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Climate change: India ready to play hard ball

2011-10-09T08:07:00.000-07:00

The next round of climate talks in December is likely to be a tough one — pitting developing countries against the developed world. Pushing for a level playing field, India has asked the United Nations to address the developing nations’ concerns when climate talks are held in Durban, South Africa.

After showing flexibility at the Cancun talks, India is pushing for an Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime for developing countries to have access to costly clean western technologies. The Cancun agreements were silent on IPR issue.

The December 2010 talks also mentioned “equity” without defining it. India has defined it as a right to have equal access to global atmospheric space - something opposed by the developed countries.

A lot of issues absolutely important to India were left out at Cancun, said Chandra Bhushan, executive director of NGO Centre for Science and Environment. “It is important that India brings equity and technology issues to the negotiating table which will allow it to move faster towards low carbon growth,” he said.

In an eight-page proposal submitted to the UN's convention on climate change - the world body's decision-making arm on climate talks — at Panama City, India has sought a “facilitative IPR regime”, linked equity with access to sustainable development and called for a bar on imposing “unfair trade practices in the name of climate protection”. Equity should be the basis of climate deals.

Cancun agreements didn’t address the concerns of developing countries and their resolution would be key to “unlocking agreements” in other areas, India has said. The Durban meet should give a timeframe for resolving the issues.

The European Union’s and other developed countries’ move to impose a carbon tax (euro 2.5 per passenger) on flights departing from European airports will be contested at Durban.

The conference should prohibit rich countries from taking unilateral measures in the name of climate protection, India has said, seeking “unambiguous and firm commitment” from the developed world on the matter. “Such unfair measures can lead to fragmented... and sub-optimal climate policy,” it said.

UK set for high end climate costs, as floods spread

2011-02-01T03:15:00.000-08:00

UK is likely to feel bigger costs from climate change than most other EU countries, a report concludes.

Rising sea levels are likely to impact the nation harder than most, negating economic benefits from increased tourism and possibly farm yields.

The findings come from a study funded by the European Commission, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

It projects a net cost for most EU nations, but a net benefit for a few.

Scandinavian countries and the Baltic states should be better off, it finds, largely through increased opportunities for agriculture.

Researchers looked at climatic conditions likely to apply in 2080, and asked how present-day economies would fare if those climatic conditions were here now.

It addresses five issues - agriculture, river floods, coastal areas, tourism and human health - which the team acknowledges is a limitation.

"We know little at EU level or at member state level about implications of climate change in the economy," said Juan-Carlos Ciscar from the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies in Seville, Spain.

"Climate change is happening, we need to adapt to it, so we need to know which sectors will be affected and why so we can establish adaptation policies - which means minimising impacts, but also taking advantage of opportunities," he told BBC News.

Southern accent
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If things changed more we could introduce crops and systems more fitting now to a Mediterranean climate - grapes, for example”
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Professor Ana Iglesias

Universidad Politecnica de Madrid
In 2004, the European Council asked the European Commission's Joint Research Center (JRC) to analyse these costs and benefits as far as possible.

Dr Ciscar's institute is part of the JRC and led the project, which involved commissioning new models of some types of climate impact.

Overall, they calculate, EU citizens would be on average 0.2-1.0% worse off were climatic conditions projected for 2080 to apply now.

But that headline figure conceals big regional differences.

To simplify matters a little, they divided EU nations into five geographical blocs: southern Europe, central Europe south, central Europe north, northern Europe, and the British Isles.

The most heavily affected region is southern Europe (Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Bulgaria), for which the models project drops in agricultural yield of up to a quarter, major increases in coastal flooding, and a small drop in tourism revenue.

Carbon Market Insights Americas 2008 Conference November 12 - 13 in Washington, DC

2008-10-30T00:18:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON, Oct 29, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- As a member of the media, we would like to invite you to attend the Carbon Market Insights Americas 2008 conference in Washington, DC on November 12 - 13 hosted by Point Carbon and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Taking place in the heart of political decision making in the week following the presidential elections, the two-day event will involve key decision makers in the forthcoming US Administration and Congress and provide participants with a fresh analysis on climate policy and carbon markets in North America. Speakers, panels and workshops will delve into how federal policy changes will affect RGGI and other regional cap-and-trade schemes in North America, the wider global carbon markets and emissions trading around the world.

UK Climate Change Bill set to become law

2008-10-30T00:13:00.001-07:00

The UK Climate Change Bill passed another hurdle last night as MPs voted by a massive majority of 460 to back the amended bill. The legislation now passes to the House of Lords for approval, and is expected to become law before the end of the year.

The bill includes the UK government’s commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 and will see the inclusion of shipping and aviation emissions in the targets once a suitable method for measuring international emissions has been determined.

Climate change wrecking Walden’s flowers

2008-10-29T23:49:00.000-07:00

Some 27 percent of the flowers around Walden Pond in Concord, Mass. have vanished since the mid 19th century, and another 36 percent are on the brink of disappearing.

We know this because we have meticulous records of Walden’s plant species and birds, taken by none other than Henry David Thoreau. On nearly every spring morning from 1851 to 1858, the transcendentalist writer explored the woods around the pond, noting the first seasonal blooms of 465 species of flowers.

Since then, other naturalists have revisited the area to maintain and expand on Thoreau’s record. Their collective efforts have formed a detailed, long-term study on how the timing of biological events for a given area has changed over the past century and a half.

The changes are striking. Writing in the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science about their own five-year survey of Walden, Boston University scientists have observed that species are now flowering an average of seven days earlier than in Thoreau’s time. Some are flowering three weeks earlier. But many aren’t adjusting at all.

When species that depend on each other are unable to shift simultaneously, the whole system gets thrown out of whack. Insects arrive earlier, but starve because the plants they depend on for food have not bloomed yet. Migratory birds arrive to find that the insects that they depend on have starved. And those plants whose flowering time is unaffected by temperature – in Walden they are asters, buttercups, dogwoods, lilies, orchids, roses, saxifrages, and violets, to name a few – do not get pollinated by the insects and birds.

“Climate change is throwing off the synchronicity of nature,” one of the authors told the Boston Globe. Since Thoreau’s day, Walden’s average annual temperature has increased by 4.3 degrees, partly because of the growth of heat-absorbing roads, parking lots, and buildings in the area, but also because of global warming.

The authors found that flowers that can adapt to the temperature by blooming early are flourishing, while those that adhere to a more rigid schedule are dying out.

“For the first time, it shows that climate change is not impacting these plants in a uniform or random way,” evolutionary biologist Charles Davis, one of the study’s authors, told Discovery Magazine. “It is major branches in the tree of life that are being lost. It happens to be the most charismatic plants – groups that we all know and love: the dogwoods, the orchids, members of the lily family, members of the rose family.”

Few areas have been studied more closely over such a long time than Walden, particularly in North America. Wired’s Alexis Madrigal notes that, in Europe, weather services monitor things like first blooms and other seasonal changes of living things, but that American weather services do not. But some biologists are hoping to improve Americans’ phenological knowledge. Project BudBurst has enlisted thousands of backyard Thoreaus to record when plants in their gardens bloom and add it to an ever growing database. Madrigal writes:

Their data could not only benefit scientists of the present and future, but could aid in providing Americans with direct evidence of climate change, helping to create the political will necessary to address the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.

I’m skeptical that adding flowering times to the already existing mountains of evidence will convince the roughly half of the US population that does not accept the scientific basis of global warming to change their beliefs. As Thoreau himself wrote in “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”:

You can hardly convince a man of an error in a lifetime, but must content yourself with the reflection that the progress of science is slow. If he is not convinced, his grandchildren may be.

But let’s hope that, for once, the gentle Concord poet was wrong. Waiting for two generations hence to solve the climate crisis will doom more than just Walden’s flowers.

Prince Charles, Aso agree to cooperate in fighting climate change

2008-10-29T23:44:00.000-07:00

TOKYO (AFP) — Britain's Prince Charles and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso agreed here Wednesday that their countries should cooperate in fighting climate change, Japanese officials said.

Charles stressed the importance of forest conservation in stopping global warming during a 40-minute meeting with the prime minister at a hotel here, the officials said.

"We wish to join Britain in exercising leadership in the field of climate change," Aso was quoted as telling the heir to the British throne, who has long championed environmental causes.

The meeting was also attended by Charles' wife Camilla and Aso's wife Chikako.

The prince is in Japan to celebrate the 150th anniversary of a treaty of amity and commerce between the two countries.

Earlier in the day, the royal couple were greeted by hundreds of people waving Japanese and British flags when they visited the ancient capital city of Nara in the west.

They offered incense before the Great Buddha, a giant bronze statue, at the eighth century Todai-ji temple, and signed their names on traditional ceramic plates at a local craft centre.

The prince last visited Japan in 1990 with his late wife Princess Diana for the enthronement of Emperor Akihito. Camilla, the duchess of Cornwall, is on her first official trip to Japan.

They are scheduled to visit Nagano, the host city of the 1998 Winter Olympics, on Thursday.
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Global warming link to jellyfish blooms

2008-10-08T01:34:00.001-07:00

KUANTAN: The presence of a large number of jellyfish along the coastal areas here could be an indication of global warming.

Universiti Malaya scientist Dr Mohammed Rizman Idid said environmental changes caused by global warming had compounded the problem and made it more difficult to handle jellyfish blooms.

Many jellyfish species were capable of congregating in huge swarms, which consisted of hundreds or even thousands of individuals, said Rizman.

"It is a complex process and is dependent on various factors, including the concentration of nutrients, water temperature and oxygen content."

In a more serious scenario, he said, jellyfish would mass breed during blooms and could cause serious ecological problems.

It was impossible to determine the exact time when jellyfish outbreaks, or blooms, occurred but they often seemed to occur during the dry season when the sea water was warmer, said Rizman.

Dozens of people have been stung by jellyfish at popular beaches here over the past few days.

A local fisherman Jamaludin Abdul, 38, said he had spotted large swarms of jellyfish in the waters around here over the past two months.

He said some of the jellyfish had moved closer to the beaches.

Rizman said another concern was the possible spread of invasive foreign species which could be more dangerous than local jellyfish species.

"In Europe, they have found many invasive species and similar cases could also happen here."

Globalisation, he said, had made it easier for foreign species to breed in Malaysian waters.

He said ballast water in the hulls of seagoing ships was the best medium for such species to be transported unintentionally to foreign regions.

"Just imagine what will happen if a deadlier jellyfish from Australia invades our waters.

"It will definitely affect our tourism and fishery industries."

Rizman said information on the matter was scarce and he would begin a comprehensive study on jellyfish distribution soon.

"We need to know the number of species that are around and their distribution to enable us to manage the population and anticipate the next round of blooms."

Since many jellyfish species look similar to each other, Rizman said he would be using techniques of molecular genetics to tell them apart.

Despite their venomous reputation, jellyfish are an important source of income for fishermen and the main source of food for turtles.

Every year, 14 per cent of the jellyfish consumed in Japan is exported from Malaysia.

"We need to have a holistic approach to tackle this problem.

"It will take years of research before we can understand the real cause for the jellyfish blooms."

Rizman said the problem of jellyfish blooms would be discussed at the South China Sea International Conference, organised by the Universiti Malaya Institute of Ocean and Earth Science, next month.

"It's a serious problem that affects the whole region. Therefore, we must cooperate to tackle it."

Rizman also shared a simple first-aid technique to deal with jellyfish stings, which was to pour vinegar on the affected area.

However, victims should still seek treatment at the nearest clinic as it was crucial that they were given antivenin injections.

Rizman was awarded a government grant to carry out research on jellyfish.

The two-year project began this year.

Solving Global Warming Gets Debaters Going

2008-10-08T01:31:00.001-07:00

Just when I thought we would not get much on renewable energy in tonight’s presidential debate from Belmont University in Nashville, a question from the crowd has started the conversation in earnest. A lady asked if the candidates would take the same quick call-to-action approach to solve the looming global warming crisis as we saw in the recent financial crisis.

Republican Sen. John McCain says he supports the development of cleaner-burning vehicles, such as hydrogen-powered cars as part of the solution to solve the climate crisis.

Democrat Sen. Barack Obama says this country has the potential to create five million green jobs in the near future, if we development the alternative energy sources available. He compares what renewable energy could do for the economy with what the computer did for it. Obama reiterates his commitment to solar, wind, geothermal and nuclear power as well.

Obama has taken a direct shot at McCain’s renewable energy record by pointing out that McCain has voted against alternative fuels 23 times. McCain countered that some of those included votes against big tax breaks for Big Oil.

Both men have touched on the issue of a resurgent Russia, fueled by petro dollars… which comes back to the issue of how they are going to make that a non-issue by freeing us from foreign oil.

That’s it for the night. We’ll get together again in about a week when the third and final presidential debate comes on.

Salmon industry prepares for climate change

2008-10-06T03:01:00.000-07:00

Tasmania's salmon industry says it is already preparing for climate change.

It's responded to a report by the CSIRO detailing the devastating effects it believes climate change will bring to Australia's commercial fishing and aquaculture industries.

Scientists predict the Tasmanian salmon, rock lobster and abalone industries will be among the hardest hit by the warming of waters in southern Australia.

In Queensland and the Northern Territory barramundi, prawn and mudcrab fisheries will be affected by changing rainfall patterns.

The Federal Climate Change Minister Penny Wong says Australia's fisheries industries need to get ready.

"We have to avoid as much climate change as we are able, by avoiding emissions," she said.

"The second thing we have to do is to adapt to the climate change we can't avoid and this report is a contribution to these industries to enable some of the thinking about that adaptation to occur."

Senator Wong says the report points out some effects which are already evident.

"I hope that industry will look at this and start to consider what sorts of plans, what sorts of expertise they may need to put in place in the coming years," she said.

Tasmania's salmon industry is worth $270million a year and employs around 1,000 people.

Pheroze Jungalwalla from the Tasmanian Salmonid Growers says steps are being taken to safeguard against rising sea temperatures.

"In some parts of warm years it gets too warm for the fish which means they become uncomfortable, which means that they eat less, they can in fact succumb to more diseases, they can become more stressed," Mr Jungalwalla said.

"There are several avenues we are exploring, for instance we've got a very selective breeding program. One of the aims of this program is indeed to breed fish, salmon, which are more resistant to high temperatures."

The report also points out that despite the negative effects of climate change, there are potential gains for smart businesses.

Aussies 'losing interest' in climate

2008-10-06T02:36:00.000-07:00

Australians are getting bored with climate change, and many still doubt whether it is actually happening, says a new survey.

Only 46 per cent of Australians said they would take action on climate change if they were in charge of making decisions for Australia, a dip from 55 per cent last year, according to the Ipsos-Eureka Social Research Institute's third annual climate change survey.

And almost one in 10 Australians (nine per cent) strongly agreed with the statement "I have serious doubts about whether climate change is occurring". A further 23 per cent agreed to some extent.

Ipsos-Eureka director of Sustainable Communities and Environment Unit Jasmine Hoye believes Australians are becoming more concerned with other environmental issues that they can have more direct control over.

"We believe the public is currently overwhelmed by other, more pressing environmental issues - namely water and river health - and sees climate change as something that is largely out of their control," she said.

"However, there is a desire among many Australians to know how they can personally make a difference regarding climate change."

Aside from river and water health, other environmental issues of most concern to Australians included illegal waste dumping, renewable energy, litter, smoky vehicles and packaging.

But there were no real standout actions being taken by Australians to personally reduce their greenhouse emissions, said Ms Hoye.

"Ipsos research has shown that recycling is a fairly generic activity that people tend to say they are doing to help the environment, and it is also something that many Australians were already doing before climate change came along," she said.

"Thus, one could be justified in thinking this is a fairly glib response.

"What really strikes me is that we still have so few Australians taking specific actions like substantially reducing their household energy use, driving and flying less, switching to green power, or even buying carbon offsets, especially given all of the media coverage on this critical issue," she added.

Climate change and energy policies lack cohesion, says Oxfam report

2008-10-06T02:35:00.001-07:00

Ed Miliband will be greeted today on his first full day of work as the new secretary of state for energy and climate change with a 100-page Oxfam report showing how disjointed the government has become in tackling these two most pressing environmental problems.

The Oxfam Forecast report highlights how the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBRR) and the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) have been contradictory in their policies.

It likens the different interests of companies, government departments and public attitudes as a "gathering storm", which must be resolved if UK climate policy is to secure a low-carbon future.

"Too often it has been a case of the left hand having no idea what the right hand is up to, and this [new department] must now bring a much-needed cohesiveness to government policies. With global climate and energy security at stake, the government must now demonstrate powerful leadership," said Barbara Stocking, head of Oxfam.

The report also urges companies like E.ON and Shell to reconsider their plans in light of climate change. "Strong decisions in boardrooms and Whitehall must be made over the next few months to ensure that we meet the challenges of climate change and begin to give the people we work with the chance for a better flood and famine free future."

"If E.ON is allowed to build the UK's first coal plant in 34 years, annual CO2 emissions from the Kingsnorth plant will be 7m tonnes — more than the combined output of 30 developing countries. A decision … to build Kingsnorth will open the way for a new coal era and jeopardise future UK emissions targets," it says.

The UK's independent climate change committee is expected to recommend this week that the government sets a binding target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050 .

Shell plans to treble its investment by 2015 in unconventional oil sources such as those from Canada's oil sands, which are three times more polluting to produce.

"Going ahead with these plans would send a strong message to other countries that new dirty fossil fuels are acceptable, which would derail attempts to combat global warming at an international level — the consequences of which would be felt most by the poorest people on the planet," the report says.

Australians warned climate change could impact food choices

2008-10-05T22:42:00.000-07:00

Australia's peak scientific research body, the CSIRO, has warned Australians climate change could soon influence their menu choices.

The scientific body says Australia's fisheries and aquaculture industries could suffer huge reductions in catch, because of rising sea temperatures and changes in ocean habitats.

They predict the Tasmanian salmon, rock lobster and abalone industries will be among the hardest hit by the warming of waters in southern Australia.

In Queensland and the Northern Territory barramundi, prawn and mudcrab fisheries will be impacted by changing rainfall patterns.

The industries are worth more than $US1.5 billion annually to the country's economy.

Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, says the industries need to plan for change.

"This report is a contribution to these industries to enable some of the thinking about that adaptation to occur," she said.

The report points out that despite the negative impacts of climate change, there are potential gains for smart businesses.

Al Gore Urges 'Civil Disobedience' Toward Coal Plants

2008-09-24T23:07:00.000-07:00

Al Gore called Wednesday for "civil disobedience" to combat the construction of coal power plants without the ability to store carbon.

The former vice president, whose efforts to raise awareness of global warming have made him the most prominent voice on that issue, made the comment during a session at the fourth annual Clinton Global Initiative in Manhattan.

"If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration," Gore said, according to Reuters.

It wasn't clear what specific action he intended by "civil disobedience," which calls for the intentional violation of laws deemed to be unjust.

Since leaving the White House after losing to George Bush in the 2000 presidential election, Gore has turn his focus to environmental issues, a longtime passion. The 2006 documentary based on his lecture, "An Inconvenient Truth," won an Oscar. In addition, he received a Nobel Peace Prize for his climate change work.

McCain says Australia, US share challenge of China

2008-09-24T00:45:00.000-07:00

SYDNEY (AFP) — US Republican presidential candidate John McCain Tuesday called on Australia to help encourage greater openness in China, a nation he said had not met all the responsibilities of a global power.

In an opinion piece in The Australian newspaper, McCain said that the US involvement in the Asia Pacific region had to begin with its allies.

He said while Japan had been a strong and reliable partner, South Korea was taking on new global responsibilities and the US shared values and common purpose with New Zealand, the alliance with Australia "sets the standard".

"Firm commitments to our allies will set the stage for an American engagement of China that builds on the many areas of common interest we share with Beijing and encourages candour and progress in those areas where China has not fulfilled its responsibilities as a global power," he said.

McCain, who said the US could reinvigorate its alliances with Thailand and the Philippines and build on newly strengthened ties with Singapore and India, said the Beijing Olympics had provided a vivid demonstration of modern China.

"Americans and Australians have been impressed with Beijing's glittering landscape and warmed by the hospitality and graciousness of the Chinese people," he wrote.

"But in Beijing our journalists have also seen up close how human dignity suffers when basic rights such as freedom of speech and religious worship are denied.

"Our shared challenge is to convince the Chinese leadership that their nation's remarkable success rests ultimately on whether they can translate economic development into a more open and tolerant political process at home, and a more responsible foreign policy abroad."

McCain said that climate change, nuclear proliferation and trade were also all pressing issues for the US and the Asia Pacific region.

"If elected president of the US, I will look to Australia to help us navigate these challenges," he said.

On climate change, McCain said that he would work with Australia's centre-left Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to establish a global framework which draws in China and India to counter the man-made problem.

"Australians have looked to the US for leadership on climate change and it is time for us to answer that call," he said.

McCain said that free trade agreements, such as those the US has with Australia and Singapore and has negotiated with South Korea, were also "critical building blocks for an open and inclusive economic order in the Asia-Pacific region."

"They create billions of dollars' worth of new exports and set a higher standard for trade liberalisation that ultimately helps all the nations in the region," he said.

British public 'unwilling' to pay for climate change bill

2008-09-24T00:44:00.000-07:00

Public confusion over the environmental agenda appears to be as high as ever, with a majority in the UK calling for more action to tackle climate change while at the same time saying they are not willing to pay more to help.

Nearly two-thirds of people told a poll by Opinium they thought recent government measures to boost energy conservation needed to go much further, and half said they were doing their bit by installing insulation or turning down the thermostat.

However more than seven out of 10 of the nearly 2,000 people questioned said they were unwilling to pay higher taxes to combat environmental issues, and a similar number believed the green agenda had been "hijacked" to increase taxes.

The timing of the survey last week could also have had an impact on willingness to pay higher prices, coming as daily headlines warned about recession, unemployment, rising prices and a collapse in the housing market.

Mark Hodson, Opinium's head of research, said the public had lost faith in both politicians and the energy companies that they blame for huge price hikes in recent months.

"A massive 78% of people think that energy companies profits are unfair," said Hodson.

"Rising energy bills have affected the majority of people in the past year and the public seem to be as disheartened by the recent energy measures as they are by green taxes.

"It is probably due to this fact that [59%] think the government should have gone much further."

Public confusion was also a result of having a debate which was too "narrowly" focused on pitting the environment against economic wealth and other issues, said Tom Compton, change strategist for environmental group WWF.

"We can't rely exclusively on this convergence of economic growth and the business case for sustainable development on the one hand and environmental demands on the other," said Compton.

"There are areas where these things converge, but similarly there are cases where they diverge; at the moment we are failing abjectly to grapple with those areas where they diverge.

"That requires a more fundamental engagement with and understanding of what our collective aspirations are: what's important to us?"

London-based Opinium Research surveyed 1,975 adults by email from a panel of 30,000 regularly used by the company. The results were weighted to match age, sex, geography and other nationally representative criteria.

Climate change expert questions north-south pipeline

2008-09-24T00:43:00.001-07:00

Leading climate change expert Professor Tim Flannery says there is no justification to build a $750 million pipeline to bring water to Melbourne.

Construction has started on the controversial north-south pipeline after the Federal Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, gave the project the go ahead.

The former Australian of the Year says there is no evidence to support taking water from the already stressed Murray-Darling system, to pump to Melbourne.

He says more attention should be given to replacing coal-fired power with cleaner energy, which he says would ultimately yield more water.

"For every megawatt of electricity we generate here in Victoria you use two tonnes of water," he said.

"Why are we dealing with the most antiquated, polluting, coal fired power plants just about on the planet here in Victoria and letting them waste our water and pretending that's not an issue?"

Professor Flannery questions whether the Government commitment to long-term plans for fear of alienating voters.

"It's one of the great problems we face, that Government won't take the sort of decisions that we need," he said.

"[They are] happy to give away taxpayers' money, but regulation or laying out a vision that might say that in 20 years from now we'll be moving onto a new form of energy generation, is not what they're interested in."

India should play a major role in climate change: Britain

2008-09-24T00:41:00.000-07:00

Britain has said it wants India to play a major global role on the issue of climate change, similar to its active participation in peace keeping.

