long-standing opposition to forced emission reductions, but noted that a combination of mandatory measures and financial incentives was part of domestic environmental policy.

Greenpeace said the success of the informal meeting "sends a strong political message that governments are ready and willing to negotiate seriously in Bali."

But the Dec. 3-14 Bali summit must result "in deeper emissions cuts from developed countries, broader country participation, and a reduction in carbon emissions through the elimination of deforestation," it said in a statement.

Source: International Herald Tribune - AP

IPCC: New climate change agreement to be stricter than Kyoto

2007-10-28T07:11:00.000-07:00

http://news.xinhuanet.com/
RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- The terms of the international agreement on greenhouse gas emissions that will follow the Kyoto Protocol will be even stricter, economist Mohan Munasinghe, vice president of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said here Friday.

According to Munasinghe, who was participating in a seminar here to discuss the application of the IPCC recommendations locally, stronger international consensus has now been reached on the need for stricter measures.

The new rules that countries all over the world will have to follow in order to avoid runaway global warming will start to be discussed in December in Bali, Indonesia, and will have to be defined by 2009.

The Kyoto Protocol, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, expires in 2012, and much of what it established has not been followed by the most economically developed countries, especially the United States, which did not sign the document.

"Unfortunately, we know that some of the goals of the document signed in Kyoto will not be accomplished, but the new agreement must be stricter because the evidence of global warming is clearer and there is more pressure from society on politicians to act," said Munasinghe.

The economist pointed out that the U.S. government has been against the adoption of gas emission reduction goals, but "maybe there can be changes in the government."

The seminar, which was due to end Friday, was inaugurated by Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva Thursday with the participation of Rio State Governor Sergio Cabral.

Climate change committee for Bali in December

2007-10-28T07:09:00.000-07:00

The National Climate Change Committee will be sending a preparatory committee to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC) to present Guyana's concerns about the issue and to encourage stronger global action and support in addressing them.

The Committee, which was established under the auspices of the agriculture ministry and chaired by Minister Robert Persaud, will present its case at a series of high level sessions including the Thirteenth Conference of the Parties (CoP 13) to the UNFCCC and the Third Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol. The conference will be held in Bali, Indonesia in December.

The Committee's principal tasks will involve examining the programme of events and activities for the UNFCCC CoP 13; identifying and discussing key issues and areas of relevance to Guyana and preparing briefing documents for Guyana's representatives to CoP 13. The ministry said the conference will be the culmination of twelve months in climate change debate and it is expected to encourage a breakthrough in the form of a roadmap for future changes. The "Bali Roadmap" is expected to establish the process to address the key building blocks of a future climate change regime including adaptation, mitigation and technology cooperation and financing the response to climate change. The first preparatory meeting was held at the ministry on Wednesday.

source by: http://www.stabroeknews.com/

Climate Change Effect and The Green House Effect

2007-10-28T06:57:00.000-07:00

UN Climate Change Conference in Bali

2007-10-24T07:21:00.001-07:00

Blog about UN Climate Change Conference in Bali 3-14 December 2007 and other related issues

read more | digg story

Asian Young Leader Climate Forum

2007-10-21T00:03:00.000-07:00

The United Kingdom’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We are registered in England as a charity.
British Council and WWF-Indonesia invites Asian Young Leaders’ to join Asian Young Leaders’ Climate Forum British Council and WWF-Indonesia invites Asian young leaders’ aged 18 – 30 yrs, committed to aspects of the climate change debate (ie. Mitigation, adaptation and communicating behaviour change) and able to communicate effectively and convincingly in English to join Asian Young Leaders’ Climate forum (AYLCF), at 4 – 7 December 2007 in Bogor, West Java.
AYLCF will involve countries in Asia Pacific e.g. Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, India, Pakistan, Burma, China, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand, and also UK.
Each country will send 2 young leaders to join in this 4 day program with presentation, workshop and cultural activities culminating in production of an action plan which will be taken to Bali COP for dissemination to a wider audience.
The young leaders would come from young politicians, influential regional scientist, social scientist, young leaders in NGO groups, interested journalist, young business leaders, young lawyers, and other professional and student leaders. All would have a bit of a track record in the field.
13th COP will take place in Bali in December 2007. The fact that climate change is a long-term phenomenon, early awareness amongst tomorrow leaders and their commitment to action will mean the world will be in a better position to meet the challenges being faces.
Through AYLCF, young leaders could demonstrate to the world that the young leaders of Asia are playing their part in tackling this global problem.

More information on Asian Young Leaders Climate Forum, please contact:
gusni.puspitasari@britishcouncil.or.id

sources: www.wwf.or.id

Effects of Climate Change

2007-10-18T08:27:00.000-07:00

About 100 years ago, people worldwide began burning more coal and oil for homes, factories, and transportation. Burning these fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. These added greenhouses gasses have caused eartah to warm more quickly than it has in the past.
How much warming has happened? Scientists from around the world tell us that during the past 100 years, the average global air temperature has risen more than 0.6°C (1.0 °F). This may not sound like very much change, but even one degree can affect the Earth. Below are some effects of climate change that we see happening now.
Sea level is rising. During the 20th century, sea level rose 10-20 cm (4-8 inches) due to melting glacier ice and expansion of warmer seawater. In the next 100 years, sea level may rise as much as 85 cm (33 inches). This is a threat to people living near the coast, wetlands, and coral reefs.
Arctic sea ice is melting. The summer thickness of Arctic icebergs is about half of what it was 50 years ago. This melting ice may someday cause changes in the world’s ocean currents.
Sea-surface temperatures are warming. Some animals, such as corals, cannot live in warmer seas. Over the past few decades, about a quarter of the world’s coral reefs have died.
Heavier rainfall causes flooding in many regions as warmer temperatures speed up the water cycle. In the last ten years, floods have caused more damage than in the previous 30 years.
There have been changes in where we can farm: As climates warm, some mid-latitude places, like Europe, are getting a longer growing season, while some tropical places are becoming too hot and dry to grow crops.
The amount of drought may be increasing. Higher temperatures lead to a high rate of evaporation and very dry conditions in some areas of the world. Researchers are not sure if drought has increased as a result of current warming.
Ecosystems are changing. As temperatures warm, species may migrate to cooler places or die. Species that are in particularly danger include endangered species, coral reefs, and polar animals such as penguins, polar bears and seals.
Severe weather events may be more common and stronger. Some researchers say that the number and strength of hurricanes, tornadoes, and other events has increased over the last 15–20 years. However, scientists are still looking into this.

United Nations Climate Change Conference, 3-14 December, Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia

2007-10-18T07:32:00.000-07:00

The UN Climate Change Conference, hosted by the Government of Indonesia, brings together representatives of over 180 countries together with observers from intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, and the media.
The two week period includes the sessions of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), its subsidiary bodies as well as the Meeting of the Parties of the Kyoto Protocol. A ministerial segment in the second week will conclude the Conference