"Just as you are already playing a major role in (UN) peace keeping, we want India to play a bigger role in climate change, which is already having its impact," said Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, who was the Chief Guest at a reception jointly hosted by the Labour Friends of India, led by British MP Barry Gardiner and the Indian High Commissioner Shiv Shankar Mukherjee, at Manchester.

Douglas Alexander, Secretary of State, department of International Development; Sir Gulam Noon, NRI industrialist; Virendra Sharma, Labour MP; Jordana Diengdo K Pavel, among others were also present here.

Miliband, widely considered a potential prime ministerial candidate, said that the UK-India relationship was a "partnership of equals."

"India is genuinely emerging as a power and in it the Indian diaspora is a huge source of strength" he said, adding "we are lucky to have such a diaspora."

Referring to India's role in the world, Miliband said "many of us have many expectations. We want India to play a big role in climate change and we have to work with India as a genuine partner of equals."

High Commissioner Mukherjee recalled India's first Prime Minister Pandit Nehru's famous lines about "A tryst With destiny" and said, "Sixty years down the line, we are quite a way ahead with the 'tryst with destiny' but there was a great deal yet to be done in wiping out tears from eyes of the weakest of the weak."

Obama And McCain On Climate Change

2008-09-24T00:37:00.000-07:00

Both presidential candidates are pushing pollution-cutting efforts like these. Just recognizing climate change as an issue is a big change from the past eight years.

Both candidates say they'll join international climate change efforts that the Bush administration has ignored, and will press China and India to cut greenhouse gases.

Back home, both would start with modest greenhouse gas reductions - then increase cutbacks for 40 years into the future.

McCain said while in Santa Barbara: "Until we have achieved at least a reduction of 60 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2050."

Obama goes further.

"I've put forward very substantial proposals to get 80 percent reductions in greenhouse gasses by 2050," said Obama.

Both would reach those goals largely thru a "cap and trade" program that works like this:

The government sets an annual cap or limit on carbon emissions and issues permits up to that limit to companies that release greenhouse gases.

If a company reduces its emissions, it can sell or trade its unused permits to a company that can't meet emission goals.

"Leadership must begin at home. That's why I've proposed a cap and trade system to limit our carbon emissions and to invest in alternative sources of energy," Obama said in May in Miami.

And McCain, in Santa Barbara, said: "I have proposed a new system of cap-and-trade that over time will change the dynamic of our energy economy."

The candidates sound the same, but there are differences.

McCain would give companies most of the emissions permits for free based on their previous emission levels. Then if they cut back, they can make money selling unused permits.

He said in Portland. "In all its power, the profit motive will suddenly begin to shift and point the other way toward cleaner fuels, wiser ways, and a healthier planet."

Obama would sell all emission permits at auction, so companies would have to pay for every ton of carbon they release. Money raised would be used to develop renewable energy and to subsidize consumers' energy bills.

By one estimate a cap and trade program could raise the average family energy bill more than $700 a year.

In the August, 2007 Democratic primary debate, Obama said: "There are some things that we can do to conserve energy, but all those steps are going to require a little bit of hardship and a little bit of pinching."

McCain and Obama Agree on Approaches to Energy, Climate Change

2008-09-23T01:20:00.000-07:00

COLLEGE PARK Sept 23, 2008 - A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll finds the majority of supporters of John McCain and Barack Obama largely agree on how to deal with both the country's energy needs and the problem of climate change.

Asked whether the government should require utilities to use more alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar, even if this increases costs in the short-run, seventy-five percent of Obama voters and sixty percent of McCain voters say that it should.

Presented two competing arguments, both Obama and McCain supporters reject the argument that making a major shift to alternative energy sources "would cost so much money that it would hurt the economy." Very large majorities in both the Obama (83%) and McCain (73%) camps instead support the argument that "with the rising cost of energy, it would save money in the long run."

Supporters in both camps strongly favor a greater emphasis on increasing energy efficiency: 71 percent of Obama and 55 percent of McCain supporters support requiring businesses to use energy more efficiently, even if it might make some products more expensive.

Only small minorities in both camps favor greater emphasis on "building coal or oil-fired power plants," although more McCain supporters favor this approach (34%) than those for Obama (19%).

Both Obama and McCain supporters favor the United States departing from its current position on the Kyoto Treaty. Told that, "the U.S. and other countries from around the world will be meeting next year to develop a new treaty to address climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions such as those caused by using oil and coal," 94 percent of Obama supporters and 63 percent of McCain supporters said that the United States should "be willing to commit to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions as part of such a treaty."

These findings are part of a larger international poll conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org, an international research project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland. The poll of 1,174 Americans was fielded from August 9 - 20, 2008 by Knowledge Networks. The margin of error ranges from +/2.9 to 3.4 percent, depending on the sample size. Because this was an international poll questions about offshore drilling were not included.

Climate Change: "The Trillion Dollar Wake Up Call"

2008-09-22T23:04:00.000-07:00

New report spotlights how tackling climate change can create or destroy company value

NEW YORK, Sep 23, 2008 - Tackling climate change can have a significant impact on company value in six sectors1 worth a total of $7 trillion, according to a new report by the Carbon Trust launched today: Climate Change: a business revolution?

This Carbon Trust report, based on analysis by McKinsey & Co, found that the deep emissions reductions necessary to tackle climate change and put us on a path to a low carbon economy, will create significant business opportunities and risks. Companies' futures will be highly dependent on how well prepared they are for the move, which will create large upsides and downsides for business.

Well positioned and proactive, forward thinking businesses could increase company value by up to 80%. Conversely, poorly positioned and laggard companies run the greatest risk of destroying value. The groundbreaking research found that as much as 65% of company value was at risk in some sectors. In the automobile industry, for example, both significant potential opportunities and risks were identified, which could transform the sector.

These opportunities and risks are driven by shifts in consumer behaviour, technology innovation and regulation -- the latter being the main initiator of change. The effects vary significantly by sector.

Tom Delay, chief executive of the Carbon Trust said:

"Climate change will cause a revolution in business and our findings should act as a trillion dollar wake up call to the investment and business communities. Companies and investors that prepare now and develop new strategies will reap the commercial rewards of the move to a low carbon economy. The financial risks of inaction are just too vast to ignore. We can see a trillion dollars of company value change, with leading, well-positioned companies gaining and badly positioned or slow companies losing out."

The study outlines clear recommendations for investors, business and policy makers on how to collaborate to make the shift to a low carbon economy as efficient as possible.

-- Strategic investors should discriminate between sectors and companies on the basis of their opportunities and risks.

-- Businesses should incorporate climate change in their core strategy and investment decisions.

-- Policy makers should work with business and investors now to create a policy framework which rewards early action and an efficient transition to a low carbon economy.

Mr. Delay added:

"We have a short window of opportunity to act but at present business and investor actions are way out of step with the need to tackle climate change. They must be urgently re-aligned by developing new business and investment strategies and by working with governments to develop policy frameworks that reward early and effective action to rapidly reduce carbon emissions."

Editors' Note:

For interviews with Carbon Trust spokespeople or for a copy of the report, please call the Carbon Trust Press Office on 020 7544 3100.

1 The analysis looked at the Aluminium, Auto, Beer, Building Materials, Consumer Electronics and Oil and Gas sectors. These six sectors have an estimated market value of $7 trillion.

The percentage value creation opportunity or risk is defined as the relative increase or reduction in value of a company which may result on the move to a low carbon economy, based on the net present value of its anticipated future cash flows. Any resulting shift in company value will depend on its level of preparation and sector exposure.

The Carbon Trust

-- The Carbon Trust is an independent company set up by government in response to the threat of climate change, to accelerate the move to a low carbon economy by working with organisations to reduce carbon emissions and develop commercial low carbon technologies. The Carbon Trust works with UK business and the public sector through its work in five complementary areas: insights, solutions, innovations, enterprises and investments. Together these help to explain, deliver, develop, create and finance low carbon enterprise.

-- The Carbon Trust is funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly Government and Invest Northern Ireland.

Climate Change Effects Mental Health

2008-09-22T05:07:00.000-07:00

A largely unrecognised effect of climate change - its impact on mental health - will be considered at two Queensland conferences this week.

The topic is high on the agenda of the 2008 Queensland Landcare Conference being held at Monto, in the state's southeast.

A Centre for Rural and Remote Mental Health conference in Cairns will also address the possible impacts.

The current prolonged drought over much of Australia - widely recognised as being caused by climate change - has alerted rural communities to the link between mental illness and suicide ahead of their city counterparts.

Keynote speaker at the Landcare conference, mental health advocate Fay Jackson, said a problem that was already very serious in the bush would only get worse with climate change.

"We have drought and we have flood, which we always have had in Australia, but they appear to be coming more frequently," Ms Jackson said.

"The 10 hottest years on record have been in the last 14 years.

"I think it will absolutely have a direct affect on farmers and their families."

Climate change was already causing stress to city consumers as farmers are forced to pass on rising costs, Ms Jackson said.

"If people are finding it harder to feed their families then it's going to have an effect on mental health," she said.

Queensland Regional Natural Resource Management Group Collective chairman Mike Berwick said society would undergo big changes within a generation.

Rural communities should prepare by building resilience into landscapes and farming practices - but also into the health of those who manage them, Mr Berwick said.

"There are some pretty severe mental health issues in rural Australia and of course climate change is one of those stressors that's going to add to it," he said.

"Society's had its head in the sand for far too long.

"I think the urban communities have got their head in the sand more than rural communities because farmers understand climate variability."

Mr Berwick said stress was likely to become more widespread as the effects of climate change hit urban communities.

"We've got to learn to understand and adapt and get ready for it," he said.

Several sessions of the Creating Futures Conference, being held in Cairns by the Centre for Rural and Remote Mental Health until Thursday, will deal with the issue of mental health in the face of drought and climate change.

Firms warned about climate change : Report

2008-09-22T05:00:00.000-07:00

The report said firms, together are worth £3.8 trillion ($7 trillion) globally, could boost market value by taking steps to tackle emissions.

The research covered six sectors of the economy including car manufacturing, brewing and consumer electronics.

Automotive firms stood to gain the most by adopting greener strategies.

But the car sector also risked the greatest loss by failing to take onboard changes needed to meet ambitious emission targets in the coming years.

The Carbon Trust said auto firms could reap great benefits from technological advances in the field of hybrid and electric cars.

'Ambitious targets'

Bruce Duguid, head of investor engagement at the Carbon Trust, said changes to the Kyoto protocol due next year will force many companies to take the climate change more seriously.

"There will be some ambitious targets and changes that will have to take place across industry."

"Climate change could start the next industrial revolution...its both an opportunity and a threat," he added.

The survey looked at six industries; aluminium manufacturing, automotive, oil and gas production and exploration, oil and gas refining, consumer electronics, building materials and brewing.

Tom Delay, chief executive of the Carbon Trust, investors and indusry should wake up to this "trillion dollar wake up call."

"The financial risks of inaction are just too vast to ignore," he added

Investors weigh risks of not fighting climate change

2008-09-22T04:58:00.001-07:00

Investors are using information on companies' carbon dioxide emissions to manage their portfolios, according to an annual survey of the world's leading businesses.

The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), backed by hundreds of institutional investors, asks the world's biggest companies to report their greenhouse gas emissions. This year, almost two-thirds of the 385 institutional investors behind the project, whose findings are published today, said they used the survey to identify companies not adequately addressing climate change.

The Axa Group, for instance, said: "In terms of investment policy, companies which are ill-prepared for more stringent environmental regulation may face unexpected new expenses and decreasing ability to sustain their returns and share price."

The investors are basing their decisions on the belief that emissions will be more closely regulated around the world in future, giving companies that already manage their emissions a competitive advantage. They are also weighing other factors, such as the risk that companies may face future litigation, and the possible illeffects of climate change, such as floods and storms.

Paul Dickinson, chief executive of the CDP, said: "[The survey is] effectively an audit of climate-change risk. Over 1,500 companies have gone through that process this year, with 77 per cent of the Global 500 responding. Whilst it's hard to evaluate definitively, the CDP is likely to have had a pivotal role in developing consciousness of those risks."

This year's report found that companies were starting to manage environmental risk at board level. Of the 383 groups that responded to the Global 500 survey, nearly two-thirds said they had an executive with overall responsibility for climate-change management, compared with half of respondents in 2007, and most had put in place some risk management measures to prepare for climate change.

Companies in all sectors said that uncertainty about future regulation was a stumbling block. Arcelor Mittal told the survey: "There is significant risk in the lack of predictability in climate-change regulation."

Another survey, by McKinsey and the UK government-funded Carbon Trust, found that companies were failing to respond adequately to the need to reduce emissions.

Tom Delay, chief executive of the Carbon Trust, said: "Our findings show that we are not on the path to a low-carbon economy. This is something that will impact on all investors - it will have a damaging effect on shareholder value. Shareholders should be demanding that the companies they invest in address these issues."

Upside down rainbow spotted in UK

2008-09-19T00:15:00.005-07:00

"One of the most spectacular light shows observed on earth," author Donald Ahrens describes the rainbow in his text Meteorology Today. If observed carefully, you would find that the sun is always behind you when you face the rainbow and the center of the circular arc of the rainbow is in the opposite direction to the sun. But there have been sightings that have proved otherwise also.

An astronomer in Cambridge, UK, has captured on camera an "upside down rainbow", which is considered to be an anomaly of nature.

According to a report in the Telegraph, astronomer Dr Jacqueline Mitton captured the freak rainbow near her home in Cambridge. Normal rainbows are made when light penetrates raindrops and re-emerges out the other side in the same direction. But, the inverted types, known as circumzenithal arcs, are caused when sunlight bounces off ice crystals high in the atmosphere, sending the light rays back up.

"The conditions have to be just right: you need the right sort of ice crystals and the sky has to be clear," said Mitton. "We're not sure how big an area it was visible over, but it was certainly very impressive," she added. A spokesman for the Met Office confirmed the inverted rainbows are occasionally spotted in British skies. "It is convex to the sun and is formed by refraction in suitably-oriented ice crystals and may show vivid rainbow coloring, as in this case," he said

Well, we all know about the strange ways of nature and the even stranger creations, the 'upside down rainbow' is just another sense of humor by god, perhaps when the sky 'cries' with happiness!

Global warming will lead to biodiversity loss

2008-09-19T00:15:00.004-07:00

WASHINGTON: An analysis, carried out by a scientist of Indian origin, along with his colleagues, has shown that irreversible global warming will lead to biodiversity loss and substantial glacial melt.

The scientist in question is Professor V. Ramanathan from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC (University of California) San Diego.

The analysis has estimated that the earth will warm about 2.4 degree C above pre-industrial levels, even under extremely conservative greenhouse-gas emission scenarios and under the assumption that efforts to clean up particulate pollution continue to be successful.

That amount of warming falls within what the world's leading climate change authority recently set as the threshold range of temperature increase that would lead to widespread loss of biodiversity, de-glaciation and other adverse consequences in nature.

The researchers argue that coping with these circumstances will require "transformational research for guiding the path of future energy consumption."

"This paper demonstrates the major challenges society will have to face in dealing with a problem that now seems unavoidable," said the paper's lead author, Scripps Atmospheric and Climate Sciences Professor V. Ramanathan.

"We hope that governments will not be forced to consider trade-offs between air pollution abatement and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions," he added.

In their analysis, Ramanathan and co-author Yan Feng, a Scripps postdoctoral research fellow, assumed a highly optimistic scenario that greenhouse gas concentrations would remain constant at 2005 levels for the next century.

For the concentrations to remain at 2005 levels, the emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide must decrease drastically within the next decade.

Economic expansion, however, is expected to see emissions increase.

The researchers then analyzed expected future warming by assuming that the cooling effect of man-made aerosol pollution will be eliminated during the 21st Century.

Because soot and similar particles remain airborne only for a matter of weeks, it is expected that clean-up efforts produce relatively immediate results.

Therefore, the authors based their projections of temperature increase assuming the absence of these pollutants in the atmosphere.

By contrast, greenhouse gases can remain in the atmosphere for decades or, in the case of carbon dioxide, more than a century.

Ramanathan and Feng estimated that the increase in greenhouse gases from pre-industrial era levels has already committed Earth to a warming range of 1.4 degree C to 4.3 degree C.

About 90 percent of that warming will most likely be experienced in the 21st Century.

"Given that a potentially large warming is already in our rear-view mirror, scientists and engineers must mount a massive effort and develop solutions for adapting to climate change and for mitigating it," said Ramanathan.

"Drastic reduction of short-lived warming agents is one way to buy the planet time for developing cost-effective ways for reducing CO2 concentrations," he added.

NASA: Arctic sea ice at second-lowest level on record

2008-09-19T00:15:00.003-07:00

NASA has issued a preliminary report confirming environmentalists' fears of disappearing sea ice at the Arctic.

Sea ice is the thick permanent ice formed by frozen ocean water that remains even as seasonal ice melts away in the summer. In the past, it has covered about 60 percent of the Arctic.

The sea ice at the Arctic has now been found to have melted away by as much as half, according to a preliminary report issued Tuesday by NASA and the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado.

"According to NASA-processed satellite microwave data, this perennial ice used to cover 50 to 60 percent of the Arctic, but this winter it covered less than 30 percent," NASA said in a statement.

It is the second-smallest amount of coverage since NASA began monitoring the situation in 1979. The Artic's sea ice coverage this September is about 33 percent below average, compared with the record low of 39 percent below average recorded in 2007.

At this time, neither NASA nor the National Snow and Ice Data Center have made suggestions as to the possible cause for the change. A thorough analysis of the data is scheduled to be released the first week of October, according to NASA.

MIDDLE EAST and CARBON CREDITS

2008-09-19T00:15:00.002-07:00

An overwhelming majority of primary CDM credits now being traded or used for compliance are coming from only two countries – China and India. Though these two giants still present attractive opportunities for carbon investment, the geographical concentration of such a large amount of carbon is a key concern for those who need to buy this booming new commodity. China’s unofficial price floor, and uncertainties with projects in India, are only some of the major issues that project developers and their clients face in trying to source for credits to fulfill regulatory obligations and CSR targets in their countries of operation.

A unique combination of qualities makes the Middle East and North Africa a potentially lucrative new region for hosting CDM projects.

First, though the countries in the region are not the world’s heaviest emitters, due to inexpensive energy they house sizeable energy-intensive and carbon-intensive industries such as aluminum production, not to mention oil and gas.

Second, the region has some of the world’s wealthiest institutional and individual investors who can help with financing suitable projects for mitigating climate change. Attesting to this fact are massive projects completed or now underway for record-breaking 7-star accommodation in Dubai, buildings that generate their own energy in Bahrain, and even a carbon-neutral city in Abu Dhabi.

Third, interest is now rising steadily among the region’s governments, investors and local industry leaders in the benefits of projects and investment for sustainability.

Now is the time to catch that interest and build your business case with local stakeholders, get the inside track speaking with regulators about current trends and outlook, and learn effective strategies for dealing with the complex local landscape from project participants themselves.

Zero Emission line

2008-09-19T00:15:00.001-07:00

Al Gore has finally caught up with the position of the Zero Emission Network and many of our groups such as Beyond Zero Emissions and Green Leap Strategic Institute have been calling for for a number of years.

He is call for the USA produce 100 percent of their electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years. It's achievable, affordable and necessary. And we need to make this break from past habits and old ways of thinking.

"We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's got to change."

In the past months he's been hosting a series of solutions summits with engineers, scientists, CEOs, and financiers. This speech pulled together some of the best thinking from those talks -- and highlighted what we each can do to end our dangerous addiction to fossil fuels and solve the climate crisis.

Bangladesh steps up to tackle climate change

2008-09-19T00:15:00.000-07:00

Bangladesh has launched a comprehensive action plan to ensure the country's resilience to climate change over the next decade.

The 2009—2018 plan was presented yesterday (10 September) during the UK—Bangladesh Climate Change Conference in London, United Kingdom.

Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, particularly the threat of increased flooding and storms due to its position in the delta of three large rivers — the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna — as well as facing the Bay of Bengal.

Addressing the conference via video message, Fakhruddin Ahmed, head of the Bangladesh government, said the country was on track for achieving the Millennium Development Goals but 'climate change has the potential to wreak havoc on our efforts.'

A major focus of the plan is on research to better estimate and monitor the scale and timing of climate change impacts. The plan calls for more accurate modelling scenarios at a regional and national level, particularly for the predicted hydrological impact on the Ganges—Brahmaputra—Meghna delta system.

It also targets research into the impacts of climate change on the macro-economy and linkages between climate change, poverty and health to identify suitable interventions.

The plan also seeks to establish a Centre for Research and Knowledge Management on Climate Change to ensure Bangladesh has access to the latest ideas and technologies from around the world.

Other measures outlined include agricultural research to develop crop varieties resistant to flooding, drought and salinity, better surveillance systems for new and existing disease risks, and improving early warning systems for storm surges and floods.

The exact costs of the plan are still being worked out, but the government estimates that US$500 million will be needed for the first two years, and US$5 billion needed for the first 5 years.

To address this, the government has established a National Climate Change Fund, injecting an initial US$45 million. In addition, a multi-donor trust fund (MDTF) was announced at the conference for contributions from international donors.

Mirza Azizul Islam, Bangladesh's Finance Adviser, called for a 'new sense of urgency' and appealed to all development partners to contribute generously to the trust fund, adding that the funds currently available are grossly inadequate.

'Climate change in Bangladesh is about deprivation and destitution of large sections of the population, with their lives plunged into darkness,' said Islam. 'The government of Bangladesh is committed to face the challenges of climate change.'

United Kingdom secretary of state Douglas Alexander also announced £75 million (around US$132 million) of grant funding from the UK to help Bangladesh fund its mitigation strategies.

Bangladesh and the United Kingdom sealed their long-term commitment to combating climate change by signing a joint document outlining the need to urgently address the challenges and threats posed.

Bangladesh steps up to tackle climate change

2008-09-15T05:44:00.000-07:00

Most Expencive Deal

2008-09-15T05:09:00.000-07:00

One commonly repeated argument for doing something about climate change sounds compelling, but turns out to be almost fraudulent. It is based on comparing the cost of action with the cost of inaction, and almost every major politician in the world uses it.

The president of the European commission, José Manuel Barroso, for example, used this argument when he presented the European Union's proposal to tackle climate change earlier this year. The EU promised to cut its carbon emissions by 20% by 2020, at a cost that the commission's own estimates put at about 0.5% of GDP, or roughly €60bn per year. This is obviously a hefty price tag – at least a 50% increase in the total cost of the EU – and it will likely be much higher (the commission has previously estimated the cost to be double its current estimate).

But Barroso's punchline was that "the cost is low compared to the high price of inaction". In fact, he forecasted that the price of doing nothing "could even approach 20% of GDP". (Never mind that this cost estimate is probably wildly overestimated – most models show about 3% damages.)

So there you have it. Of course, politicians should be willing to spend 0.5% of GDP to avoid a 20% cost of GDP. This sounds eminently sensible – until you realise that Barroso is comparing two entirely different issues.

The 0.5%-of-GDP expense will reduce emissions ever so slightly (if everyone in the EU actually fulfills their requirements for the rest of the century, global emissions will fall by about 4%). This would reduce the temperature increase expected by the end of the century by just five-hundredths of a degree Celsius. Thus, the EU's immensely ambitious programme will not stop or even significantly impact global warming.

In other words, if Barroso fears costs of 20% of GDP in the year 2100, the 0.5% payment every year of this century will do virtually nothing to change that cost. We would still have to pay by the end of the century, only now we would also have made ourselves poorer in the 90 years preceding it.

The sleight of hand works because we assume that the action will cancel all the effects of inaction, whereas of course, nothing like that is true. This becomes much clearer if we substitute much smaller action than Barroso envisions.

For example, say that the EU decides to put up a diamond-studded wind turbine at the Berlaymont headquarters, which will save one tonne of CO2 each year. The cost will be $1bn, but the EU says that this is incredibly cheap when compared to the cost of inaction on climate change, which will run into the trillions. It should be obvious that the $1bn windmill doesn't negate the trillions of dollars of damage from climate change that we still have to pay by the end of the century.

The EU's argument is similar to advising a man with a gangrenous leg that paying $50,000 for an aspirin is a good deal because the cost compares favorably to the cost of inaction, which is losing the leg. Of course, the aspirin doesn't prevent that outcome. The inaction argument is really terribly negligent, because it causes us to recommend aspirin and lose sight of smarter actions that might actually save the leg.

Likewise, it is negligent to focus on inefficiently cutting CO2 now because of costs in the distant future that in reality will not be avoided. It stops us from focusing on long-term strategies like investment in energy research and development that would actually solve climate change, and at a much lower cost.

If Barroso were alone, perhaps we could let his statement go, but the same argument is used again and again by influential politicians. Germany's Angela Merkel says it "makes economic sense" to cut CO2, because the "the economic consequences of inaction will be dramatic for us all." Australia's Kevin Rudd agrees that "the cost of inaction will be far greater than the cost of action." United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-Moon has gone on record with the exact same words. In the United States, both John McCain and Barack Obama use the cost of inaction as a pivotal reason to support carbon cuts.

California senator Diane Feinstein argues that we should curb carbon emissions because the Sierra snowpack, which accounts for much of California's drinking water, will be reduced by 40% by 2050 due to global warming. What she fails to tell us is that even a substantial reduction in emissions – at a high cost – will have an immeasurable effect on snowmelt by 2050. Instead, we should perhaps invest in water storage facilities.

Likewise, when politicians fret that we will lose a significant proportion of polar bears by 2050, they use it as an argument for cutting carbon, but forget to tell us that doing so will have no measurable effect on polar bear populations. Instead, we should perhaps stop shooting the 300 polar bears we hunt each year.

The inaction argument makes us spend vast resources on policies that will do virtually nothing to deal with climate change, thereby diverting those resources from policies that could actually make an impact.

We would never accept medical practitioners advising ultra-expensive and ineffective aspirins for gangrene because the cost of aspirin outweighs the cost of losing the leg. Why, then, should we tolerate such fallacious arguments when debating the costliest public policy decision in the history of mankind?

TV boom may boost greenhouse effect

2008-09-12T00:17:00.000-07:00

AN INDUSTRIAL chemical being used in ever larger quantities to make flat-screen TVs may be making global warming worse. However, because it's not covered by the Kyoto protocol, nobody knows by how much. The gas was first introduced as a measure to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but a prominent atmospheric chemist this week warned it could now be having the opposite effect.

The gas is nitrogen trifluoride (NF3). As a greenhouse gas it is 17,000 times as potent as carbon dioxide, molecule-for-molecule, yet is not covered by Kyoto because it was made in tiny amounts when the protocol was agreed in 1997.

Even today, no one is measuring how much reaches the atmosphere. The one certainty is that it is accumulating. In a new study, Michael Prather of the University of California, Irvine, calculates that it has a half-life in the atmosphere of 550 years.

NF3 production is "exploding", says ...

Polar Bear in Endangered Species Act (ESA) list

2008-09-11T03:31:00.000-07:00

The polar bear was officially listed as threatened under the U.S. endangered species act (ESA) on May 14, 2008. This the first creature brought under the act's protection for habitat loss that is linked to global warming. The official reason given was loss of Arctic sea ice and predictions that the ice will continue to decrease. Although global warming has been identified by most atmospheric and polar scientists as the main reason for Arctic warming and melting of sea ice, the U.S. Interior Department did not use this as a reason and clearly signaled it would not apply the law to greenhouse gas emissions.

Dirk Kempthorne, Interior Secretary, specifically said the listing would not prevent any sea ice from melting and that he would "make certain the ESA isn't abused to make global warming policies." This despite clear language in the ESA to control any activity causing harm to a listed species and requiring government agencies specifically not to jeopardize species by their actions. The wording of the listing document appears to be an attempt of the government to list the bear due to clear evidence of shrinking habitat yet not take all the steps to limit the loss. It seems analogous to President Bush's notorious "signing statements" limiting his acceptance of a Congressional law.

This could set up another court challenge by NGOs like the Center for Biological Diversity which originally brought the proposal and took the Interior Dept to court twice to get action.

"Threatened" under the ESA means a plant or animal may soon become endangered (at immediate risk of going extinct) if actions are not taken to protect it and its habitat.

Fail to Tackle Climate Change : UK environmental campaign groups

2008-09-11T03:28:00.000-07:00

The UK's leading environmental campaign groups have accused the main political parties of failing to prepare for the challenges of climate change.

The coalition of nine organisations says Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have switched focus from the green agenda to the economy.

Friends of the Earth and the National Trust are among those in the coalition.

The government has an incoherent and contradictory approach to green issues, its report says.

Waning leadership

Their report criticised the Conservatives for an "increasingly alarming" gap between their presentation on green issues and the substance of their policies.

The Liberal Democrats' traditional leadership on this issue has waned in the past year, it adds, but the party was also praised for its commitment to making the UK an energy independent and zero-carbon economy by 2050.

The coalition said the rise in fuel prices should have been used as a springboard to reduce the UK's dependency on fossil fuels.

And the report called on all the parties to say yes to meeting targets to source 15% of energy from renewable sources by 2020.

The government was praised for a number of initiatives such as the Climate Change Bill and avoiding a badger cull.

But the report claims that in the past 12 months politicians have focused their attentions on the economy at the expense of the environment.

It says: "The May local elections and the downturn were seen by some as marking the end of the environment as a public and political priority.

"That view is wrong. The public have not abandoned their concern for the environment."

'No vision'

Stephen Hale, director of environmental think tank the Green Alliance, said the only sustainable way out of a possible recession is to adopt policies that encourage a low-carbon economy.

Issues around energy, transport, land management and housing must be addressed, he said.

Mr Hale said: "None of the three main parties are currently showing the vision and courage to prepare the UK for the challenges ahead.

"There is no long-term route to prosperity and security unless our political leaders tackle climate change and protect the natural environment.

"In a time of rising fuel and food costs, the need for an ambitious approach to environmental policy has never been clearer."

'Greener and safer'

In response to the report, Environment Minister Phil Woolas said: "Government is committed to tackling environment issues and helping people through difficult economic times - it's not an either/or.

"Our drive to increase energy efficiency in homes throughout the country illustrates that."

Shadow environment secretary Peter Ainsworth said: "We are continuing to take forward important policy proposals to make Britain greener and safer, including a major initiative on creating a low- carbon economy."

The coalition includes Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), Friends of the Earth, Green Alliance, Greenpeace, National Trust, RSPB, The Wildlife Trusts, Woodland Trust and the WWF.

Flooding compensation

Meanwhile, Mr Woolas has said it is "morally right" to help people whose homes are affected by flooding or coastal erosion.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he did not rule out direct compensation for families hit by the effects of climate change.

"If people have bought a house and the situation has changed then clearly it is morally right that they should be helped," said Mr Woolas.

However, he said a range of solutions would be needed for different parts of the country and indicated that people who bought houses they "reasonably would have known" were in high-risk areas were unlikely to be compensated.

Garnaut responds to vocal scientist critics

2008-09-11T03:21:00.001-07:00

ROSS Garnaut has written to senior Australian scientists and environmental leaders rejecting their claims that his latest report on climate change is weak.

The heads of WWF, the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Climate Institute, as well as key UN scientific advisers, confirmed Professor Garnaut - the Rudd Government's adviser on climate change - had written to them on Tuesday, arguing that his advice that the world is not ready to sign a climate agreement that will avoid the risk of catastrophic climate change is accurate and realistic.

Professor David Karoly, who worked on the UN's Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change and savaged the Garnaut report in The Age on Tuesday, received a letter. After reading Professor Garnaut's letter, Professor Karoly was still not convinced by his arguments. "I don't think we misinterpreted him," he said. "He's giving in."

Professor Karoly said on Tuesday that the 10% cut in emissions by 2020 recommended by Professor Garnaut was insufficient.

Professor Garnaut's report argued that Australia should support a new global climate agreement in 2009 that aimed to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at the dangerous level of 550 parts per million.

He acknowledged that most scientists believed these concentrations would lead to a possible rise in global temperatures of more than 3 degrees and risked catastrophic climate change.

In his letter Professor Garnaut writes: "I note your views that I have been too pessimistic and that an effective agreement around 450 parts per million is possible at Copenhagen at the end of 2009. I hope it is obvious from the various publications of the review that I would be delighted if there were a sound basis for this alternative judgement, but there is not."

The head of WWF, Greg Bourne, said yesterday he also was not convinced by Professor Garnaut's arguments, which would mean Australia accepting a "weak" target to cut its own greenhouse gas emissions only 10% by 2020 on 2000 levels, while European countries have agreed to cut 20% by 2020.

John Connor, of the Climate Institute, and Don Henry, of the Australian Conservation Foundation, also remain critical.

Climate change linked to increased military threats

2008-09-11T03:15:00.001-07:00

Defence Force chiefs were told last night they could be called on to defend ''Fortress Australia'' from starving outsiders under the worst-case scenarios for global warming.

The security implications of climate change were delivered to the military's top brass at the Australian Defence Force Academy by former director of The Australia Institute Professor Clive Hamilton.

The Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, was present for the speech, along with leading figures from the army, navy and air force.

Professor Hamilton told his high-profile audience a leaked Pentagon report four years ago canvassed scenarios in which Australia and the United States were ''likely to build defensive fortresses'' around their countries to protect their resources from desperate outsiders and aggressive states caused by rapid climate change.

''It analysed the prospects for aggression 'if carrying capacities everywhere were suddenly lowered drastically by abrupt climate change','' he said.

''Humanity would revert to the norm of constant battles for diminishing resources ... Once again warfare would define human life.

Professor Hamilton said the world had only 12 months to decide on combined action or risk ''runaway'' climate change . ''We have one last chance to avoid the worst, and it comes at the Copenhagen conference at the end of 2009,'' he said.

Change of Season

2008-09-11T02:47:00.000-07:00

While the inter National community deliberates in Accra on adaptation and mitigation strategies on climate change, there is a huge task at hand for the public health fraternity. Stressed at the ongoing meeting of the ministers of health of the WHO’s Regional Committee for South East Asia, convened to discuss the challenges posed to disease control by climate change, was that public health issues need to be urgently shifted to the centre of the climate change agenda. Climate change has already begun to profoundly impact the availability of water, food, shelter and disturb socio-economic conditions that are all fundamental determinants of health. For urban health practitioners, climate change is an even greater worry; the worst sufferers will be city dwellers, especially in developing countries.

Research has shown that the clearing of trees and vegetation for development, as well as more concrete structures, the heat generated by air conditioners and industry exhaust equipment, air pollution due to vehicular emissions and other such urban features lead to cities trapping far more heat than the countryside that they replace, making the earth’s surface hotter. While rapid urbanisation to a major extent may be blamed for causing much of global warming, at the same time, the fact is that urban dwellers may also suffer the most from it.

With climate change, millions of people will be at risk from illnesses in a warming World beset by water stress. Dry conditions will reduce the water available for drinking and sanitary purposes further in urban areas which can trigger outbreaks of cholera, diarrhoea, dengue and chikungunya. Urban areas also present a greater risk of flooding when extreme rainfall occurs; lack of open space prevents water from infiltrating into the s Oil . Lately, both Delhi and Mumbai have seen what a few days — sometimes mere hours — of rain can do to our urban life. Further, the transmission seasons of several vector-borne and water-borne diseases — dengue, malaria, jaundice, typhoid — will be prolonged in a warming World . These climate-sensitive diseases are among the largest global killers already. We are also witnessing alteration in their geographic range, which means that these diseases are reaching regions that lack population immunity and/or a strong public health infrastructure.

Rising temperatures and heat waves will also increase the number of heat-related deaths and skin diseases. There are already high levels of malnutrition and food insecurity among the urban poor; food shortage...

Meat: Making Global Warming Worse

2008-09-10T04:13:00.000-07:00

Need another reason to feel guilty about feeding your children that Happy Meal — aside from the fat, the calories and that voice in your head asking why you can't be bothered to actually cook a well-balanced meal now and then? Rajendra Pachauri would like to offer you one. The head of the U.N.'s Nobel Prize–winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Pachauri on Monday urged people around the world to cut back on meat in order to combat climate change. "Give up meat for one day [per week] at least initially, and decrease it from there," Pachauri told Britain's Observer newspaper. "In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about reductions in a short period of time, it clearly is the most attractive opportunity." So, that addiction to pork and beef isn't just clogging your arteries; it's flame-broiling the earth, too.

By the numbers, Pachauri is absolutely right. In a 2006 report, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) concluded that worldwide livestock farming generates 18% of the planet's greenhouse gas emissions — by comparison, all the world's cars, trains, planes and boats account for a combined 13% of greenhouse gas emissions. Much of livestock's contribution to global warming come from deforestation, as the growing demand for meat results in trees being cut down to make space for pasture or farmland to grow animal feed. Livestock takes up a lot of space — nearly one-third of the earth's entire landmass. In Latin America, the FAO estimates that some 70% of former forest cover has been converted for grazing. Lost forest cover heats the planet, because trees absorb CO2 while they're alive — and when they're burned or cut down, the greenhouse gas is released back into the atmosphere.

Then there's manure — all that animal waste generates nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that has 296 times the warming effect of CO2. And of course, there is cow flatulence: as cattle digest grass or grain, they produce methane gas, of which they expel up to 200 L a day. Given that there are 100 million cattle in the U.S. alone, and that methane has 23 times the warming impact of CO2, the gas adds up.

The worrisome news is that as the world economy grows, so does global meat consumption. The average person in the industrialized world eats more than 176 lb. of meat annually, compared with around 66 lb. consumed by the average resident of the developing world. As developing nations get richer, one of the first things citizens spend their extra income on is a more meat-rich diet. Whereas pork would once have been a rare luxury in China, today even the relatively poor in the country's cities can afford a little meat at almost every meal — so much so that pork imports to China rose more than 900% through the first four months of the year. In 2008, global meat production is expected to top 280 million tons, and that figure could nearly double by 2050.

Producing all that meat will do more than just warm the world; it will also raise pressure on land resources. The FAO estimates that about 20% of the planet's pastureland has been degraded by grazing animals, and increased demand for meat means increased demand for animal feed — much of the world's grain production is fed to animals rather than to humans. (The global spike in grain prices over the past year is in large part due to the impact on grain supplies of the growing demand for meat.) The expanded production of meat has been facilitated by industrial feedlots, which bleed antibiotics and other noxious chemicals. And of course, the human health impact of too much meat can be seen in everything from bloated waistlines in America to rising rates of cardiovascular disease in developing nations, where heart attacks were once as rare as a T-bone steak.

So is Pachauri right that going vegetarian can save the planet? (At least the 68-year-old Indian economist practices what he preaches.) It's true that giving up that average 176 lb. of meat a year is one of the greenest lifestyle changes you can make as an individual. You can drive a more fuel-efficient car, or install compact fluorescent lightbulbs, or improve your insulation, but unless you intend to hunt wild buffalo and boar, there's really no green way to get meat — although organic, locally farmed beef or chicken is better than its factory-raised equivalents. The geophysicists Gidon Eschel and Pamela Martin have estimated that if every American reduced meat consumption by just 20%, the greenhouse gas savings would be the same as if we all switched from a normal sedan to a hybrid Prius.

Still, Pachauri is just slightly off. It's a tactical mistake, first of all, to focus global warming action on personal restrictions. The developed world could cut back hugely on its meat consumption, but those gains would be largely swallowed up — sorry — by the developing world, which isn't likely to give up its newly acquired taste for cheeseburgers and pork. The same goes for energy use, or travel. It's great for magazines to come up with 51 ways you can save the environment, but relying on individuals to voluntarily change their behavior is nowhere near as effective as political change aimed at speeding the transition to an economy far less carbon-intensive than our current one. So, by all means cut back on the burgers — I recommend a nice deep-fried scorpion — but remember that your choices from the takeout menu will matter less than the choices made by those who inherit the White House next January.

New Zealand passes climate change law

2008-09-10T04:05:00.001-07:00

Wellington - The New Zealand Parliament on Thursday passed a law designed to combat global warming that was expected to raise the cost of just about everything and nobody knows by how much. The law establishing a trading scheme that puts a price on emissions of greenhouse gases is bitterly opposed by most of New Zealand's business sectors, especially farmers, whose methane-belching animals are responsible for nearly half the country's emissions.

Along with New Zealand's small but significant steel and aluminium producers, the farmers said the cost of the law would put them at a disadvantage against their international competitors, whose governments are not in so much of a hurry to fight climate change.

But Prime Minister Helen Clark - who sees the emissions-trading scheme as the defining act of her 9-year-old Labour Party-led administration, which opinion polls indicated is doomed to defeat at the election she must call by mid-November - was defiant to the last.

Whatever the price, the alternative of doing nothing would cost New Zealand more in the long run, she argued.

Despite being a small country of just more than 4 million people, New Zealand is one of the world's biggest exporters of dairy products, meat and kiwi fruit and a prime tourist destination.

Clark said if it did not take a lead in dealing with climate change, it risked being boycotted as a "dirty producer" by world consumers and tourists who are increasingly environmentally conscious.

She said New Zealand was already being targeted by environmentalists in Britain who were urging consumers not to buy New Zealand products or fly to the country for vacations because of the carbon footprint they would leave.

The legislation was passed in a 63-57 vote in the House of Representatives with the main opposition conservative National Party vowing to change it radically inside nine months if it wins the election.

The National Party supported the legislation when it was first introduced early this year but backed off as opposition from farmers and businesses mounted with warnings of soaring energy costs that could force big industry to relocate overseas and massive job losses.

Environmentalists said the law did not go far enough and was unfair to poor New Zealanders. The Green Party only supported it after negotiating a 1-billion-New Zealand-dollar (about 670-million-US-dollar) compensation package, including subsidies to insulate homes and help pay increased power costs.

The emissions-trading scheme sets limits on the amount of greenhouse gases all sectors of the economy can emit, with those breaching their limits having to buy credits from those below their maximum levels.

It is being introduced gradually with the giant forestry sector accounting for its emissions this year, energy joining up in 2010, transport a year later and the critical agricultural industry being given breathing space until 2013.

Climate Change Minister David Parker told Parliament the scheme was fair and effective and would save the country hundreds of millions of dollars by penalizing polluters and rewarding those who cut emissions.

Climate change 'causing extreme waves'

2008-09-10T04:00:00.000-07:00

In a report released today, researchers from the CSIRO said they had found a link between climate change and extreme weather off the southern coast.

An analysis of available data shows significant increases in wave heights in the Southern Ocean over the past 45 years, particularly during the southern hemisphere autumn and winter months, the report said.

The frequency of large wave events has also increased.

"Extreme wave conditions are greatest south of the Australian continent, associated with the passage of extra-tropical storms along Australia's southern margin," the report said.

The researchers also discovered a connection between an increase in the power of waves in northern Australia and the length and strength of monsoon seasons.

"Variability of wave power in northern Australia is potentially related to variability in the length and strength of the monsoon season," the report said.

Federal Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the research would improve understanding of how global warming might affect offshore waves and the potential impact on coastal zones.

"This study will help increase our understanding of the potential impacts to the coastal zone, as well as providing valuable information for those seeking to generate electricity from wave energy," Senator Wong said.

The report would also provide critical information for coastal zone managers to help them plan for the potential impacts of climate change, Senator Wong said.

Coal plant answer to climate change tested

2008-09-09T23:59:00.000-07:00

Germany - Swedish energy company Vattenfall opened a small coal plant in Germany on Tuesday which will produce almost carbon-free power in a test of technology that could help the fight against climate change.

The project will produce enough electricity for a town of 20,000 people to pilot a process called carbon capture and storage (CCS), which supporters hope can tackle both energy security and climate change woes.

At 30 megawatts the pilot is still less than one tenth the size of a full-scale coal plant and commercial-scale tests of the technology are at least five years off, analysts say.

"We want to make electricity clean," said Lars Josefsson, chief executive of the Vattenfall Group. "This is an important milestone. It's going to be a marathon but we're committed."

Analysts welcomed the announcement.

"Everybody's always criticizing CCS for never having a fully working model. Well here's one fully working model," said Stuart Haszeldine, a geologist at Edinburgh University and CCS expert.

"Maybe by 2013 you could predict a full size power station operating with CCS."

Coal is cheap and plentiful but also produces more heat-trapping carbon dioxide (CO2) than energy sources such as oil, gas and renewables. CCS works by trapping those gases from coal plants and burying them in porous rocks underground.

A U.N. panel of climate experts says the technology could underpin the fight to slow rising temperatures and avert more powerful storms, droughts and rising seas.

CCS also has the support of many governments. But some environmental organizations say it is a distraction which will delay a global transition to renewable alternatives such as solar power, away from fossil fuels like coal, and accuse energy companies of making token investments.

"We're taking our responsibility seriously," said Josefsson at the inauguration of the 70 million euro ($98.92 million) plant built over two years which sits next to a conventional coal-fired plant 100 times as large.

"We're collecting data and hopefully within the next two years we'll decide whether to build two or three large CCS plants. But without CCS I don't think lignite has any future."

CONCERN

Cost is another concern -- CCS will add about half again or $1 billion to the capital cost of a full-scale power plant, according to industry estimates. If passed on to consumers that would raise power prices already at record levels.

Meanwhile leaks from store wells and pipelines of the invisible, odorless gas -- which can suffocate -- are a possible concern downplayed by analysts.

"We realize we're at the start of a long development process," said Josefsson. "The world needs this technology, in India and in China and in South Africa."

The plant will use an oxyfuel boiler. Pure oxygen will be injected into the boiler and a cloud of powdered lignite will be added to produce heat, water vapor and CO2. The CO2 will be separated, condensed to a fraction of is volume and stored in cylinders and buried deep underground.

Australian PM's climate change proven to be hot air

2008-09-09T23:22:00.000-07:00

Sydney: No single issue better illustrates the Rudd Government's gross incompetence than its blindly ideological approach to the question of climate change.

Fortunately, and perhaps accidentally, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's own hand-picked climate change guru, Professor Ross Garnaut, has now driven a truck through its principal argument.

In the 10 months since Rudd, Treasurer Wayne Swan, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong and Environment Minister Peter Garrett have held office, the Government has constantly decried and denigrated as "irresponsible climate-change deniers" all who question their views .

The snide use of the word "denier" to link sceptics with those who deny the actuality of the Holocaust is so obvious it hardly deserves mention.

But its repeated usage is indicative of the gutter nature of the massive propaganda campaign waged by Rudd and his colleagues as they attempt to capitalise on their symbolic signing of the politically correct Kyoto Protocol.

Fixated with the flawed reports prepared by the totally partisan Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and falsely claiming there is a "consensus" among climate scientists that human activity is responsible for global warming, Rudd has pushed a warped agenda based on extraordinarily dubious modelling.

And such an agenda can, in all reality, have no effect on the planet, let alone the behaviour of other nations.

For the whole of their period in office, federal Labor's mantra has been simple: the cost of doing nothing about climate change will be greater than the cost of doing something.

Now, however, former foreign affairs mentor Professor Garnaut has revealed that mantra is false.

First, though, let's look at Labor's determination to repeat that chorus, as captured by Hansard:

"All are familiar with the fact that the economic cost of inaction on climate change is far greater than the economic cost of action on climate change" (Rudd, June 26).

"This government does understand that the cost of inaction on climate change is far greater than the cost of action" (Swan, June 26).

"It is the case that the economic costs of inaction are greater than the costs of action" (Swan, June 24).

"Those of us on this side of the chamber understand that the economic costs of inaction are far greater than the costs of responsible action now" (Wong, June 24).

"On the question of emissions trading, we on this side of the House know a simple fact and it is this: the economic cost of inaction on climate change is far greater than the economic cost of action on climate change" (Rudd, June 23).

"Australians recognise that tackling climate change will not be painless, but I think the Australian people have a very clear understanding that, as I said, the cost of inaction would be greater than the cost of responsible action now" (Wong, March 18).

"The fact of the matter is that it is the costs of inaction that outweigh the costs of action" (Garrett, March 17).

"And overall our view has long been, put in simple terms, that the costs of inaction on climate change are much greater than the costs of action" (Rudd, February 21).

"We on this side of the House recognise the costs of climate change and that the costs of inaction are far greater than the costs of action" (Swan, February 14).

But a comparison of tables taken from Professor Garnaut's July report and the paper he released on Friday shows that this is not so.

In his July 4 draft, he stated that the cost of no mitigation - that is, if no action were taken on so-called greenhouse gases - would be minus 0.7 per cent of GDP in 2020.

In his new paper he presents three scenarios for carbon-emission reductions by 2020.

At an "as-soon-as-possible" level of 450 ppm (parts per million) he says the cost would be minus 1.6 per cent of GDP.

At the "first best" conditional offer of 550 ppm the cost would be minus 1.1 per cent of GDP.

If a second-best "Copenhagen compromise" was followed, the cost would be minus 1.3 per cent of GDP.

It is highly revealing that in presenting his first specific trajectories and estimated costs of emissions reduction, Professor Garnaut has found that the cost of reducing emissions is greater than the cost of doing nothing - although that is not how he sold his paper.

It is Rudd who is the denialist on the economics of climate change, if Professor Garnaut is to be believed.

The costs of action outweigh the costs of inaction.

Rudd and Swan have already warned Australians they face increasing unemployment.

To that must be added the costs of Labor's as-yet unspecific plans to deal with its over-hyped catastrophic view of climate change.

Professor Garnaut's report indicates Labor's mantra on climate change to be false.

Why does the ALP want to sacrifice the economy for a lie?

Green activists criticise parties

2008-09-09T23:15:00.001-07:00

The main political parties have let the green agenda slip in the past year despite environmental threats increasing, a report by the UK's major green groups has said.

The Fit for the Future study, which analysed the green performance of all three parties over the past year, said many politicians believed the economic downturn made action on the environment less of a priority.

But the review by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), Friends of the Earth, Green Alliance, Greenpeace, National Trust, RSPB, The Wildlife Trusts, Woodland Trust and WWF said the public had not abandoned green issues - and MPs should not either.

The only way out of the downturn was an ambitious climate change strategy that addressed energy, transport, land management, housing and the economy, the second annual review of the parties' performance said.

The three parties must drastically improve their green performance in the run-up to the next election, the environmental organisations urged.

The Labour Government's approach to the environment had become "incoherent and contradictory", the report said.

On the upside, the Government had introduced the Climate Change Bill and a draft strategy on renewable energy but there were concerns about the failure to rule out a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth, Kent, and Gordon Brown's trip to Jeddah to plead for higher oil production.

The Government won praise for protecting the natural world through measures such as the Marine Bill, avoiding a badger cull and protecting Lyme Bay from damaging fishing practices. But the green groups said the Government should have used rises in fuel prices to push through a reduction in the UK's dependence on fossil fuels, and criticised the "inadequate" action on biofuels.

The Conservatives came under fire for an "increasingly alarming" gap between their green aspirations and commitments, and for failing to mention the environment or climate change in their statement on priorities for a future government following the May elections. The party was also criticised for its negative attitude to green taxes and for sidelining its quality of life review which set out a green agenda, but they did win support for saying no to dirty coal.

Even the Liberal Democrats, traditionally strong on the environment, have seen their lead on green issues "wane" at points during the year. But they were applauded for Nick Clegg's commitment to making the UK energy independent and zero carbon by 2050, a move which was described in the report as "brave and bold", and for strengthening the Climate Change Bill.

Political parties seen failing on climate

2008-09-09T22:53:00.000-07:00

LONDON - Britain's three main political parties are failing to address climate change as the economic downturn starts to take precedence, the country's leading environmental organisations said on Wednesday.

The recent surge in world oil prices -- and with it domestic fuel bills -- proved that now was the time for the country to reduce dependence on imported energy and produce more of its own, clean power, they added.

"None of the three main political parties are currently showing the vision and courage to prepare the UK for the challenges ahead," said Stephen Hale, director of the Green Alliance lobby group which is one of the nine signatory organisations to the report.

"In a time of rising fuel and food costs, the need for an ambitious approach to environmental policy has never been clearer," he added.

The report "Fit For The Future? The Green Standard 2007-08 Review of the Parties" calls on Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to use the upcoming party conference season to recommit to tackling global warming.

It said the government's approach was "contradictory and incoherent", putting energy security above climate change and opening the way for new coal-fired power stations without the technology to cut their carbon emissions.

This, it said, would undermine the government's own plans in legislation going through parliament to cut national emissions of climate warming carbon dioxide by 60 percent by 2050.

The Conservatives had made the right noises under leader David Cameron but failed to produce any concrete plans or policies, the report said.

With a general election due within 20 months, the party urgently needed to put flesh on its environmental rhetoric.

The Liberal Democrats, traditionally the front-runners on developing environmental policies, had also gone noticeably quiet on the issue in recent months, the report said.

It urged the three parties to promise to stick to the country's European Union target of producing 15 percent of its energy from renewable sources like wind and waves by 2020.

The government has been trying in recent months to negotiate a relaxation in this tough requirement.

The report also called on the government to come up with a major public investment programme for energy efficiency and an improvement in household energy performance, a rejection of unabated coal-fired power plants and no airport expansion.

"The party conference speeches by the three party leaders will be an important test of their ability to lead the UK to a low-carbon future," said Hale.

The report's signatories are Green Alliance, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, WWF-UK, The Wildlife Trusts, The Woodland Trust, RSPB, The National Trust and CPRE.

4 former PMs join call for climate change action

2008-09-09T21:52:00.000-07:00

Two days into the campaign for the Oct. 14 federal election, four former prime ministers have joined a coalition of Canadians demanding urgent action on climate change.

The group of about 60 business people, academics and environmentalists calling themselves Canadians for Climate Leadership is set to release a document Tuesday entitled Time To Get Serious on Climate Change.

The report calls for a $30-a-tonne price tag on emissions, and says a "staggering" investment in green technologies is required.

The document has been signed by four former prime ministers, Joe Clark and Kim Campbell, both Progressive Conservatives, and Liberals Paul Martin and John Turner.

"We simply can't afford another round of posturing and denial in this next election," said Clark in a news release Monday.

"Climate change shouldn't be dealt with as a political football," Nova Scotia businessman John Roy, who helped draft the report, told CBC news.

The report stops short of endorsing the Liberals' Green Shift carbon plan, which would offset a tax on emissions with income tax cuts, but Roy said funds generated by an emissions tax must be redistributed to those who would be hit the hardest.

The names of Jean Chrétien and Brian Mulroney are conspicuously absent from the document, even though both were contacted by the group, Roy told the Globe and Mail.

Chrétien was not immediately available for comment and a Mulroney spokesman said staff in his Montreal office indicated they had no recollection of receiving such a request.

UK to aid Bangladesh £75m on Climate Change

2008-09-09T21:37:00.000-07:00

Britain is to give Bangladesh £75m as part of a flagship fund to help millions of people adapt to climate change.

The money will go towards projects that help people survive the worst affects of climate change, such as building new embankments or helping farmers move from rice to crab farming.

Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change, with 70 million people at risk of flooding by 2050.

In a conference at the Royal Geographical Society, Douglas Alexander, the International Development Secretary, said development is not just about social and economic issues but tacking huge changes in the environment.

It signals a new direction for international development for Britain towards helping poorer countries deal with global warming.

"Climate change is today's crisis, not tomorrow's risk, and is already affecting millions of people in Bangladesh," Mr Alexander said.

"But Bangladesh is resilient and is setting an example to other vulnerable countries with its innovative approach to adapting to the changing climate."

Mr Alexander also signed a joint declaration with Bangladesh calling for the international community to sign up to a new deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen in 2009.

He said: "UK and Bangladesh are announcing a new partnership calling for a comprehensive deal in Copenhagen, leading to the stabilisation of greenhouse gases at a level that avoids dangerous climate change - and benefits some of the world's poorest people."

The £75m, which is in addition to development aid, includes £60m for helping people adapt to climate change and £12m for the disaster management programme.

It also includes £3m for research which will help bolster Bangladesh's arguments in international negotiations.

Bangladesh has set up a fund to help fight tackle climate change that will include the money from Britain as well as other donors and £25m per year from the country's own government.

Other global funds to help poor countries deal with climate change are expected to be set up in the run up to the new Kyoto agreement.

Dr Mirza Islam, Bangladesh's finance adviser, said countries like Bangladesh need help from the international community to adapt to climate change.

"Least Developed Countries (LDCs), including Bangladesh, need immediate international support to build their resilience to global warming and climate change," he said.

"The resources currently available for adaptation are grossly inadequate to meet the needs of the LDCs who bear the brunt of increased climate variability and unpredictability resulting from climate change.

"The effects of climate change will severely constrain our ability to attain the high rates of economic growth needed to sustain development gains. We want a new sense of urgency to support Bangladesh in our search for a better tomorrow.

"This is why today, we are presenting our Climate Change Action Plan and calling upon the international community to assist Bangladesh by providing predictable, long-term financing for this plan and also by pushing for a meaningful agreement at Copenhagen."

Time to aim high on climate change

2008-09-09T08:26:00.000-07:00

The latest report on climate change by the economics professor Ross Garnaut is the most disheartening government report I've read. It tells us how hugely destructive climate change is likely to be, but doubts that the world's governments will be able to agree on effective action to halt it. Now you know why economics is called the dismal science.

Garnaut quotes an authoritative American study of the consequences if nothing is done to fight climate change and average temperatures rise by 5 or 6 degrees by the end of this century.

Such a change would be "catastrophic", posing "almost inconceivable challenges as human society struggled to adapt". "The collapse and chaos associated with extreme climate change futures would destabilise virtually every aspect of modern life," the study concluded.

Among the destruction would be the extinction of more than half the world's species. The Great Barrier Reef and other coral formations would almost certainly be killed and much Australian farmland rendered useless.

Worse, the Greenland ice sheet and parts of Antarctica would be highly likely to melt, greatly raising the sea level and inundating coastal areas in Australia and many other countries. These changes would be irreversible.

Garnaut says that to reduce these risks to acceptable levels, we need agreement and action by all the major countries to stabilise the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at 450 parts per million - although 400 would be better.

(Note that we've already reached 455 parts per million, so we'd go well above the 450 target before eventually getting back down to it.)

But Garnaut doubts that any comprehensive agreement will be forthcoming from the post-Kyoto negotiations at Copenhagen in December next year or in negotiations soon after.

Summoning all the optimism at a dismal scientist's disposal, however, he says "there is a chance, just a chance, that humanity will act in time and in ways that reduce the risks of climate change to acceptable levels".

But don't get your hopes up, because time's running out. "Opportunities to hold risks of dangerous climate change to acceptable levels diminish rapidly after 2013 if no major developing economies are accepting constraints to hold emissions significantly below business as usual by that time."

There you see the source of Garnaut's pessimism: the rapid growth in greenhouse gas emissions by the developing countries in general, and China in particular.

He asserts that the best hope of achieving a comprehensive global agreement would be to settle for a target of stabilising the concentration of greenhouse gases at 550 parts per million.

The trouble with this, however, is that such a level would still leave high risks of damage to the reef and farmland and reaching tipping points on ice melting - as Garnaut readily concedes.

This is the reason for the strong criticism of Garnaut's recommendations from environmentalists and some scientists. It's not that he doubted the scientists' warnings, or got his calculations wrong, or said the loss of economic growth would be too high a price to pay, but that he hasn't been ambitious enough in the bargaining position he wants Australia to take to Copenhagen.

The critics think we should aim high and let others beat us down from there rather than aim low and end up lower.

I agree. Our goal can't be to cut our emissions hard for its own sake. Without an effective agreement by all major emitters, what we do makes no difference. So all our effort must go into helping to achieve such an agreement, and that means being willing to put an offer of big cuts on the table.

Garnaut argues eloquently that what we offer to do matters, that other countries will be watching us closely and that we can have a disproportionate influence on the outcome of negotiations.

Great. Let's do it.

Garnaut says that for a global agreement on a target of 550 parts per million, we should offer to cut our emissions in 2020 by 10 per cent of their level in 2000. For a target of 450, we should offer to cut them by 25 per cent in 2020.

So Kevin Rudd could answer much of the criticism - and make a much more constructive contribution to the negotiations - by advocating the lower, tougher target with the greater cut.

Garnaut's calculations show that the increased degree of adjustment and loss of economic growth involved in cutting emissions by 25 per cent rather than 10 per cent would be surprisingly small.

But Garnaut has made his recommended cut of 10 per cent look smaller and easier than it really is by proposing that we advocate a move to a system where the size of each country's reduction in emissions is set in a way that leads over the long term to all countries accepting roughly the same size cuts when expressed as cuts per person.

In other words, he wants account to be taken of population growth, with countries with growing populations allowed to make smaller cuts in total emissions while countries with declining populations are required to make larger cuts in total emissions.

Unless you believe the system should create an incentive for countries to reduce their birthrate - or that migration makes a significant difference to global emissions - this is a fair and sensible idea. And the developing countries want it.

But it favours countries such as Australia, the United States and India, while disadvantaging Western Europe and Japan.

And it makes our offer of a 10 per cent cut in our total emissions by 2020 look a weaker effort than it is. That translates to a cut of 30 per cent per person, while a 25 per cent total cut translates to 40 per cent per person (that's the surprisingly small difference I mentioned).

The European Union has made an unconditional offer to cut its total emissions by 20 per cent, whereas Garnaut says we should offer unconditional cuts of a pathetic 5 per cent.

But get this: translated into cuts per person, the EU's 20 per cent shrinks to 17 per cent whereas our 5 per cent expands to 25 per cent. Now who's not trying?

With one stroke, Garnaut has given unwarranted offence to environmentalists while giving false comfort to our short-sighted and selfish big business lobby.

Bangladesh on climate change

2008-09-08T05:21:00.000-07:00

Britain and Bangladesh will jointly hold a high-level conference on climate change on Wednesday in London to launch a possible Bangladesh-specific climate change action plan and trust fund in line with the Bali Declaration.

Finance Adviser Mirza Azizul Islam and Environment Special Assistant Raja Devasish Roy will present a strategy and action plan, including plans to start a billion dollar multi-donor trust fund, to combat climate change.

"At the conference we hope to present a strategy and an action plan which is in the final stage at this moment," said Devasish in a statement, adding that the strategy outlines how climate change issues will be mainstreamed towards development over 10 years.

British International Development Minister Douglas Alexander and World Bank Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala will attend the conference along with 200 other participants including speakers from vulnerable countries, donors, private sector, academia and NGOs.

The joint effort by the two countries will try to link mitigating and adapting to climate changes with meeting the Millennium Development Goals and overall development.

The government consulted selected members of the civil society, private sector and donors to draw up the strategy to identify potential physical impacts of climate change.

“The main concern raised is that the pace of climate change could overwhelm development efforts and reverse the gains of recent decades," said a government statement. The strategy calls on donors to support Bangladesh in developing climate change resilient capability.

The conference will focus on highlighting Bangladesh as one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change effects and how Bangladeshis are already struggling to adapt to the effects.

Looking ahead to the new international climate change agreement expected to be signed in Copenhagen in 2009, the British and Bangladesh governments will highlight the need for global participation in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and support climate change adaptation.

"The aim is to increase international focus on how Bangladesh is adapting to climate change and how much more needs to be done, both domestically and globally to stop it from worsening," said DFID Bangladesh chief Chris Austin.

He added that Britain would announce a significant package of support to address climate change in Bangladesh.

According to government projections, the country is likely to suffer from more intense and frequent floods, droughts, cyclones and storm surges, with adverse impact on agriculture, water security and health.

By 2050, rising sea levels could permanently flood 8 percent of the country with production of rice declining by 8 percent. Around 70 million people could be annually affected by floods with up to 12 million people being affected by drought in the dry season.

'Stop eating meat' says Rajendra Pacchauri

2008-09-08T03:28:00.000-07:00

Australian farmers and researchers say comments from one of the world's top scientists, that people should stop eating red meat, are misguided.

The chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pacchauri says consumers must reject red meat, because methane emissions from beef and sheep are making a big contribution to climate change.

Australian scientists say food supplements and breeding could reduce livestock emissions in cattle by 30 per cent within a few years.

Melbourne University researcher Dr Richard Eckhart says Governments must wait for the science to catch up, before calling for people to stop eating meat.

"Not all the land that is currently under grazing is suitable for any other form of agriculture," he says.

"And so you can't have it both ways; you can't have a world which needs more food and then say we need to cut the emissions from food production."

UN climate chief urges more African engagement inclimate change talks

2008-09-04T03:04:00.000-07:00

DAKAR, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- Africa is the continent hardest hit by climate change yet benefits least from the current international climate change regime, a situation which cries out for concerted engagement by African leaders in the current round of climate change negotiations, Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said here Wednesday.

"There's a lot at stake for Africa. How can a Copenhagen deal, for example, help African countries adapt to the impacts of climate change and make African economies climate-resilient?" de Boer said to the participants at the Africa Carbon Forum, which kicked off Wednesday in Dakar, Senegal to promote carbon market benefits on the continent.

The countries of the world are busy negotiating what will happen when the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012.

Thirty-seven developed nations in the Kyoto Protocol have agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12, while developing nations have no targets.

Under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to sustainable development can earn saleable certified emission reduction credits.

The negotiations need to be concluded in December 2009 in Copenhagen, which leaves little time for crafting a complex agreement aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and helping countries adapt to the effects of climate change already evident.

There are to date more than 1,150 CDM projects in 49 countries, but just 27 of these are in Africa.

"Outside of Africa, the CDM has been a great success. It has provided an important source of investment and financial flows for clean development, it has stimulated technology transfer, and 2 percent of credits issued under CDM are going toward adaptation to climate change," de Boer said.

Despite the small number of projects in Africa, CDM is growing on the continent and is already estimated to be stimulating several billion dollars worth of capital investment in the seven African countries hosting projects.

Market stakeholders and policy-makers are looking for ways to multiply these benefits.

"So the question is: How can we make the Clean Development Mechanism work better in Africa? And how do we get to a Copenhagen deal that will benefit Africa more?" asked de Boer, who suggested that the answers could lie in effective engagement by African negotiators.

"The current climate change negotiations present African countries with a golden opportunity to change things for the better and design a Copenhagen deal that works for Africa. For this to happen, it is crucial that African countries put their concerns on the table and push for solutions that respond to their specific problems," he said.

"He who does not seize the opportunity today, will be unable to seize tomorrow's opportunity," said de Boer, citing a Somali proverb.

The three-day forum is being held under the umbrella of the Nairobi Framework initiative, launched in November 2006, to expand the reach of CDM and enhance capacity building on the CDM for climate change officials and carbon market participants in Africa.

UK diplomat compares climate change to Cold War

2008-09-04T02:59:00.003-07:00

LONDON: The United States and Europe should treat the challenge of fighting climate change even more seriously than they responded to the threat from the Cold War, a British diplomat said Wednesday.

John Ashton, the British foreign secretary's special representative for climate change, said industrialized countries should essentially put their economies on a war footing to tackle the problem of man-made global warming.

"What's needed is a greater and more urgent mobilization of financial, technological, intellectual and political resources than it took to win the Cold War — a degree of mobilization across the economy of which we have no experience in peacetime," Ashton told a conference on climate change and security at the Royal United Services Institute, a military think tank in London.

"It's becoming better understood that this deep and rapid restructuring of the economy is essential if we are to sustain the levels of affluence that our public now takes for granted," he said.

Britain, which signed up to the Kyoto treaty target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 12.5 percent from 1990 levels, has set the goal of reducing emissions by at least 60 percent by 2050.

Some environmentalists have pushed the country to set more ambitious targets.

The U.S. has yet to back mandatory emissions cuts, saying it favors market incentives to get polluters to reduce their output. It has also balked at signing up to any international pact on long-term reductions that leaves out developing powers such as China.

Earlier, a defense official told the conference that climate change was forcing the British military to adapt its strategy and equipment to cope with more extreme weather.

Undersecretary of State for Defense Derek Twigg said the British military was working on heat-resistant medical supplies and lighter medical kits to be used in hotter battlefields.

"We've moved beyond merely theorizing whether climate change has ramifications for defense. We know it will," Twigg said. "Our equipment will have to be adapted to operate in more extreme and much more difficult conditions across the globe."

UK diplomat compares climate change to Cold War

2008-09-04T02:59:00.001-07:00

Paying the climate change bill

2008-09-04T02:53:00.001-07:00

How much will it cost the European Union to fight global climate change? Clearly, the answer depends on what your target is, how you propose to get there, and the size of the EU’s contribution compared with those of the US, China and so on. But a new report from the Centre for European Policy Studies thinktank offers some useful estimates.

The report assesses six recent studies, ranging from the Stern Review and a World Bank analysis to research prepared by Vattenfall, the Swedish energy company. In these reports, the average annual global costs for mitigating and adapting to climate change are put at anything from €230bn to €614bn, based on 2006 data.

The EU is not, these days, one of the world’s great polluters. In 2004, the global economy emitted about 49bn tons of greenhouse gases (measured in CO2 equivalent). The share of the 27-nation bloc was only 5.2bn tons, or 10.6 per cent.

However, as western Europe is one of the world’s richest areas, and as Europe has historical responsibility for the CO2 emissions of its industrial heyday, the EU will surely have to pay more than 10.6 per cent of the global costs of fighting climate change.

According to the CEPS study, the smallest bill the EU could expect to pick up is €24.4bn a year, while the biggest is €194.3bn. The thinktank’s own estimate, based on what it calls “the limited likelihood of a global burden-sharing according to current emissions”, is that the EU will face annual costs of at least €60bn.

This figure is close to the forecast provided by the European Commission last January, when it published its all-encompassing proposals on energy and climate change policy. At the time, the Commission said €60bn - or about 0.5 per cent of the EU’s annual GDP - might seem a lot of money, but the cost of doing nothing would be even higher.

Has the message got through, I wonder, to Germany’s car manufacturers and their friends in the European Parliament? This week the legislature’s industry committee tried to weaken a Commission proposal for capping CO2 emissions from new cars.

Rather than imposing a target of 130 grams per kilometre on all new cars by 2012, the committee voted to apply it to only 60 per cent of new cars and to delay full introduction of the target until 2015. The vote was unmistakeably aimed at helping German carmakers, whose models are bigger and less “green” than those of France and Italy.

This is, of course, hardly the last word on the subject. The parliamentary committee’s vote isn’t binding. But when it comes to converting the EU’s high-sounding principles on climate change into concrete legislation, the devil is always in the detail.

Sun on oct 17

2008-09-03T02:48:00.000-07:00

Coming october 17,2008, the sun will rise continuously for 36hours(1.5 days), in that time the US countries will be dark for 1.5 days and other part of the world it will be day for the same period.It will happen once in 2400 years.We are very lucky to see it and it is a time think seriously in spiritual way.........

Watch this space to know more information.

Climate change target may lead to ‘dangerously misguided’ policies

2008-09-03T01:56:00.001-07:00

03 Sep 2008

The pledge from G8 countries to cut global emissions by 50 per cent by 2050, in an effort to cut global warming to 2ºC, could lead to ‘dangerously misguided’ climate change adaptation policies, according to new research from The University of Manchester.

Stabilising greenhouse gas emissions at a level that will avoid dangerous climate change is no longer viable without an immediate reframing of current climate policy, according to scientists at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Manchester.

In a paper published in a special geo-engineering edition of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, which is published online today (Monday 1 September 2008), Prof Kevin Anderson and Dr Alice Bows say that by focusing on long-term emission targets, such as 50% by 2050, climate policy has essentially ignored the crucial importance of current emission trends and their impact on cumulative emissions.

They say that as a consequence, although countries should aim to reduce global emissions in line with a 2ºC target, adaptation policy must focus on climate change impacts associated with 4ºC or more.

Dr Bows said: “The 2007 Bali conference heard repeated calls for reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions of 50 per cent by 2050 to avoid exceeding the 2°C threshold.

“While such endpoint targets dominate the policy agenda, they do not, in isolation, have a scientific basis and are likely to lead to dangerously misguided policies.

“To be scientifically credible, policy must be informed by an understanding of cumulative emissions and associated emission pathways.

“Every year that the emissions grow more than anticipated, as they have since 2000, the 2050 target will need to be adjusted. The less we take action now, the more we need to do in the future - and the focus on 2050 means we take our eye off the ball.”

In conclusion Dr Bows and Dr Anderson write: “It is increasingly unlikely that an early and explicit global climate change agreement or collective ad hoc national mitigation policies will deliver the urgent and dramatic reversal in emission trends necessary for stabilization at 450 ppmv (parts per million by volume) CO2e.

“Similarly, the mainstream climate change agenda is far removed from the rates of mitigation necessary to stabilize at 550 ppmv CO2e. Given the reluctance, at virtually all levels, to openly engage with the unprecedented scale of both current emissions and their associated growth rates, even an optimistic interpretation of the current framing of climate change implies that stabilisation much below 650 ppmv CO2e is improbable.

“The analysis presented within this paper suggests that the rhetoric of 2°C is subverting a meaningful, open and empirically informed dialogue on climate change.

“While it may be argued that 2°C provides a reasonable guide to the appropriate scale of mitigation, it is a dangerously misleading basis for informing the adaptation agenda.

“In the absence of an almost immediate step change in mitigation - away from the current trend of 3 per cent annual emission growth - adaptation would be much better guided by stabilisation at 650 ppmv CO2e - approximately 4°C.

“However, even this level of stabilisation assumes rapid success in curtailing deforestation, an early reversal of current trends in non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions and urgent decarbonisation of the global energy system.”

The special edition of the journal is edited by Professor Brian Launder, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Manchester.

In the introduction to the journal, he and co-author Prof Michael Thompson write that the consequences of global warming are “already causing misery and premature death for millions and hold the prospect of unquantifiable change and potential disaster on a global scale for the decades to come”.

“While the link between rising global temperatures and increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 has been known for more than a century, there is increasingly the sense that governments are failing to come to grips with the urgency of setting in place measures that will assuredly lead to our planet reaching a safe equilibrium.

“Today, the developed world is struggling to meet its (arguably inadequate) carbon-reduction targets while emissions by China and India have soared. Meanwhile, signs suggest that the climate is even more sensitive to atmospheric CO2 levels than had hitherto been thought.

“Alarmed by what are seen as inadequate responses by politicians, for a number of years some scientists and engineers have been proposing major ‘last-minute’ schemes that, if properly developed and assessed in advance, could be available for rapid deployment, should the present general concern about climate change be upgraded to a recognition of imminent, catastrophic and, possibly, irreversible increases in global temperatures with all their associated consequences.

“While such geoscale interventions may be risky, the time may well come when they are accepted as less risky than doing nothing.”

Go Green : Tesco chief

2008-09-03T01:54:00.000-07:00

Wednesday September 3 2008

All too often, politicians and businessmen have said to me: "You're a businessman, so surely you're opposed to the green agenda?" They think: "You cannot make a profit and go green." They think: "A consumer society cannot be a green society." And they believe that developing economies cannot afford to go green.

From my perspective, this is all muddled thinking. I fundamentally disagree, and say that if we want long-term growth, we must go green.

Why? Because only by acting now on cutting emissions will we save money in the future. For every £1 we spend now on tackling climate change, we are saving our children anywhere between £5 and £20 at today's value. Failure to act means risking economic and social disruption on the scale of the great wars and economic depression of the last century.

The means to tackle climate change does not just lie in the hands of politicians or regulators, the UN or the G8. If climate change is to be tackled successfully, we need a new framework in which governments, business and consumers each play their part.

This is not simply about dividing up responsibility between these groups, as though government is responsible for this, or business for that. I am not advocating a diminished role for government. The role of government in tackling climate change is vital. But it must be fulfilled in ways that meet the needs of our time.

Politicians are good at emphasising climate change as the greatest threat of the 21st century, but too often they fail to adapt to this new challenge 20th-century the tools of tax and regulation designed for high-carbon economies. If we are to move to a low-carbon economy, policies - such as tax and planning - must reward low-carbon activities and investment. And too often governments fail to harness the 21st-century power of consumers, incentives and markets, and bring these to bear on tackling climate change too.

You may be thinking: "Consumers - aren't they part of the problem, not the solution?" I see things differently. Consumers account directly and indirectly for 60% of carbon emissions. Get the consumer on side and the task of tackling climate change becomes possible.

Lifetime customer loyalty

I trust and listen to consumers. I believe in the power of consumers. Tesco's core purpose is to create value for customers to earn their lifetime loyalty. Customers tell us that they want to go green and do their bit to protect the environment. The challenge for us retailers is to help them do that.

Tesco is a global company: each week, over 30 million people shop in our stores around the world. To serve them, we employ 400,000 people. Then there are the countless people who work in firms and businesses, supplying our stores. Imagine if all those people acted to cut carbon emissions in all they did. This would be true collective action. The supply chain, and gradually the economy as a whole, would begin to turn green.

Business also has a crucial leadership role to play in empowering consumers, by overcoming barriers of price, incentivising customers to buy greener products, providing better information and innovating through new products and services.

If consumers are able to purchase lower-carbon products and services, they will reward the businesses that produce these products. This will encourage competition between businesses to produce more environmental alternatives to current products and services. It will stimulate the research and development to bring forward even better products. And we will begin to create a mass movement in green consumption.

So our strategy at Tesco falls into three parts. First, greening Tesco itself. Second, helping turn the supply chain green. And third, helping our customers by making green choices easier and more affordable.

To turn Tesco green and reduce our carbon footprint, we need to know which actions emit greenhouse gases and which don't. So we have measured our carbon footprint, which was 4.47m tonnes of CO2 equivalent for the entire Tesco Group in 2007. To cut this, we have set the entire group some clear targets, with 2006 as our baseline.

For example, we aim to halve emissions from our group's stores and distribution centres by 2020. To halve the carbon emissions from all new stores we build between now and 2020. To halve, by 2012, the amount of CO2 used in our distribution network to deliver a case of goods.

To achieve these goals, we've changed every aspect of how Tesco operates. We are saving energy in our stores - [by] hanging curtains on freezer doors, for example, and using better insulation, low-energy lighting and new refrigeration systems. In South Korea and Thailand, we are using ice thermal storage, and creating biogas from recycled waste. In China, we are installing energy management systems on the refrigeration in all of our existing stores this year, which will reduce the power consumption of these systems by 15%. Next year, we will expand this to include the air-conditioning.

We are reducing the number of empty trips our vans make by ensuring our vans - and our suppliers' vans - are fully loaded, and, in the UK, using our own train and canals to transport goods.

We are saving water. Next year, our Chinese business will begin rainwater harvesting and using grey water [non-industrial waste water] for things such as car washing and toilets. We're using energy-saving technology when we build new projects. In California, our distribution centre has one of the largest solar panel roofs in the US. We've set up a £100m sustainable technology fund to support low-carbon technologies such as wind, solar and ground source heat.

In Thailand, we aim to plant 9m trees by 2012: this alone will help reduce CO2 in the atmosphere by 9m tonnes over 40 years. And in the UK, we have invested £25m in the new Sustainable Consumption Institute, to research how we make the transition to a low-carbon economy, and the role that sustainable consumption can play in this. This will aim to contribute to the development of an internationally recognised carbon footprint methodology, and help us understand how customers read labels and respond to them. All the SCI's research will be released on an open source basis - published as soon as it becomes available, and accessible to all as soon as it is published. It will be led by Mohan Munasinghe, a leading scientist and economist, and vice-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

By the end of this year, our UK energy use per square foot will be half what it was in 2000. Last year, our group carbon intensity per square foot of sales space fell by 4.7%.

We are achieving this while Tesco grows. That's the critical point: the choice is not "green or grow". That is a false choice. You can do both - and you must do both. Reducing emissions does not merely fight climate change, it also cuts costs.

But a green Tesco is only one-third of our ambition. Just as important is greening the supply chain everywhere. In some ways, this is easier to achieve in the developing world. Old practices do not have to be changed. Instead, we can simply apply what we have learned elsewhere.

Just as some countries could leapfrog the laying of telephone lines and go straight to the mobile, digital age, there is no reason why, when we set up in developing countries, we cannot create new, green supply lines from scratch.

Meanwhile, we're developing a label that will tell customers the size of a product's carbon footprint. Armed with that information, they can begin to choose products with smaller footprints. This information revolution is beginning to gather pace worldwide.

Bumpy patch

People's values do not change simply because the economy is going through a bumpy patch. What does change is their ability to live up to those values. If the budget for the weekly shop becomes tighter, we need to be sure that going green is not seen as an expensive optional extra.

Take energy-saving lightbulbs. They don't just cut carbon but also cut fuel bills. So in the UK we have permanently halved their price. We've sold over 10m in the UK in just over a year, up from 2m the year before.

Or carrier bags. In the UK, in just two years, we have saved almost 2bn bags. In Poland, by providing a greater range of reusable bags, we have saved 400m.

If retailers help customers, customers will go green. The green agenda is not something that consumers only care about in the US and Europe. It is absurd to think that people in Bangkok, Seoul or Tokyo don't want a healthy and clean environment just as much as people in Budapest, Warsaw or Los Angeles.

Billions of purchases send a signal to cut carbon right down the supply chain and right through the economy. Each time a product is swiped through a checkout, that sale can reduce CO2 emissions. Each consumer who buys a green product is joining the mass movement in green consumption.

That movement is what we are seeking to create. A mass movement in green consumption - a movement that shows it is possible to consume, to be green, and to grow.

· Sir Terry Leahy is chief executive of Tesco. This is an edited extract of a speech he gave to the Coca-Cola Retail Research Council Global Forum, in Beijing, on August 22.

Climate change could destroy both future & past

2008-09-03T01:52:00.001-07:00

LONDON: Archaeologists are warning that climate change not only poses a threat to future generations, but could also damage the past by destroying remains dating back to the Bronze Age.

According to a report in Yorkshire Post, the warning comes as part of a conference at Bradford University in the UK, which discussed the damage global warming has done to the sites of archaeological interest across the north Atlantic.

A prominent point discussed at the conference was that rising sea level, coastal erosion, changing weather patterns and melting ice sheets has meant that evidence of Viking settlements is being lost.

Research work in this regards has been done by the staff of Bradford University, who are now working to identify sites which are at risk of being lost forever as a result of climate change.

"In the past archaeological finds in places like Greenland have been found in the permafrost beneath the surface frozen in time. Cloth, organic materials and textiles can be preserved but now these ice sheets are being lost," said Stephen Dockrill, Bradford University's senior lecturer in archaeology.

"One of the biggest problems we are facing in the north Atlantic is rising sea level and changing weather patterns causing more coastal erosion, cutting into cliff faces where lots of archaeological sites are based," he added.

According to Dockrill, Bradford University have people working at a site in the Faroe Islands, where there is evidence of the very first Viking settlers who arrived there, which is being eroded.

Dockrill said that the damage caused by global warming to sites of historical interest had increased in the past two years.

"We are also seeing erosion of deposits in this country in places like the Orkney islands, with remains from the Neolithic and Bronze Age under threat," he said.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

2008-09-03T01:51:00.001-07:00

DAKAR, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- The first Africa Carbon Forum will take place in Dakar, Senegal, from Sept. 3 to 5.

The event is to be organized by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat, in collaboration with the International Emission Trading Association (IETA), the UN Development Program (UNDP), UN Environment Program (UNEP), The World Bank and the African Development Bank.

The UNFCCC is an international environmental treaty produced at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), informally known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro from June 3 to 14, 1992.

The Convention entered into force on March 21, 1994. Its stated objective is "to achieve stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a low enough level to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system."

Under the Convention, governments gather and share information on greenhouse gas emissions, national policies and best practices; launch national strategies for addressing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to expected impacts, including the provisional and technological support to developing countries; cooperate in preparing for adaptation to the impacts of climate change.

The Convention enjoys near universal membership, with 192 countries having ratified.

Emissions trading rolls closer : New Zealand

2008-09-03T01:49:00.000-07:00

3 Sep 2008

New Zealand : Introducing 780 amendments to the complex emissions trading legislation days before it became law was reckless and irresponsible, National Party climate change spokesman Nick Smith said yesterday in Parliament.

Dr Smith failed in his attempt to have the Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill referred back to the select committee and the third reading of the legislation continued along strict party lines.

The Bill had implications for the cost of living for families and the viability of businesses that would impact for decades to come.

Parliament had a huge responsibility to get it right, he said.

"This is impossible when the minister introduces five supplementary order papers containing 77 pages of change totalling 785 amendments," he said during the committee debate.

Act New Zealand leader Rodney Hide said climate change and global warming was a hoax.

"The data and the hypothesis do not hold together," he said.

"Al Gore is a phoney and a fraud on this issue and the emissions trading scheme is a worldwide scam and a swindle."

United Future leader Peter Dunne said now the Government had finally, and reluctantly, admitted that New Zealand households would get a one-off payment of $112.50 in 2010 - $2.15 a week to meet the costs of the scheme - the full scale of the "economic disaster" was becoming clear.

"The effect of this ill-conceived and badly designed scheme on the ordinary household will be devastating."

In return for soaring food, fuel and transport costs, the average New Zealand householder would be able to get to the supermarket, probably on foot, where their extra $2.15 a week would be able to buy.

• Just over a block of butter, or

• Slightly more than one loaf of bread, or

• Just over a half a packet of Weetbix, or

• One lamb chop, or

• Just less than a litre of milk, or

• Seven eggs.

"And if all the pressure drives you to drink, you'll be able to afford not quite two cans of beer."

Finance Minister Michael Cullen, in answering a question from Mr Dunne earlier in yesterday's session, said the payment was designed to compensate households for rising electricity prices.

It was possible some households would not be fully compensated but a great deal of effort had gone into making the compensation match consumer needs.

Mr Parker said the Bill had been through an exhaustive select committee process and there had been 56 meetings with stakeholders.

"This has been worked through in great detail and the process has been robust," he said.

"There's a difficult balance and we think we've got it about right."

Mr Parker said most of the amendments the Government was going to make to the Bill were technical.

The ETS will eventually bring all sectors of the economy under a regime which will set limits on the amount of greenhouse gas they can emit.

Those that breach their limit will have to buy credits from those that are below their cap.

Electricity comes under it in 2010, transport in 2011 and agriculture in 2013.

The Government last week reached agreements with the Greens and New Zealand First which has given it a safe majority to get the Bill passed before the election.

It is expected to take up most of Parliament's time this week and possibly next week as well.

Climate Change Bill attacked in Parliament

2008-09-03T01:46:00.000-07:00

Climate Change Minister David Parker told Parliament today the Government's emissions trading scheme (ETS) was robust and thoroughly prepared, but it came under fierce attack when legislation that sets it up was debated.

The Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill is going through its committee stage, the most detailed part of the legislative process when each clause can be debated.

National's climate change spokesman, Nick Smith, said the Government was rushing it through with reckless irresponsibility.

"This bill has huge implications for every household and every business in this country," Dr Smith said.

"Don't do this to our Parliament, don't risk New Zealand's reputation with such shonky law-making."

Dr Smith said the Government was proposing making 785 amendments to the bill during its committee stage, and he doubted most Labour MPs had read or understood them.

ACT leader Rodney Hide said climate change and global warming was a hoax.

"The data and the hypothesis do not hold together," he said.

"Al Gore is a phoney and a fraud on this issue and the emissions trading scheme is a worldwide scam and a swindle."

Mr Hide said enacting the legislation would cost New Zealand dearly by driving up the cost of basic goods and ruining businesses and farmers.

"The impact is truly shocking...all we have is a computer model, the answers are written on assumptions."

United Future leader Peter Dunne said there was no need to ram the bill through Parliament just to satisfy the Government's agenda.

"No harm would be caused by deferring it by six months. It deserves greater attention and we should deal with it in a calm and rational manner," he said.

Mr Parker said the bill had been through an exhaustive select committee process and there had been 56 meetings with stakeholders.

"This has been worked through in great detail and the process has been robust," he said.

"There's a difficult balance and we think we've got it about right."

Mr Parker said most of the amendments the Government was going to make to the bill were technical.

The ETS will eventually bring all sectors of the economy under a regime which will set limits on the amount of greenhouse gas they can emit.

Those that breach their limit will have to buy credits from those that are below their cap.

Electricity comes under it in 2010, transport in 2011 and agriculture in 2013.

Several National Party MPs warned of dire consequences for agriculture, but Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons, who wanted the sector brought in before 2013, said it produced 50 percent of greenhouse gases and it was being protected for five years.

"And it is being rewarded with free credits until 2019, it's extremely generous treatment for agriculture," she said.

Mr Parker said there was no evidence the ETS would have an adverse impact on agriculture.

The Government last week reached agreements with the Greens and New Zealand First which has given it a safe majority to get the bill passed before the election.

It is expected to take up most of Parliament's time this week and possibly next week as well.

World Bank warns of 'climate chaos'

2008-09-03T01:43:00.000-07:00

September 03, 2008: AN expert from the World Bank has warned that "climate chaos" will affect farmers around the globe, and called for a revolution in sustainable agriculture.

Katherine Sierra, the World Bank's vice president for sustainable development, told a Canberra audience that action was needed for the sake of future generations.

Climate change would lead to droughts, floods, more outbreaks of pests and disease, heat stress among livestock, and a reduction in arable land, she said. And all this when the world's population was tipped to rise to 10 billion.

"We know that climate change will significantly affect agriculture and forestry systems," Ms Sierra told a conference in Parliament House today.

"Developing countries are likely to suffer the earliest - and the most - from ... what some are calling climate chaos."

The land available to grow the world's staple food crops would shrink - in some cases dramatically - by mid-century, Ms Sierra warned.

The world had dropped the ball on agricultural research and this had cost farmers dearly. A revolution in research was now needed.

Improved cereal seeds - tolerant to drought, flood and salinity - would be central, Ms Sierra said. Hardier varieties must be found for less common crops such as roots and legumes, and for staples like maize.

Tropical fruits and medicinal herbs should be researched, as these could prove fruitful for poorer communities in a changing climate.

More research was also needed on mapping the genes of key crops.

Smarter ways of managing soil and water were needed. Minimum tillage and the use of planting basins - shallow land depressions to concentrate moisture and nutrients - were good examples.

On a positive note, Ms Sierra said climate change could increase plant growth and improve the way some plants used water, although this was yet to be verified in the field.

Ms Sierra called on her audience to help achieve a revolution in agricultural research.

She was speaking to a conference organised by the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering's Crawford Fund.

Brendan Nelson criticised for denying climate change

2008-09-03T01:41:00.000-07:00

September 03, 2008 : BRENDAN Nelson was yesterday accused of being "blissfully immune" to the effects of climate change after he said the crisis in the Murray-Darling Basin was not linked to global warming.

The Opposition Leader told the ABC on Monday night: "What's happening at the moment in the Murray-Darling Basin is a consequence of two things: mismanagement of the entire system for almost 100 years and also the worst drought in 100 years. And it is quite wrong for people to suggest that what we're seeing at the moment is a consequence of climate change."

His remarks came just hours before a report released by the Murray-Darling Basin Commission said conditions in the river system were the worst in history, with no relief in sight.

MDBC chief executive Wendy Craik said the research by the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO had linked the reduction in autumn rainfall across the Murray-Darling Basin to global warming.

In parliament yesterday, Kevin Rudd attacked Dr Nelson, accusing him of ignoring scientific facts.

"You need to get with the science on this," the Prime Minister said. "Look at the technical report put together by the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology."

Agriculture Minister Tony Burke said that although farmers recognised the impacts of climate change, Dr Nelson had presented a new argument, "which was to say, 'well, OK, the climate is changing but the weather remains unaffected"'.

"These things are happening globally but somehow Australia remains blissfully immune," Mr Burke said.

Dr Craik acknowledged that mismanagement -- particularly the over-allocation of water -- had put stresses on the river system.

But she said that even without over-allocation, "there would still be a water shortage, and our modelling would suggest it is very likely the river would have stopped flowing during this period".

"You may have had a bit more water, but you may not, too, because the water that was there would have evaporated (because of rising temperatures)," Dr Craik said.

She said recent flows into the river system had been the lowest on record. "We have established new record lows for almost any period you care to name between one month and 10 years. Given the fact this has been going on for some time now and there is really no relief in sight, I think

we can say the drought is continuing to worsen."

According to the Bureau of Meteorology, the period from September 2001 to last month was the second-driest on record.

National Water Commission chairman Ken Matthews said this week there were no national guidelines for dealing with over-allocation.

"Under current conditions, many significant water-dependent ecosystems are under threat," he said.

Climate change and plague cases in U.S

2008-09-03T01:37:00.000-07:00

- Rare outbreaks of plague in the United States seem to match climate shifts over the Pacific Ocean in a hint that global warming may make the region too hot and dry for the disease, scientists said on Wednesday.

Feared as the "Black Death" of the 14th century that killed an estimated 50 million people, plague is still a threat mainly in Africa. The western United States has had 430 cases since 1950, or about seven per year.

The scientists, based in Norway, the United States and Sweden, said the number of U.S. infections seemed to vary with a natural shift between warm and cool ocean conditions known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) that can last 20-30 years.

Until now, researchers had been unable to explain swings in the number of cases -- ranging from 40 in 1983 at a warm part of the PDO to almost none in the 1950s, a cool phase. The plague bacteria is spread to humans by fleas living on rats.

"The cases aren't isolated. You can look at this phenomenon on a larger scale," said Tamara Ben Ari, lead author of the study at the University of Oslo.

The authors, writing in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, said that warm, wet conditions seemed to favor both rats and fleas. Fewer rodents die off in mild winters and food is more abundant in semi-arid areas when there is more rain.

But future climate change, stoked by human emissions of greenhouse gases, is likely to make the western United States drier, reducing the amount of food for rats. It is also projected to mean more heatwaves that can be deadly for fleas.

"Periods of high plague activity are likely to decrease in the western United States over the coming decades, especially in the active four corners region -- New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Utah," the study said.

It also said that plague cases might shift further north and to higher altitudes. The scientists added that there would still be big variations, linked to unpredictable droughts and rains.

By contrast, experts say that global warming could make plague thrive in many other parts of the world, such as central Asia, with a projected shift to moister conditions.

The study focused on states west of a line running through North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Plague is not normally found to the east.

The plague is little understood -- the disease can vanish for decades in an area and then reappear.

The World Health Organization says that nine countries reported 2,118 cases in 2003 and 182 deaths, with almost 99 percent of both cases and fatalities in Africa.

Many Peninsula cities slow to act on climate change, New survey

2008-09-03T01:34:00.000-07:00

A survey of actions taken by cities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties shows a high concern for the issue of climate change but mixed results when it comes to taking action.

The Sierra Club's Loma Prieta chapter has been successful in persuading cities to adopt significant emissions reduction goals, according to a survey released today. Following through on that commitment is the next step, and organizers say it can't come too soon.

Twenty-three of the 35 cities in both counties, along with the counties themselves, have adopted the emissions-reduction targets in the U.S. Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement at the urging of local activists with the Sierra Club's "Cool Cities" campaign since 2006.

The agreement calls on cities to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions, both at the municipal level and in neighborhoods, to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012 — in line with the targets of the Kyoto Protocol.

Most of those cities will have completed inventories of their own government's carbon "footprints" by the end of 2008. The next step will be to figure out how to reduce emissions, according to the report.

Cities that have chosen not to commit include Belmont, Foster City, Half Moon Bay, San Carlos and five other cities in San Mateo County; and Gilroy and Milpitas in Santa Clara County.

The next step for cities will be to compose a plan of action that tackles everything from giving people incentives to limit their commutes to making it affordable for residents to put solar panels on their homes.

But the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly, and while cities are waiting to compose their action plans, the report points out several actions cities could be taking right now but appear to be resisting for one reason or another.

"We've seen a combination of public activism and general awareness that has led to greater levels of civic engagement, but a lot of them are having problems with the execution for a variety of reasons," said Julio Magalhaes, coordinator of the global warming program for the local chapter of the Sierra Club and author of the report.

One example of an area in which changes could pay immediate dividends is reforming a city's building code to require that residential and commercial buildings meet minimum "green building" standards — and not just voluntary ones, he said.

The electricity and natural gas combustion associated with buildings is the second-biggest cause of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., according to Magalhaes.

The Sierra Club report notes that most cities in Santa Clara County will have such requirements in place by year's end if they don't already, whereas only San Mateo County itself has instituted tough new "green" building standards for new homes and homes undergoing major renovations. Atherton and the city of San Mateo are expected to follow suit, but most of the other cities that responded to the survey haven't taken any action yet, the report says.

Several cities, including Colma, Daly City, East Palo Alto, Hillsborough and Millbrae, did not respond to the survey despite repeated requests.

"It is striking how many more cities in Santa Clara County expect to have something accomplished in 2008," Magalhaes said. "There have been some commitments but there need to be decisive actions to step up to the challenges and that's not happening (in San Mateo County)."

San Mateo City Manager Susan Loftus said neighboring cities were paying attention when San Mateo required LEED silver certification for all new municipal buildings beginning a few years ago, and they will be watching as the city eases into its new regimen of "green" building requirements in 2009 along with an education campaign.

LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a "green building" rating system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council.

"We'll give people suggestions for things like energy savings, water savings," Loftus said. For other cities, she said, "I don't think it's a matter of if, I think it's a matter of when. I think you'll see this more widely in the county, in other jurisdictions."

In Foster City, however, Assistant City Manager Kristi Chappelle defended the City Council's decision not to adopt the Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement, which is nonbinding. She said the city did not have enough data to show that Foster City could benefit from meeting the goals laid out in the agreement. She pointed out that Foster City is working on a carbon footprint analysis of its own.

"Is it feasible? It it cost effective? Our council is not particularly interested in symbolism for symbolism's sake," Chappelle said. "We want realistic goals, so if we say we're going to reduce (emissions) by 20 percent we've got some steps in place to make sure that it's a possible goal."

Magalhaes said the "wait-and-see" attitude many cities have adopted points to the fact that the California Air Resources Board has provided no regional guidance or financial assistance to cities that are attempting to move forward on their own to meet the emissions reduction standards in AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.

The Sierra Club has urged state officials to support cities' efforts and not just focus on capping industrial emissions. In the meantime, Magalhaes is hoping Silicon Valley activists will use the latest survey results to press for more action in San Mateo County.

Real barometer of climate change is Arctic meltdown

2008-09-03T01:30:00.000-07:00

If Hurricane Gustav had struck New Orleans with full force, what would that have told us about the scale and speed of climate change?

If more of the sea-ice cover in the Arctic Ocean is lost in this year's summer melting season than last year (which was the worst on record), will that convince people that global warming is a real and present threat? What should people accept as evidence? And what will they accept in practice?

For scientists, the most persuasive evidence that global warming is happening faster than the models predict is the accelerating loss of Arctic sea-ice.

The National Snow and Ice Data Centre at the University of Colorado, which tracks the summer melt season each year, calculates that the loss of ice cover in the Arctic Ocean has already exceeded that of 2005, the second-worst year since observations began, and may surpass last year's record low.

This is not only bad news for polar bears, since an ice-covered Arctic Ocean reflects most incoming sunlight back into space while open water, being darker, absorbs most of the sun's heat instead.

An ice-free Arctic Ocean changes the world's heat balance and causes faster warming. In the last 20 years of the 20th century, the ice cover shrank each year from an average of 14 million sqkm in [the late northern] winter to about 7 million sqkm in late September. Last year's low was only 4millionsqkm, and this year looks likely to be about the same.

This is the kind of evidence that grabs scientists by the throat, but it barely receives attention from anyone else.

Only a couple of years ago, the climate models suggested we might see a completely ice-free Arctic Ocean in late summer by 2040.

Now some experts are speculating we might reach there as soon as 2013.

But 1000 stories have been written about Hurricane Gustav for every one that is written about what is happening in the Arctic.

That's understandable, because not one in 1000 human beings has ever seen the Arctic Ocean close up. Nobody is being evacuated because of this accelerating disaster, and so the media virtually ignores it.

Whereas for a few days earlier this week we were inundated with stories about the threat posed to New Orleans by Hurricane Gustav only three years after the city was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

If you include all the ''missing'' people whose bodies were never found, about 2500 Americans were killed by Katrina.

The incompetence of the Federal Government's response made the event even more shocking to a nation that had come to think that this kind of natural disaster happened only to places such as Honduras or Bangladesh, so it is not surprising President Bush cancelled his planned speech at the Republican National Convention at the last minute. The last thing John McCain's campaign needed was a living reminder of that blunder.

However, the main impact of Katrina was to break a great many people out of their denial that climate change was a problem.

The big shift in American public opinion over the following 18 months owed much to Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth but, for many Americans who would never believe a word Al Gore said, Katrina was the moment when the denial stopped.

Yet the truth is that Hurricane Katrina could have happened at any time in the past 50 years. In any of those years it would have produced the same results, assuming the same degree of human incompetence, because the flood defences of New Orleans had been inadequate for a long time.

The climate change models predict more intense hurricanes, but not necessarily more of them, and Katrina was only category-three on a scale that goes up to five.

Katrina hit in just the right place, and exposed the vulnerability of New Orleans. Hurricane Gustav, another category three storm, missed it and struck less populated areas which had been mostly evacuated.

But, if it had been Katrina II, it would have done more than 1000 stories about shifting rainfall patterns, acidifying oceans and melting ice to persuade people that climate change is a real threat to their wellbeing. Even though it was just a hurricane, and may have had nothing to do with global warming.

The regrettable reality is there will not be a critical mass of people willing to act decisively on cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the developed countries where most of the cuts must be made until some really big natural disaster kills a lot of people in one of those countries.

It doesn't necessarily have to be a disaster caused by climate change (although it probably will be), because most people don't understand enough about the climate to know what is valid evidence for climate change and what is not. Katrina helped to move Americans from denial to acceptance that global warming is a problem, but it will take an even bigger disaster to persuade them to act decisively.

Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.

Hurricanes, floods show risks of climate change: UN

2008-09-03T01:28:00.001-07:00

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

- Atlantic hurricanes and floods in India are reminders of the risks of ever more extreme weather linked to a changing climate, the head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said on Monday.

Achim Steiner said that more damaging weather extremes were in line with forecasts by the U.N. Climate Panel. He urged governments to stick to a timetable meant to end in December 2009 with a new U.N. pact to fight global warming.

"These natural disasters do reflect a pattern of change that is in line with projections" by experts on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), he told Reuters in a telephone interview from Geneva.

"As you watch the hurricane season in the Atlantic, as we watch the cyclones and the flood events in India, clearly we have more reason than ever to be concerned about the unfolding of patterns that the IPCC has forecast," he said.

He said it was impossible to link individual weather events, such as Hurricane Gustav battering the U.S. Gulf Coast on Monday, to climate change stoked by human activities led by use of fossil fuels.

But they match patterns forecast by the IPCC, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. The IPCC is marking its 20th anniversary in Geneva this week.

GUSTAV

Gustav slammed ashore on the U.S. Gulf Coast just west of New Orleans on Monday, a new blow to the city devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Gustav weakened to a category 1, the lowest on a five-point scale.

In India, three million people have been displaced from their homes and at least 90 killed by floods in India's eastern state of Bihar, officials say, after the Kosi river burst a dam in Nepal. The floods are the worst in Bihar in 50 years.

In addition to the human suffering "we have an economic escalation from damage from natural disasters," Steiner said.

Insurers Munich Re said that first-half losses from natural catastrophes totalled about $50 billion -- many linked to a rising number of extreme weather events.

The main exception was $20 billion from China's Sichuan earthquake that killed at least 70,000 people. For all of 2007, losses totalled $82 billion, it said in a July report.

"Growing populations and infrastructure means that we are going to face more and more events of this nature," Steiner said.

Katrina was the costliest hurricane in U.S. history, killing some 1,500 people and causing over $80 billion in damage.

"Natural disasters are increasingly becoming a major risk to our economies," Steiner said. "Our societies cannot afford this, our insurance industry cannot afford an escalation of risks."

UN climate panel re-elects Rajendra Pachauri as chairman

2008-09-03T01:26:00.001-07:00

GENEVA (AFP) — The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said Tuesday it has re-elected chairman Rajendra Pachauri for a second term.

Pachauri has been head of the organisation since 2002 and oversaw its seminal assessment report in 2007 which gave graphic forecasts of the risks posed by global warming.

The IPCC warned then that without action the planet's rising temperatures could unleash potentially catastrophic change to earth's climate system, leading to hunger, drought, storms and massive species loss.

The organisation also won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 along with former US Vice President Al Gore.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon paid tribute to the panel on Sunday at a ceremony to mark its twentieth anniversary.

Ban said the international community "will continue to look to the IPCC for guidance on the science and policy prescriptions needed to effectively address the obstacles ahead."

Climate change hits Mars

2008-09-01T23:39:00.000-07:00

Mars is being hit by rapid climate change and it is happening so fast that the red planet could lose its southern ice cap, writes Jonathan Leake.

Scientists from Nasa say that Mars has warmed by about 0.5C since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth over approximately the same period.

Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena.

The mechanism at work on Mars appears, however, to be different from that on Earth. One of the researchers, Lori Fenton, believes variations in radiation and temperature across the surface of the Red Planet are generating strong winds.

In a paper published in the journal Nature, she suggests that such winds can stir up giant dust storms, trapping heat and raising the planet’s temperature.

Fenton’s team unearthed heat maps of the Martian surface from Nasa’s Viking mission in the 1970s and compared them with maps gathered more than two decades later by Mars Global Surveyor. They found there had been widespread changes, with some areas becoming darker.

When a surface darkens it absorbs more heat, eventually radiating that heat back to warm the thin Martian atmosphere: lighter surfaces have the opposite effect. The temperature differences between the two are thought to be stirring up more winds, and dust, creating a cycle that is warming the planet.

UN Boss speaks on Climate Change

2008-09-01T20:59:00.001-07:00

Read a statement by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“Let me start by expressing my sincere congratulations and best wishes on behalf of the entire United Nations family to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on this auspicious occasion of the 20 th Anniversary, to its Chairman, Dr. Pachauri, as well as all former Chairs, Working Group Co-Chairs and Vice-Chairs, and the thousands of scientists who have contributed tirelessly to the Panel’s 20 years of history of accomplishments. This is also an occasion to acknowledge the proud parents of this wonderful institution, the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization, for the vision and foresight they had to establish the IPCC in 1988 by a General Assembly resolution. Beyond this foresight, we owe UNEP and WMO gratitude for their continued efforts to support the Panel’s work throughout the years.

The IPCC has a remarkable history of accomplishments, including its First and Second Assessment Reports which gave us the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol respectively. The critical role of the Fourth Assessment Report of last year in putting to rest any left scepticism on whether climate change was real and happening, in elevating the discourse of response, no longer the debate, to the highest of political levels and public consciousness and enforcing the breakthrough we managed to achieve in Bali, is undeniable. The Panel’s winning of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize is a testament to this fact.

Along with these remarkable achievements, we ought to celebrate the rigorous scientific tradition that underpins the work of the IPCC. Without a strong, peer reviewed science base, and the policy relevance of their science which the international process mutually engenders, the case for action on climate change would not be as unequivocal as it is today.

But anniversaries are a good occasion, not only to take stock and celebrate the past, but also to lay out ambitious hopes for the future. We appreciate that, with such a track record of success, the IPCC will face increasing demand and pressure, especially at this critical juncture for global climate change policy and action, when negotiations are underway to reach a comprehensive post-2012 agreement by December 2009 in Copenhagen, one that measures up to what the Panel’s scientific findings tell us.

There will be a need to update and constantly make the scientific case for action on the road to Copenhagen, and indeed beyond. The first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol will end in 2012. We must now collectively put our energies to adopting a comprehensive agreement that will engage all the countries and which will provide for significant emission reduction needed, together with concrete provisions to support countries to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change.

We should learn from the experience of the last almost two decades of intergovernmental actions and agreements on climate change, but we should not be trapped by them. We need bold action, new ideas and approaches, and most important of all political will to make those a reality. After three negotiating sessions in Bali , we are making progress, but not at the speed and scale needed. In negotiations on a complex and multifaceted issue as climate change, progress on one issue is necessarily tied to progress on almost all the issues. This is to be expected. However, we must fight the urge to postpone everything until Copenhagen. Surely, we can make concrete progress on some issues. Like a jigsaw puzzle, a final deal is possible only by building towards it in increments, chipping away at small manageable pieces at a time, and putting them to rest once that piece of the puzzle is solved.

In this respect, I would emphasize the need to make the most of the upcoming opportunities in Poznan. We have little time left to prepare for Copenhagen. We have an ambitious agenda ahead of us. We thus need concrete outcomes from Poznan on the road to Copenhagen. It is my sincere hope that by the end of this year in Poznan, parties to the Climate Change Convention would have achieved a better understanding of a shared vision for long-term cooperative action; parties would have made significant progress on the implementation of existing agreements of the Convention and its Kyoto Protocol, such as on adaptation, capacity building technology and finance, which will facilitate negotiations on the future; and on the Adaptation Fund, so that it can become well funded and fully operational by the end of this year.

In these areas, the UN system will spare no effort in providing a coherent implementation support to its Member States. As we have seen in the case of Indonesia and Bali in 2007, the host country of the Convention of the Parties has a crucial role to play in facilitating progress and providing the necessary leadership to solve difficult problems that arise. I call on Poland’s leadership in particular to help us navigate this next stage of the journey by providing the necessary leadership and engaging other leaders to speed up our progress so that we can reach a comprehensive deal by December 2009.

In this context, in just 12 days from now, I will be meeting the leaders of three key countries, Indonesia , Poland and Denmark , who were and will be the President of the Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC to mobilize their political engagement and support to speed up progress in the negotiations.

But ultimately, the responsibility for leadership and progress of course rests with the Parties. In the Bali Action Plan, Parties recognized that deep cuts in global emissions will be required to achieve the ultimate objective of the Convention, and emphasize the urgency to address climate change as indicated in the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC. In the context, and consistent with the UNFCCC negotiations and the Bali Action Plan, I continued to encourage developed countries to provide the leadership in coming up with long-term goals, together with ambitious short- and mid-term targets, and developing parties to do their part to achieve the stabilization level recommended by the Panel’s scientific findings.

This needs to be coupled with arrangements for substantial additional financial resources, public as well as private, to support the shift toward low carbon societies and to provide the necessary funds for adaptation to the adverse impacts of climate change. Such bold action, consistent with the overarching principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, can drive today’s market forces to result in the technological change and market transformations that are needed for a total transformation of our economies into low or zero carbon economies.

Indeed, the IPCC and science have been our allies in figuring out what needs to be done by when. But I believe the IPCC can be an even more effective instrument for consensus building by, for example, including more developing countries as parties in its assessment, so that its future conclusions can be owned by all. This will enhance the anchoring of the negotiations in science. I also think there is much room for the IPCC to tackle the difficult issues of finance and technology which are the key enablers of action on its pertinent findings on mitigation and adaptation requirements.

I remain personally committed to providing support to help the negotiations so that we can reach our common objective, a balanced, inclusive, effective and ratifiable agreement by the end of December next year in Copenhagen. In this effort, we will continue to rely on our committed partner, the IPCC, as a key source of policy relevant science on climate change within the United Nations family. I wish the Panel well in its future work on the Fifth Assessment Report and its other special reports, methodological reports, and technical papers. Given the IPCC’s remarkable history of accomplishments, I have no doubt it is up to the task to deliver on these future challenges and aspirations.

The challenges ahead of us are daunting undoubtedly. Climate change is no longer just a phenomenon. It has developed into such a full-scale crisis that makes it increasingly difficult for us to reach and maintain development aspirations such as the Millennium Development Goals. What the crisis needs is a commensurate response. After 20 years of the work of the IPCC, we have the science. We know what needs to be done. We now look to the Poznan and Copenhagen negotiations to deliver a response that is commensurate with the climate change crisis that is upon us.

The world is waiting for us for the results. The future is literally in our hands. Thank you very much and I wish you all the best in our common efforts to address this global warming issue.”

Chennai-based climate champion heads for the Arctic

2008-08-29T10:02:00.000-07:00

Chennai( Aug 29,2008 ): City-based school student Shruti K Neelakantan, who was crowned the British Council’s Indian climate champion on February 14, is heading for the Arctic as part of the Cape Farewell Youth Expedition 2008.

The expedition, a brainchild of British artist David Buckland, is an international project aimed at increasing awareness about climate change. It brings together top scientists and artists from the US and the UK and 28 students from around the globe on a voyage of the Arctic.

From the Arctic, the students "will each complete art and science projects and talk live to their schools, communicating the global impact of climate change to their local communities".

Shruti, a Class XII Commerce Student at the Sri Sankara Senior Secondary School, Chennai, is one of two Indian students to figure in the expedition team, the other being Dhruv Sengar, another Class XII student, from Lucknow.

An “absolute chocoholic with a keen interest in the environment”, Shruti told Sify.com about how she earned her dream ticket.

“It all began with an essay competition on Climate Change, causes and solutions. It was my Geography teacher Ms Meenakshi who convinced me to send in an entry.

"After that I got selected for the interview stage, and then we had to prepare a nine-minute video on global warming. Our team made a presentation based on the toon series Captain Planet. It was on the dangers facing the environment and what we can do to solve them,” she said.

Since her selection, Shruti has been to New Delhi twice and met Dr RK Pachauri, the Chairman of the Nobel-Prize winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

A keen volunteer of the environmental group Exnora International, the commerce student hopes to do her bit towards increasing awareness about climate change among students and “through radio programmes and through CRY (Child Relief and You) cards” once she is back.

But, for now, her focus is fully on the trip to the Arctic.

She leaves for Toronto on August 30, and will undergo an orientation programme there from September 1 to September 7.

On September 7, she is set to board the MV Akademik Shokalskiy, a Russian research vessel, in Reykjavik, Iceland and begin a voyage that will see her skirt the southern tip of Greenland before she disembarks at Iqualuit, Boffin Island, Canada on September 20.

The excitement in her voice is palpable when she talks about what lies ahead: “We will get to see the glaciers melting and get a glimpse of the life in the arctic. It will also be great to interact with other students.”

And what does she hope to bring back at the end of it all?

“Something simple to do, something that will radically increase awareness about climate change and global warming here in India,” Shruti says.

Obama on Climate Change

2008-08-29T09:53:00.000-07:00

DENVER, Colorado, August 29, 2008 (ENS) - Climate change has made Senator Barack Obama's list of "threats of the 21st century" alongside terrorism and nuclear proliferation, poverty, genocide, and disease.

Accepting the Democratic nomination for president Thursday night before 75,000 supporters at Denver's Invesco Field, Obama said he would "build new partnerships" to defeat these threats.

"And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as president - in 10 years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East," he declared.

"Washington's been talking about our oil addiction for the last 30 years, and John McCain has been there for 26 of them," said the senator from Illinois of his Republican opponent.

"In that time, he's said no to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars, no to investments in renewable energy, no to renewable fuels. And today, we import triple the amount of oil as the day that Senator McCain took office."

"Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution. Not even close," said Obama.

"As president," he promised, "I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power.

"I'll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America," he said. "I'll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars."

"And I'll invest 150 billion dollars over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy - wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and five million new jobs that pay well and can't ever be outsourced."

Obama has won the support of many environmentalists for his climate and energy plans.

In a scorecard comparing Obama's energy policies with those of his Republican opponent, Senator John McCain of Arizona, the Sierra Club last week came out clearly in favor of Obama.

"Both candidates are talking about energy, high prices and global warming, so it's important to look past the rhetoric and see what is at the heart of their plans," said Cathy Duvall, Sierra Club political director.

"As this scorecard illustrates, the contrast in this election could not be starker," she said. "Barack Obama wants to give tax relief and $1,000 energy rebates to working families, while John McCain wants billions more in tax breaks for oil companies making more than $1,000 a second in profits."

The League of Conservation Voters said Wednesday that Obama has a "proven record as an environmental champion" and found 10 reasons to support his candidacy.

Speaking tonight in support of the newly selected Democratic presidential nominee, former Vice President Al Gore described the choice facing American voters as one that will determine the fate of the planet.

He spoke from experience, having run for the presidency in 2000 and won the popular vote only to watch as the U.S. Supreme Court stopped the vote counting in Florida, in effect handing the White House to his opponent, George W. Bush.

"That's why I came here tonight: to tell you why I feel so strongly that we must seize this opportunity to elect Barack Obama president of the United States of America," said Gore.

"Take it from me, if it had ended differently," Gore told the crowd, "we would not be denying the climate crisis; we'd be solving it."

But today, Gore said, "We are facing a planetary emergency, which, if not solved, would exceed anything we've ever experienced in the history of humankind."

"We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the future of human civilization," said Gore. "Every bit of that has to change."

Gore, who shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for doing his utmost to warn the world about global warming, delivered a searing picture of potential climate disaster tonight.

Former Vice President Al Gore addresses fellow Democrats in Denver. August 28, 2008

"Many scientists predict - shockingly - that the entire North Polar ice cap may be completely gone during summer months during the first term of the next president," he said.

"Sea levels are rising; fires are raging; storms are stronger. Military experts warn us our national security is threatened by massive waves of climate refugees destabilizing countries around the world, and scientists tell us the very web of life is endangered by unprecedented extinctions," Gore warned.

The former vice president, who served in the Senate with McCain as president pro tem during the Clinton administration and before that as a senator from Tennessee, told the crowd tonight, "In spite of John McCain's past record of open-mindedness and leadership on the climate crisis, he has now apparently allowed his party to browbeat him into abandoning his support of mandatory caps on global warming pollution."

Gore said Obama will be a president who inspires America to believe we can use the sun, the wind, geothermal power, conservation and efficiency to solve the climate crisis.

By contrast, he said "the carbon fuels industry - big oil and coal - have a 50-year lease on the Republican Party, and they are drilling it for everything it's worth."

At the White House today, presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters that President Bush believes the Obama nomination shows "that America is the best country on Earth and a place where everybody, if they work hard, can achieve great things."

New Climate Change Plan : UK

2008-08-29T09:44:00.000-07:00

Londoners must use less water and plant more trees to prevent climate change from damaging the quality of life in the capital, the mayor has said.

Boris Johnson said measures were needed to combat the danger of increased flooding, droughts and heatwaves.

They included more water metering, more green spaces to "cool" the city and steps to reduce leaks from water mains.

Green Party London Assembly member Jenny Jones said the measures contained "nothing new" and were "inadequate".

Climate change could "seriously threaten our quality of life - particularly that of the most vulnerable people", Mr Johnson said.

Some 1.25 million people are at risk of flooding, along with almost half a million properties, 441 schools, 75 London Underground and DLR stations and 10 hospitals, the mayor said.

The Thames region has lower water availability per person than Morocco yet Londoners consume on average 18 litres per day more than the national average, the mayor said.

Meanwhile 600 million litres of water per day are lost through leaks, he added.

The August 2003 heatwave killed at least 600 people in the city, according to the mayor.

"We need to concentrate efforts to slash carbon emissions and become more energy efficient in order to prevent dangerous climate change," Mr Johnson said.

"But we also need to prepare for how our climate is expected to change in the future."

Oil dependence

The mayor also pledged to reduce leakage from water mains, adapt buildings to minimise the need for cooling facilities and improve flood risk management.

Ms Jones said all those suggestions would help combat climate change but said they could have been announced "at any time over the past 10 years".

"These are all good measures, we have got to do all these things," she said.

"But where are the big new ideas? We need the mayor to find ways to reduce our dependence on oil, for example."

She added: "If the mayor ignores the contribution transport makes to climate change, he is ignoring a major part of the problem."

What’s driving global warming?

2008-08-28T07:40:00.000-07:00

Ask most Americans what causes global warming, and they’ll point to a coal-plant smokestack or a car’s tailpipe. They’re right, of course, but perhaps two other images should be granted similarly iconic status: the front and rear ends of a cow. According to a little-known 2006 United Nations report entitled “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” livestock is a major player in climate change, accounting for 18 percent of all greenhouse-gas emissions (measured in carbon-dioxide equivalents). That’s more than the global transportation system. Unfortunately, this incredibly important revelation has received only limited attention in the media.

How could methane from cows, goats, sheep and other livestock have such a huge impact? As Chris Goodall points out in his book How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, “Ruminant animals [chewing a cud], such as cows and sheep, produce methane as a result of the digestive process … Dairy cows are particularly important sources of methane because of the volume of food, both grass and processed material, that they eat.”

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the American meat industry produces more than 1.4 billion tons of waste annually—that’s 5 tons for every U.S. citizen and 130 times the volume of human waste. Michael Jacobson, the longtime executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, adds the fact that just one midsize feedlot churns out half a million pounds of manure each day. “The methane that cattle and their manure produce has a global warming effect equal to that of 33 million automobiles,” the Center reports in its book Six Arguments for a Greener Diet.

That’s just one side effect of raising animals for food. It turns out that nearly every aspect of the huge international meat trade has an environmental or health consequence, with global warming at the top of the list. If you never thought that eating meat was an environmental (and by extension, political) issue, now is the time to rethink that position.

Big meat

To understand livestock’s impact on the planet, you have to consider the size of the industry. It is the single largest human-related use of land. Grazing occupies an incredible 26 percent of the ice- and water-free surface of the planet Earth. The area devoted to growing crops to feed those animals amounts to 33 percent of arable land. Meat production is a major factor in deforestation as well, and grazing now occupies 70 percent of previously forested land in the Amazon region. In Brazil, 60 to 70 percent of rainforest destruction is caused by clearing for animal pasture, one reason why livestock accounts for 9 percent of human-caused carbon-dioxide emissions. Other sources of CO2 include the burning of diesel fuel to operate farm machinery and the fossil fuels used to keep barns warm during the winter.

And food grown for animals could be feeding people. Raising livestock consumes 90 percent of the soy crop in the United States, 80 percent of its corn and 70 percent of its grain. David Pimentel, professor of entomology at Cornell University, points out that “if all the grain currently fed to livestock in the U.S. was consumed directly by people, the number who could be fed is nearly 800 million.”

Grazing is itself environmentally destructive. The United Nations reports that 20 percent of the world’s pastures and rangelands have been at least somewhat degraded through overgrazing, soil compaction and erosion.

Methane (a global-warming gas 23 times more potent than CO2) comes from many human sources, but livestock account for an incredible 37 percent of that total worldwide. Nitrous oxide is also a very powerful global-warming gas (296 times more potent than CO2), and by far the biggest source, 64 percent, originates (as does animal-based methane) from manure “off-gassing.” This process of nitrous creation is aggravated by intensive factory-farming methods, because manure is a more dangerous emitter when it is concentrated and stored in compacted form.

In California, the greenhouse-gas emissions from livestock account for the equivalent of 14 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. That’s only about 3 percent of our global-warming pollution, since California is a highly developed state, with far more cars on the road than cows in the field. But cattle are our single highest source of those potent methane and nitrous-oxide emissions in California—which is why state regulators and energy companies are looking for ways to capture and use those gases before they get into the air. More on that in a bit.

The environmental consequences of meat-based diets extend far beyond their impact on climate change. According to the U.N. report, producing the worldwide meat supply also consumes a large share of natural resources and contributes to a variety of pressing problems. Livestock production consumes 8 percent of the world’s water (mainly to irrigate animal feed), causes 55 percent of land erosion and sediment, uses 37 percent of all pesticides, directly or indirectly results in 50 percent of all antibiotic use and dumps a third of all nitrogen and phosphorous into our freshwater supplies.

A study released last April by the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production called the human health and environmental risks associated with the meat industry “unacceptable.” One of their major recommendations was to “implement a new system to deal with farm waste to replace the inflexible and broken system that exists today, to protect Americans from the adverse environmental and human health hazards of improperly handled IFAP waste.”

And livestock are forcing other animals out. With species loss accelerating in a virtual “sixth extinction,” livestock currently account for 20 percent of all the animal biomass in the world. As they occupy 30 percent of the planet, they also displace that much wildlife habitat. The grazing of livestock is considered a serious threat to 306 of the 825 “ecoregions” identified by the Worldwide Fund for Nature, and to 23 of Conservation International’s 35 global hot spots for biodiversity.

Meat production has become a major problem because of its very success as a human food. In 1950, world meat production was 44 million tons annually; today, it has risen fivefold to 253 million tons per year. Pork production, for instance, was less than 5 million tons annually in 1950, but it’s more than 90 million tons today. The average person ate 90.3 pounds of meat in 2003, double the figure of 50 years ago.

These sharp increases are partly the result of dramatically higher meat consumption in the Third World. China alone now consumes half the world’s pork, a fivefold increase since 1978.

Brazil makes an excellent case history. With 160 million head of cattle, it has the second largest herd in the world after India. In Brazil, cattle provide 29 percent of the country’s methane production, and an amazing 10 percent of the world total. If that were the only issue, Brazil’s large cattle herd would be a major problem. But it would be an enormous global-warming aggravator even if its cattle produced no methane, because Brazilian farmers burn rainforest land to create pastures.This process releases carbon into the atmosphere from the heavy fires and also destroys the rainforests’ ability to act as a carbon sink and capture CO2. These fires are Brazil’s largest contribution to global warming, which worries Brazilian environmentalists such as Rubens Born of the group Vitae Civilis. He says he’s waiting for Brazil’s national inventory of greenhouse-gas emissions, which will allow him to see more precisely the scope of the problem.

The few commentators who have taken on the connection between meat consumption and global warming often ignore the most obvious solution: not eating meat.

The U.N. report offers a lengthy section entitled “Mitigation Options,” with a range of other choices. To avoid cutting down rainforests that sequester carbon, the report suggests “intensification of agricultural production on some of the better lands, for example by increased fertilizer benefits.” The logical conclusion to this suggestion is the total confinement of factory-farming methods used in the United States—which, by twisted logic, could be said to have environmental benefits because they are not land-intensive (and don’t cut down trees). But the environmental problems associated with factory farming are legion, and include polluted air and waterways.

Other U.N. suggestions include conservation tillage (leaving agricultural residue on the soil surface to enrich its health) and organic farming for better soil health, improved grassland management, better nutrition for livestock to reduce methane-gas production and capturing methane in anaerobic digesters to produce “biogas.”

The latter method has been adopted by several Vermont dairy farms and works well. Cow manure is stored in huge tanks at 100 degrees Fahrenheit and deprived of oxygen. That encourages the bacteria to break the manure down, releasing biogas that is 90 percent methane. This fuel is captured and burned in an engine to generate electricity. (After all, methane is the same “natural gas” many of us use to heat our homes, generate electricity and cook our food.)

Unfortunately, the equipment is expensive—$200,000 to $1 million, depending on the size of the farm. Few farms have adopted the technology, so only a tiny amount of methane production has been mitigated in this way.

Here in Northern California, SMUD is spending more than $1 million to help outfit two dairy farms with the digester technology. There, planners estimate the projects will take the equivalent of 10,000 to 15,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. That’s just a small slice of California’s overall carbon foot-print, but it’s a start.

A Canadian study by Karin Wittenberg and Dinah Boadi of the University of Manitoba lists 20 separate ways to reduce greenhouse-gas production from livestock. These include grinding and pelletizing food for confined animals to make it more fully digestible (a 20 to 40 percent reduction), grazing steers on high-quality alfalfa grass pastures (50 percent reduction), adding canola oil to feedlot rations (30 percent reduction) and separating animals by age group and phasing in food related to their growth stages (50 percent reduction). But absent legislation, these solutions are unlikely to be put in place.

It takes 7 pounds of corn to add a pound of weight to a cow, and that’s why 200 million acres of land in the United States are devoted to raising grains, oilseeds, pasture and hay for livestock. That land requires 181 billion pounds of pesticides, 22 billion pounds of fertilizer and 17 trillion gallons of irrigation water (not to mention billions of gallons of global-warming-aggravating fossil fuel for farm equipment).

Another way of looking at this, supplied by M.E. Ensminger, the former chairman of the animal sciences department at Washington State University, is that “2,000 pounds of grain must be supplied to livestock in order to produce enough meat and other livestock products to support a person for a year, whereas 400 pounds of grain eaten directly will support a person for a year.”

Because vegetarians enjoy lower levels of blood cholesterol and suffer less frequently from obesity and hypertension, their life expectancies are several years greater. But the benefits of the vegetarian option are rarely on the agenda, even when the environmental effects of the meat industry are under discussion.

Big changes

Most people grow up eating meat and seeing others doing the same. The message that “meat is good and necessary for health” is routinely reinforced through advertising and the cultural signals we’re sent at school, work and church. Vegetarianism is regularly depicted as a fringe choice for “health faddists.” The government reinforces this message with meat featured prominently in its food pyramids.

Jim Mason, co-author of the book The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter, offers another possible reason we’ve kept vegetarianism off the mainstream agenda. “People who eat meat and animal products are in denial about anything and everything having to do with animal farming,” he says. “They know that it must be bad, but they don’t want to look at any part of it. So all of it stays hidden and abuses flourish—whether of animals, workers or the environment.”

Even such an enlightened source as the 2005 Worldwatch report “Happier Meals: Rethinking the Global Meat Industry” is careful not to advocate for a vegetarian diet, including it in a range of options that also includes eating less meat, switching to pasture-raised “humane” meat and opting for a few nonmeat entrees per week. Vegetarianism is the “elephant in the room,” but even in a very food-conscious age, it is not easily made the centerpiece of an activist agenda.

Danielle Nierenberg, author of the Worldwatch study, works for both that organization and for The Humane Society of the United States. She’s a vegan and very aware of the climate impacts of meat-based diets. But, she says, “Food choices are a very personal decision for most people, and we are only now convincing them that this is a tool at their disposal if they care about the environment.”

Nierenberg says that some of the Worldwatch report was published in Environmental Health Perspectives, and there was concern that it wouldn’t see print if it overemphasized vegetarian diets. “People have a very visceral reaction when told they shouldn’t be eating the core meats they grew up with,” she says. “They get upset.”

Pimentel agrees that Americans are acculturated to eating meat. “The nutritionists say we’re eating way too much meat for our health,” he says. “The public knows this, but it doesn’t change their dietary habits. What will alter their behavior is higher prices for meat and milk, which are inevitable because of higher fuel prices and the rising cost of corn [caused in part by the diversion of corn crops to making ethanol].”

Although he admits it’s an unpopular position, Pimentel says he’d like to see gas reach $10 a gallon, because it will encourage energy conservation and increase prices for environmentally destructive meat, milk and eggs. “Right now, we have some of the lowest food prices in the world,” he says. “In the U.S., we pay 15 percent of our budgets for food, compared to 30 percent in Europe and 60 percent in Indonesia.”

Jacobson agrees. “People are pretty wedded to what they eat,” he says. “The government should be sponsoring major mass-media campaigns to convince people to eat more fruit, vegetables and whole grains.” He argues that cutting down meat consumption should be a public-health priority. “From an environmental point of view, the less beef people eat, the better,” he says, citing not only the release of methane from livestock but also increased risk of colon cancer and heart disease. Jacobson adds that grass-fed, free-range beef (which has less overall fat) is a healthier alternative, but grazing takes longer to bring the animals to market weight, “and they’re emitting methane all that time.”

He posits that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Environmental Protection Agency should be convincing Americans to eat lower on the food chain. “There are the environmental and animal-welfare problems caused by ‘modern’ agriculture,” he says. “The animals’ retribution is that we die of heart disease and cancer.”

Is there an environmental argument to be made for livestock? Gidon Eshel, co-author of the report “Diet, Energy and Global Warming” and a professor at Bard College, says that livestock “has an important role to play in nutrient recycling. Minerals are taken up by growing plants, and when those plants are eaten by grazers, some of it ends up in their tissues and some is returned to the soil in their waste products. But what’s good in small quantities becomes toxic and devastating in large amounts. So it is only beneficial if we were raising livestock in much smaller numbers than we are today.”

Eshel calls for enforcement of the frequently ignored federal Clean Water and Clean Air acts, which contain provisions to protect against harmful discharges of both animal wastes and the fertilizers used to grow animal feed.

A record 284 million tons of meat were produced worldwide in 2007. In most developing countries, meat consumption per capita is expected to double from the 1980s to 2020. Meat is an economically important product in most parts of the world in 2008, and it has powerful lobbies and enormous vested interests. There’s just one problem: It’s hurting the planet and wasting huge resources that could easily feed a hungry world.

Offer these facts to many meat eaters, and they’ll respond that they can’t be healthy without meat. “Where would I get my protein?” is a common answer. But the latest medical research shows that the human body does not need meat to be healthy. Indeed, meat is high in cholesterol and saturated fat, and a balanced vegetarian diet provides all the protein needed for glowing health. Were humans “meant” to eat meat, just because our ancestors did? Nonsense, says Dr. Milton Mills, a leading vegetarian voice. “The human gastrointestinal tract features the anatomical modifications consistent with an herbivorous diet,” he asserts.

With the recognition of meat’s impact on the planet (and the realization that we don’t need it to stay healthy), is it possible that the human diet will undergo a fundamental change? The fact that the cornerstone of the American diet aids and abets climate change is an “inconvenient truth” that many of us don’t want to face, says Joseph Connelly, publisher of the San Francisco-based VegNews magazine. He takes a dig at Al Gore for not mentioning meat-based diets in his film and only dealing with them glancingly in his book An Inconvenient Truth.

A 2003 Harris Poll said that between 4 and 10 percent of the American people identify themselves as vegetarians. So far, Connelly says that number seems to be holding steady. “From a sustainability point of view, what’s really needed is for people to understand the connections between factory farming, meat eating and environmental impacts,” he says. “That’s the first step.”

Lisa Mickleborough, an editor at VegNews, is probably right when she says that animal concerns are a powerful force for turning meat eating into a moral issue. To be an animal-rights leader is almost by definition to be a vegan. But few environmental leaders have gone that far. “As an environmental issue, it’s pretty compelling,” she says. “The figures on methane production speak for themselves. But when it comes to doing what’s right for the environment, most people don’t take big steps—they just do the best they can.”

Greenhouse gas rise in state double that of U.S.

2008-08-28T07:35:00.000-07:00

Virginia's governor-appointed Commission on Climate Change predicted Wednesday that greenhouse-gas emissions would increase 31 percent by 2025 if the state stayed on a "business-as-usual" track.

In a draft report summarizing all the ground that the commission has covered since its creation this year, the group said the man-made link to greenhouse-gas increases was "unequivocal." The commission also pointed out that as the state's population grew — and more cars hit the roads and more homes and businesses needed electricity — Virginia's greenhouse-gas emissions had increased at a rate nearly double that of the rest of the U.S.

That trend and the projected continued increase set the stage for the Gov. Timothy M. Kaine-created commission's ultimate goal: reducing greenhouse gases 30 percent by 2025, even as population and electricity use and vehicle miles traveled keep going up. The commission is chaired by Secretary of Natural Resources Preston Bryant.

As many other state leaders have done, Kaine created the commission partly in response to a lack of federal action on climate change.

Despite what some in the public might think of the topic, there's no dissension in the group about the reality of what it faces. "Gone are the days when people are debating whether the phenomenon exists, and there is significant motivation and increasing momentum at the state level to address climate change," the group's report read.

The commission's final report is due in December, and that will include the heavy lifting. So far, the group has tackled a number of its tasks, creating an inventory of the state's greenhouse-gas emissions, as well as chronicling the threat of climate change and sea-level rise to the environment and Virginia's economic infrastructure. But it hasn't laid out a strategy for reducing emissions yet.

A band of environmental groups said Wednesday that the commission's goals fell short of what was necessary to reverse emissions growth and protect against the worst effects of global warming.

The target of reducing emissions 30 percent by 2025 would essentially bring Virginia to its 2000 emissions level. Environmentalists argued that Virginia should be decreasing emissions 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 — a far deeper cut.

The report calls Virginia — its environment, cities and industries — "particularly vulnerable" to climate change. Because of the Chesapeake Bay's natural subsidence, sea level is rising faster here than in other coastal regions.

And as water temperatures rise — as Virginia Institute of Marine Science gauges show they have been for decades — sensitive species in the bay could move south or north.

UN climate talks on emission limits

2008-08-28T07:30:00.000-07:00

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — Talks on a new global warming agreement have begun to resolve some major sticking points, the U.N. climate chief said Wednesday, sounding a promising note after months of sluggish negotiations often marked by confrontation among industrial and developing countries.

Yvo de Boer, who in the past has chided delegates for delays, gave an upbeat assessment at the end of a weeklong conference of 160 nations, the latest round in a two-year process that is due to end with the signing of an accord in December 2009.

"This has been a very important and a very encouraging meeting, said De Boer. "The process has speeded up, and governments are becoming very serious about negotiating a result."

Environmentalists agreed progress had been made. "Accra shows that overcoming the muddle of conflicting views and crafting an effective deal to tackle climate change is possible," said the World Wildlife Fund for Nature, or WWF.

The delegates found some common ground on ways to help developing countries limit emissions and strategies for compensating poorer countries, especially in Africa, that will likely be hard hit by the effects of global warming.

Last year, a U.N. panel of scientists said that climate change already is happening, and the earth's temperature would continue to rise even if carbon emissions were reduced to zero today because of the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. But they warned of possible catastrophic effects unless emissions peak within the next 10 to 15 years and then decline sharply.

"We are running out of time on this problem, from the scientific point of view," said Bill Hare, a scientist for Greenpeace who was an author of last year's report for the U.N. panel.

Hare said researchers were investigating "alarming" reports in the last few days of the release of methane from the Arctic Ocean, possibly from the warming of the sea. He said scientists had long feared that such an event was "a potential trigger of rapid and abrupt and extreme climate change."

Accra was the third round this year in the U.N. talks, which aim for a treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol regulating the emissions of 37 industrial countries and setting out ways they can benefit from helping poor countries use clean energy.

The U.S. rejected the Kyoto accord, arguing it would harm American business and that it made no comparable demands on emerging economies. China, India and other large developing countries refused to accept a binding arrangement that would limit their development and their declared mission to ease poverty at home.

"The poor want to lead a dignified life, a life that is secure," said Mohamed Adow, of Christian Aid Africa. "They need to develop, and the opportunity unfortunately is linked to having energy."

In what could be a step toward a compromise, the Accra talks made headway on an arrangement that would focus on limiting carbon emissions by specific industries such as steel, cement or power generation. Unlike industrial countries, developing countries would face no binding targets on their economies as a whole.

In a second area of progress, delegates agreed that countries should be compensated for slowing or halting deforestation, and that countries where forests have largely been depleted should be rewarded for conserving and expanding their remaining forest cover.

New and detailed proposals also were suggested for raising the hundreds of billions of dollars needed to help poor countries grapple with the effects of climate change. Poor countries, especially in Africa, are expected to suffer harsher drought, flooding and crop failures, and hundreds of millions of people will feel the stress of water shortages.

De Boer said the various proposals will be packaged together for the next round of talks in Poznan, Poland, in December, in what would amount to "a first version of a negotiating text."

Whether a treaty can be reached on time will depend on the next U.S. administration, which will be elected a few weeks before Poznan but will not take office until six weeks afterward. The pace will depend "on how quickly a U.S. team can be put in place, how fast they can get their positions sorted out, and when they can start to negotiate," said Jake Schmidt, of the National Resources Defense Council.

Cimate Change Talks: Africa condemns delay on Adaptation Fund

2008-08-28T07:23:00.001-07:00

Accra, Ghana - Delegates attending the Climate Change Talks here have rea cted with dismay at the continued negotiations on the climate change Adaptation Fund, eight months after the fund was established.

PANA reports that the participants, representing civil society groups on climate change and sustainable development, sharply criticized the current negotiations, saying that developing countries, hard pressed by impacts of climate change and

in a hurry to begin implementation, have to contend with more negotiations about the Fund.

They said: "The Fund remains a shell as all indications are that industrialized countries have decided to shun it simply because they do not have control over its governance.

"This also is the reason they are rushing to put their funds in the new climate change funds started by the World Bank."

The Adaptation Fund was established to finance concrete adaptation projects and programmes in developing countries that are parties to the Kyoto Protocol.

Developing countries require international assistance such as funding and techno logy transfer to support adaptation as well as resources to reduce the risk of disasters.

Meanwhile, Maria Netto of the United Nations Development Programme, warned that the targets set in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) would not be easily achieved if there was no concerted effort to address risks posed by climate change.

Neto, who addressed journalists at the Accra Talks, said there were risks posed to the MDGs by climate change such as eradication of extreme poverty and hunger w hich she said could be difficult to meet the targets due to climate change risks such as depleted livelihood assets and reduced economic growth.

She, however, said the Africa Adaptation Programme with a total budget of US$ 92 .1 million was aimed at enhancing capacity of African countries to implement early adaptation actions and long-term resilience plans.

She cited the Western African shorelines of Senegal, Gambia, Mauritania, Guinea- Bissau and Cape Verde where they are developing effective coping mechanisms for reducing impacts of climate change, as well as in Gambia, Namibia, Algeria and Niger which are undertaking capacity development projects to assess and develop options for addressing climate change.

The one-week Accra talks that began 21 August is working on a strengthened and effective international climate change deal under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), as well as on emission reduction rules and to ols under the Kyoto Protocol.

Indian firms must gear up to tackle climate change

2008-08-28T07:14:00.000-07:00

NEW DELHI: Indian firms must combat climate change by measuring their carbon footprints now and in the foreseeable future, and take preventive steps, says a report by the KPMG and CII released said.

Indian firms should also avail business opportunities arising out of climate change, says the report, "Climate change: The impact and opportunities for Indian industry", brought out jointly by the consultancy firm KPMG and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
The report suggests that the pressure from stakeholders for Indian companies to be more environmentally responsible is likely to increase, "thereby compelling delivery by firms across all industries on a triple bottom line of economics, social and environmental performance".

KPMG Executive Director Arvind Mahajan said: “Indian companies should take proactive measures to ensure adequate risk appraisal and management as well as leverage opportunities arising out of climate change.

"They need to do proper due diligence for clean development mechanism (CDM) projects to assess the quantum of carbon credits expected to be generated. Indian businesses also need to consider tax and regulatory issues and devise strategies to help ensure that they can maximise the benefit from the CDM process.”

CDM projects calculate the amount of carbon emission that can be saved - audited by a UN-licensed firm - and gives the project corresponding carbon credits that it can sell in the international market. The current price is around $30 per tonne of carbon emission saved.

India was the world's biggest beneficiary of CDM projects till 2007, when it was overtaken by China.

Carbon emissions into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide is the main cause of climate change, which is already leading to lowered farm output, more frequent and more damaging droughts, floods and storms and raising the sea level.

India has been identified as one of the global hotspots likely to be worst affected by climate change.

The KPMG-CII report suggests that individual businesses need to develop a structured eight-point approach to climate change:

* Measurement of the carbon footprint of the business

* Projecting the likely carbon footprint if the business continues to grow under the 'Business As Usual' scenario

* Analysis of the risk of climate change issues to the sector and the business

* Identification of opportunities within the business, and beyond (CDM projects, clean technologies, renewable energy generation and so on) to maintain growth, but with a different approach

* Preparation of time bound action plan for reducing the carbon footprint

* Institutionalise the action plan in business processes

* Institutionalize a measurement and verification system to monitor progress against the plan, and

* Periodically report progress to stakeholders.

Business must tackle climate change: Kevin Rudd

2008-08-27T07:23:00.000-07:00

There is no way around the fact that tackling climate change will cost businesses money, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says.

But he thinks business is ready to do its part to reduce greenhouse pollution.

The Business Council of Australia (BCA) sparked controversy recently when it warned that emissions trading would drive down profits and force some businesses to close.

The BCA's call for the scheme to be changed enraged conservationists and the union movement, who accused big business of dodging its responsibility on climate change.

Mr Rudd said "reasonable people" would be able to work out a way forward.

"(But) it will never happen cost-free, it is not a cost-free business. Anyone who says that is misleading, and I don't intend to say that," he said.

He was prepared for a bit of "argy bargy" with the business community.

"I just regard that as part of this (process)," he told reporters.

Mr Rudd said business was ready to help tackle climate change.

"What I detect overall from the business community is actually something quite good. None of them have said to me so far: `Oh by the way, we don't want to act on climate change'," he said.

"Roll the clock back a few years and it might have been the starting point."

The Australian Greens want to see a secret document which apparently puts forward options to give business an "easier cop".

According to media reports, the federal government has privately released a paper which canvasses alternative approaches to emissions trading, ahead of a meeting with business chiefs on Friday.

Greens senator Christine Milne called on Resources Minister Martin Ferguson, who allegedly is behind the document, to come clean.

"That document will show us, once and for all, what he's proposing as an easier cop for the big end of town and whether the minister knew about it," Senator Milne said.

She also took aim at the government over its looming decision on whether to approve a controversial $5.3 billion coal mine proposed for central Queensland.

The federal government could stop the development going ahead. It is yet to make a decision.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong told the Senate that Environment Minister Peter Garrett received a referral from the company in July.

"And the minister has yet to make a determination on this proposal," she said.

The federal government also moved to save itself from burying millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide in the wrong place.

The government made a mistake in amending laws to allow for carbon dioxide from power stations to be buried under the seabed.

By using the wrong way of calculating distance, the laws as they stand would be 200 metres out across the board, Resources Minister Martin Ferguson said.

"(This) would cause concern and uncertainty for industry if not corrected," Mr Ferguson told parliament.

New Zealand to pass legislation on Climate change

2008-08-27T07:20:00.000-07:00

New Zealand First has announced it will support Labour's flagship emissions trading scheme, meaning the major climate change legislation will pass into law.

In a statement just released, the party said it faced the decision of whether to support a scheme over which it would have some influence, or to leave the country in a situation of uncertainty.

"We have secured a package that will ensure that all households wil receive a one-off payment to mitigate the impact of the ETS," leader Winston Peters said.

People on low incomes - including New Zealand superannuation - will receive what Mr Peters described as a "front-loaded CPI adjustment" to ensure that they keep ahead of the projected cost of the emissions trading scheme to their households.

As well, New Zealand First said a dedicated portion of the $1 billion energy efficiency fund that the Greens announced yesterday would go to SuperGold cardholders.

"The most critical aspect secured by New Zealand First was the introduction of a new requirement for the agriculture and industry allocation plans to be further scrutinised by a select committee and Parliament to ensure that as circumstances change, the ETS has the ability to meet these," Mr Peters said.

New Zealand First's decision to back the scheme means Labour now has sufficient support to pass it, after several months of intense negotiation.

That is good news for Prime Minister Helen Clark, who has been desperate to pass the major legislation since she made climate change a big part of her political agenda almost two years ago.

2 Moons on 27th August

2008-08-26T07:47:00.000-07:00

27th Aug the Whole World is waiting for.............

Planet Mars will be the brightest in the night sky Starting August.

It will look as large as the full moon to the naked Eye. This will happen On Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65M miles of earth. Be sure to watch The sky on Aug. 27 12:30 am. It will look like the earth has 2 moons. The Next time Mars may come this close is in 2287.

Share this with your friends as NO ONE ALIVE TODAY Will ever see it again.

Whales lose blubber due to climate change

2008-08-26T07:38:00.001-07:00

The team for the Institute of Cetacean Research in Tokyo measured the bodies of more than 4,500 Minkes that had been killed since the late 1980s when Japan started its controversial whaling programme.

They found that the whales are getting thinner at an alarming rate and evidence suggests global warming could be to blame because it restricts food supplies.

Lars Walloe, a Norwegian whale expert at the University of Oslo, who helped with the study, said: "This is a big change in blubber and if it continues it could make it more difficult for the whales to survive. It indicates there have been some big changes in their ecosystem."

Whales need blubber for insulation and energy and the reduction could be affecting their ability to reproduce. Professor Walloe said that he did not think that they could measure the amount of blubber on a whale by any other way than by killing them.

The study has been published in Polar Biology, a mainstream, western scientific journal, which campaigners worry could lead to a validation of Japan’s whale hunting programme.

The findings were rejected by two journals because of the unpopularity of the whaling programme among scientists.

Professor Walloe said the journals rejected the study for political, rather than scientific reasons.

However, Mark Simmonds, director of science at the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, said: "Scientific whaling is not about science, and there is no pressing conservation need that requires it."

Euractive on climate Chnage

2008-08-26T07:33:00.000-07:00

LAGOS, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- The latest round of UN climate talks, which began last Thursday and will conclude this Wednesday in Accra, Ghana, aims at overcoming disagreements over the tools that countries can use to cut greenhouse gas emissions and accelerate progress towards a new climate treaty by the end of 2009, said a recent article from the euractive website.

"There is little time left to get a solid negotiating text on the table. Clearly the clock is ticking," Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), has told some 1,000 delegates from 160 countries at the opening of the six-day meeting.

The article said the meeting is the third UN climate change conference since nations committed, in Bali, to adopting a global climate pact by no later than December 2009. But progress was slow at the last two meetings in Bangkok and Bonn.

Onlookers believe disagreements between developed and developing nations as well as uncertainties about the direction of U.S. climate policy after President George W. Bush leaves office, the economic slowdown and the recent collapse of global trade talks at the WTO will mean delegates at the Accra talks will be uneager to make any firm commitments, according to the article.

In Accra, experts are to attempt to reach agreement on the rules and tools that developed nations can use to reach their emission reduction targets, de Boer explained.

Among the means being considered are the Japanese-led proposals for sector targets, a 'bottom-up' approach whereby different emissions reduction targets would be set for individual industry sectors, such as steel or power generation, according to their specific characteristics and circumstances.

But developing countries are wary of such approaches. They fear that developed nations could use sector benchmarks, such as the amount of energy required to produce a tone of cement, as a means of effectively blocking goods from developing countries' less efficient industries, it said.

The Accra gathering is part of the crucial UN process designed to reach agreement on stronger cooperative action on climate change at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in 2009.

Latest on Cliamte Change : Nigeria Won't Take Loan

2008-08-26T07:26:00.001-07:00

Nigeria said on Monday at the ongoing Accra Climate Change Talks that it would no longer accept any credit facility to tackle issues of climate change.

Dr. Victor Fodeke, leader of Nigerian delegation to the talks told the News Agency of Nigeria that the country would not accept any credit facility no matter what the repayment conditions were.

“It is in the light of this that we are here mobilising other African countries to adopt our position as an African agenda, we shall push for adaptation and not mitigation,‘‘ he added.

Fodeke said that the country welcomed effort by Annex 1 parties to leverage financial support for developing countries but that as a non-contributor to the scourge of climate change, no support would be deemed too much.

He said, “Africa is the continent that will be affected by climate change more than any other region in the world.

“At the same time, widespread poverty in Africa means that many Africans are very vulnerable to climate change but have contributed almost nothing to the crisis.

“It is of utmost importance that the post 2012 deal will contain a powerful and coherent framework for adaptation that provides the necessary funding, technology and capacity building to allow Africa to adapt to the already unavoidable levels of climate change.”

He said that such a framework would be built on principles that would facilitate a massive upscale of adaptation in developing countries, especially those in Africa.

He said the country was already articulating a set of programmes and polices that would assist in the reduction of the impact of climate change in Nigeria.

Fodeke, who is also the head of the Special Climate Change Unit of the Ministry of Environment, Housing and Urban Development, listed such programmes to include the establishment of an International Centre for Climate Change Activities as well as the Climate Change Hall of Fame Project.

“This programmes will put issues of climate change on the front burner in Nigeria,‘‘ he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria correspondent covering the meeting reports that the over 30 Nigerian delegation to the talks include stakeholders drawn from the oil and gas sector, government departments and NGOs, among others.

Discounts scheme to fight global warming

2008-08-26T07:04:00.000-07:00

SEOUL (AFP) - South Korea on Monday announced plans for a discount scheme to encourage citizens to buy more energy-efficient products.

Consumers who buy such products will receive carbon points that can be used to pay utilities, transport and other bills or to buy other appliances, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said.

The "carbon cashbag" system will begin in October.

"It aims to spread the culture of reducing greenhouse gases and promote a shift in consuming patterns to energy-efficient and less carbon-emitting products," the ministry said in a statement.

It has selected 33 electronics goods, including refrigerators, television sets, washing machines and vacuum cleaners, for an initial list.

President Lee Myung-Bak this month unveiled a "green growth" strategy to drive the economy in future decades.

South Korea is a leading producer of greenhouse gases but is not one of the countries obliged by the Kyoto Protocol to make specific cuts in emissions.

UN climate talks seek new climate treaty

2008-08-26T06:43:00.000-07:00

More than 150 nations meet in Ghana from Thursday trying to speed up sluggish talks on a new climate treaty and plug big gaps in a "vision" of leading industrial nations of halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The Aug. 21-27 meeting of 1,000 delegates will also consider new ways to combat global warming such as slowing tropical deforestation -- U.N. studies say burning of trees accounts for about 20 percent of greenhouse gases from human activities.

"While progress has been made, there is no doubt that we need to move forward quickly," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said in a statement.

The Accra meeting will be the third since governments agreed last year to negotiate a new climate treaty by the end of 2009 to avert threats such as heatwaves, rising sea levels, disruption of monsoons, desertification and flooding.

Slowing economic growth in many nations, the collapse of world trade talks in July and uncertainties about U.S. policy after President George W. Bush leaves office in January 2009 means that many countries are wary of showing their hands.

"The political process has suffered major delays and is far from where it should be," the WWF conservation group said.

The talks will be a first chance to ease tensions between rich and poor nations after leaders of the Group of Eight industrialised nations agreed at a summit in Japan last month on a "vision" of halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Industrial revolution

Major developing nations including China and India refused to sign up to any 2050 goal in talks with G8 leaders, saying rich countries had burnt most fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution and should first set tougher cuts for themselves.

"I don't see that (2050 goal) as very helpful...since it's so far away," said Harald Dovland, a Norwegian official who will preside in Accra over talks by nations that support the current U.N. Kyoto Protocol for curbing emissions until 2012.

"A 2050 signal is okay but doesn't give us a real basis for agreeing" on needed short-term targets, he told Reuters. Most of today's politicians will be dead or have retired by 2050.

Many want a U.N. treaty to set 2020 goals to guide investors -- for instance trying to decide whether to build a coal-fired power plant or put cash into solar or wind power.

One strategy to ease disputes between rich and poor is to offer developing nations credits for curbing deforestation. Trees store carbon as they grow and release it when burnt.

New Zealand said in a note to the Accra negotiators that financial incentives to make a significant dent in deforestation would have to be in the range of $10 to $40 billion a year.

But some environmentalists fear that projects for slowing deforestation might backfire if they let rich nations buy up tracts of forest to gain carbon credit that can count as cuts in emissions against domestic targets.

"Great land grab threat at U.N. climate talks in Ghana," Friends of the Earth International said. It said indigenous peoples in forests might be forced out if investors buy them up.

Environmentalists say talks are lagging compared to 1996-97 negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol, binding 37 developed nations to cut emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.

The United States is the only developed nation outside Kyoto. Bush said it would cost too much and wrongly excluded 2012 targets for developing countries. Both main presidential candidates, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, say they would adopt tougher policies than Bush.

Global cooling

2008-08-25T07:52:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, after writing about the possibility that the Earth may actually be entering a cooling phase, I braced myself for a torrent of icy missives from the global warming crowd suggesting that the heat must have fried my noggin.

By the way, it is very difficult to discuss global cooling in the midst of a summer when temperatures are hovering around 100 degrees and crops are wilting. As one friend and colleague from the sweltering Southwest noted after reading the column, “Please send some of that cooling this way.”

However, one response opened my eyes to the growing community of global warming skeptics out there, most of them merited scientists. I thought it might be worth presenting their thoughts — a little equal time if you will. Marc Marona, a global warming skeptic who works for the U.S. Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Works, sent me these excerpts from a U.S. Senate report.

Russian solar physicists Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev are so convinced that global temperatures will cool within the next decade they have placed a $10,000 wager with a United Kingdom scientist to prove their certainty. The criteria for the $10,000 bet will be to compare global temperatures between 1998 and 2003 with those between 2012 and 2017. The loser will pay up in 2018, according to an April 16, 2007, article in Live Science.

Australian engineer Peter Harris says that the Earth is nearing the end of the typical interglacial cycle and is due for a sudden cooling climate change. “Based on this analysis we can say that there is a 94 percent probability of imminent global cooling and the beginning of the coming ice age.

“Climate is becoming unstable,” Harris went on to say. “Most of these major natural processes that we are witnessing now are interdependent and occur at the end of each interglacial period, ultimately causing sudden long-term cooling.”

Oleg Sorokhtin, merited scientist of Russia and fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and staff researcher of the Oceanology Institute, says to “stock up on fur coats and felt boots! Earth is now at the peak of one of its passing warm spells. It started in the 17th century when there was no industrial influence on the climate to speak of and no such thing as the hothouse effect.

“Carbon dioxide is not to blame for global climate change, Sorokhtin said. “Solar activity is many times more powerful than the energy produced by the whole of humankind. Man’s influence on nature is a drop in the ocean.”

Canadian climatologist Timothy Ball said, “If we are facing (a crisis) at all, I think it is that we are preparing for warming when it is looking like we are cooling. We are preparing for the wrong thing.”

On the impact of carbon dioxide on global temperature, United Kingdom astrophysicist Piers Corbyn said, “There is no evidence that carbon dioxide has ever driven or will ever drive world temperatures and climate change. Worrying about carbon dioxide is irrelevant.”

So there you have it folks — solid evidence from the other side of the global warming fence and critical thinking I’m sure you won’t hear much about outside this space.

To be honest, I’m not sure which global weather consequence is more daunting — to be ice fishing in Florida or planting cotton in Maine. But politicians and the popular press should speak out for the resumption of genuine, open debate on climate change. Global warming is not necessarily a foregone conclusion.

Uganda Government News: UN reports warns on climate change effects

2008-08-25T07:51:00.000-07:00

A new United Nations-backed report has appealed to government leaders to take urgent action to ensure that weather-related hazards, which are becoming more intense and frequent due to climate change, do not lead to a corresponding rise in disasters.

In Uganda global warming has led to flooding in Teso region and prolonged draught in Karamoja causing increased famine and diseases.

The new study identified India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sub Sahara Africa and Indonesia as being among global warming’s “hotspots,” or countries particularly vulnerable to increases in extreme drought, flooding and cyclones anticipated in coming decades.

Commissioned by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the non-governmental organization (NGO) CARE International, it examined the possible consequences of global warming in the next 20 to 30 years.

Charles Ehrhart, one of its authors, who serves as Climate Change Coordinator for CARE International said the impact of a natural disaster is determined by several factors, such as access to proper equipment and information, as well as the ability to exert political influence.

The report cited the most effective means to curb human vulnerability to disasters are: boosting the ability of local and government institutions to respond to crises; empowering local people to have a stronger say in disaster preparedness, response, recovery and rehabilitation; and providing services and social protection for the most vulnerable populations.

The new study’s launch coincided with the gathering of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that kicked off yesterday in Accra, Ghana.

The seven-day event is the latest round of UN-sponsored global climate change negotiations, bringing together more than 1,600 participants to discuss future greenhouse gas emission reduction targets ahead of a major summit set for 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Melting ice opens ocean for traffic

2008-08-25T07:49:00.000-07:00

Rapidly melting ice in Alaska's Arctic is opening up a new navigable ocean in the extreme north, allowing oil tankers, fishing vessels and even cruise ships to venture into a realm once trolled mostly by indigenous hunters.
The Coast Guard expects so much traffic that it opened two temporary stations on the nation's northernmost waters, anticipating the day when an ocean the size of the contiguous United States could be ice-free most of the summer.

"We have to prepare for the world coming to the Arctic," said Rear Adm. Gene Brooks, commander of the Coast Guard's Alaska district.

Scientists say global warming has melted the polar sea ice each summer to half the size it was in the 1960s, opening vast stretches of water. Last year, it thawed to its lowest level on record.

The rapid melting has raised speculation that Canada's Northwest Passage linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans could one day become a regular shipping lane.

But scientists caution that it could be centuries before the Arctic is completely ice-free all year round.

Still, conservative estimates indicate the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free in the summer within 20 years, although some scientists believe that will occur much sooner.

Greenland glacier cracking
In northern Greenland, a part of the Arctic that had seemed immune from global warming, new satellite images show a growing giant crack and an 11-square-mile chunk of ice hemorrhaging off a major glacier, scientists said last week.

And that's led the university professor who spotted the wounds in the massive Petermann glacier to predict disintegration of a major portion of the Northern Hemisphere's largest floating glacier within the year.

If it does worsen and other northern Greenland glaciers melt faster, then it could speed up sea level rise, already increasing because of melt in southern Greenland.

The crack is 7 miles long and about half a mile wide. It is about half the width of the 500-square-mile floating part of the glacier. Other smaller fractures can be seen in images of the ice tongue, a long narrow sliver of the glacier.

"The pictures speak for themselves," said Jason Box, a glacier expert at the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University who spotted the changes while studying new satellite images. "This crack is moving, and moving closer and closer to the front. It's just a matter of time till a much larger piece is going to break off. ... It is imminent."

The chunk that came off the glacier between July 10 and July 24 is about half the size of Manhattan and doesn't worry Box as much as the cracks. The Petermann glacier had a larger breakaway ice chunk in 2000. But the overall picture worries some scientists.

MAGNETISM: No role in treating water
Magnets have no significant role in treating water, despite the claims of their manufacturers, according to a new study by the National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan.

So-called magnetic water treatment devices, which are said to remove and reduce residual chlorine and toxic substances through magnetism, have practically no effect, the center said last week.

THE BRAIN: Special face center found
Neuroscientists have identified a pea-sized region in the brain that reacts more strongly to faces than it does to cars, dogs, houses or body parts.

"The evidence is overwhelming that there is a specialized system dedicated to processing faces and not other objects," said Doris Tsao, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

It's called the fusiform face area because it vaguely resembles a spindle -- fusus in Latin. It's about halfway back in the head, near the bottom of the visual cortex, the part of the brain than handles vision. Information about the pea-size discovery was published last week in the journal Nature.

Most people have two FFAs, one on each side of the head; the one on the right is dominant, the other a backup.

Researchers say evolution may explain why humans and other primates developed a chunk of brain tissue dedicated to face recognition -- it helped them quickly spot friends and foes.

Understanding how face recognition works can have practical applications, Tsao said. Insights into these brain circuits may help prevent or treat depression, autism or social disorders.

Clock ticking on global warming: UN climate chief

2008-08-25T07:22:00.000-07:00

Time is running out in the fight against global warming, the UN's top climate change official warned as a new round of UN talks got started here Thursday.

"There is little time left to get a solid negotiating text on the table. Clearly the clock is ticking," said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

"People in a burning house cannot afford to lose time in an argument," he said, citing an Ashanti proverb.

The Accra gathering must strive to "reach agreement on the rules and tools" that developed countries will use to cut greenhouse gas emissions, he told more than 1,600 delegates from 160 nations.

Ghana's President John Kufuor echoed the sense of urgency in his opening remarks, noting that his country was already suffering the consequences of global warming.

Rainfall in Ghana has decreased by 20 percent in three decades, and 1,000 square kilometres (400 square miles) of fertile agricultural land in the upper Volta Delta will be lost to rising sea levels and flooding if temperatures rise at their current pace, he said.

The expert-level meeting, which runs through August 27, is the third UN climate change conference since nations committed to adopting a binding climate accord no later than December 2009.

It is the last meeting ahead of a ministerial summit in Poznan, Poland in December where rich countries will be under intense pressure to nail down near-term commitments for reducing greenhouse gases.

The Group of Eight industrialised powers pledged to halve emissions by 2050, but critics say intermediate goals are needed.

"The real political commitment is short- and medium-term," Connie Hedegaard, the Danish Minister for Climate and Energy, told delegates.

"We have to speed up the pace. The negotiations here in Accra must deliver concrete results" about what technologies will be used to cut emissions, she said.

Africa is arguably the continent most vulnerable to the potential ravages of climate change, which range from extreme drought to violent storms to rising sea levels.

De Boer challenged delegates to be "ambitious," and said if they failed Africa would continue, in terms of climate change, to be the "forgotten continent".

He insisted that rich countries step up financial assistance to help Africa with global warming.

African produces the fewest emissions, he pointed out, but will likely well pay the heaviest price.

De Boer and Kufuor underlined the threat of deforestation, which is destroying one of nature's most powerful natural buffers against global warming.

The world's forests -- which are disappearing at a rate of about 30 million hectares (74 million acres) per year -- soak up more than 20 percent of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

"Governments need to focus on reducing emissions caused by deforestation and forest degradation," and on how to reward countries that protect forests, said de Boer.

The problem is particularly acute in Amazonia, central Africa and Indonesia, experts note.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an environmental group, called on the Accra meeting to adopt the Olympic motto of "faster, higher, stronger."

"Progress on substance ... must be swifter, the level of ambition by both developed and developing countries higher, and the measures to reduce CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions stronger," said Kim Carstensen, director of the WWF's Global Climate Change Initiative.

India global warming hot-spot: UN study

2008-08-25T07:20:00.001-07:00

New York, Aug 23 (PTI) A UN study, that examined possible consequences of global warming in the next 20 to 30 years, has identified India as one of the "hot-spots", particularly vulnerable to increase in extreme drought, floods and cyclones in the coming decades.
Commissioned by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the CARE International, the study found that India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Indonesia are the global warming hot-spot nations that are already facing considerable political, social, demographic, economic and security obstacles.

"Climate change will greatly complicate and could undermine efforts to manage these challenges," Climate Change Coordinator for CARE International Charles Ehrhart, one of the authors of the report, said.

The impact of a natural disaster is determined by several factors, such as access to proper equipment and information, as well as the ability to exert political influence, he noted.

"The striking lack of these explains why poor people, especially those in marginalized social groups like pastorates in Africa, women and children, constitute the vast majority of disaster victims." The report asked governments to take urgent action to ensure that weather-related hazards, which are becoming more intense and frequent due to climate change, do not lead to a corresponding rise in disasters

Global warming and Indonesia

2008-08-25T07:16:00.000-07:00

Global warming is the hot topic right now, with dire predictions from the scientific community. The upcoming UNFCCC in Nusa Dua is going to attract high level diplomats and scientists from all over the world, with the hope of creating a road-map to a solution. Indonesia itself has a vested interest in the success of the conference, not only for tourism purposes but because it also suffers from the effects of global warming.

Recent flooding in Jakarta may be partially attributed to global warming. The flooding, over 20 ft deep in places and reaching 1.6km inland was also due to a tidal surge compounded by bad drainage and flood prevention systems. Each rainy season Jakarta floods, the western part of Indonesia receiving more rain than centrally located Bali. Flights from Sukarno-Hatta international airport were also disrupted.

Indonesia’s farming and fishing industry, although extremely localized will also be affected by climatic changes, with some parts of the country struggling for water during the dry season. Bali has 4 highland lakes that feed rivers year round. Its intricate and highly organized subak watercourse management society as valuable today as its ever been.

With the UNFCCC to begin on December 4th, Nusa Dua security has already been stepped up. At intersections on Bypass Ngurah Rai armed police with AK 47’s linger, as they also do at Nusa Dua main gates. The road through Tanjung Benoa is not affected as yet.

2,000 island may vanish to warming

2008-08-25T07:14:00.000-07:00

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesia could lose about 2,000 islands by 2030 due to climate change, the country’s environment minister said on Monday.

“It is very, very serious,” Rachmat Witoelar said at a media conference attended by Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. climate treaty secretariat.

He said studies by U.N. experts showed that sea levels were expected to rise about 89 centimeters, or 35 inches, in 2030 which meant that about 2,000 mostly uninhabited small islets would be submerged.

“We are still in a better position. Island countries like Saint Lucia, Fiji and the Bahamas would likely disappear,” he told Reuters.

Indonesia, which consists of 17,000 islands, has been trying to avert such a scenario by reducing reliance on fossil fuels and switching to biofuels, he said.

“We are optimistic it can be prevented. Switching to biofuels is not only good for the environment but also will benefit us economically considering the volatile state of oil prices,” he said.

Biofuels can be substituted for fossil fuels and are seen as a way to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases which are believed to contribute to global warming.

Rice shortages

The environment minister also said rice shortages are forecast for next year because of wild weather blamed on climate change. “It is feared there will be a lack of rice production next year because of the changes in the weather and because the farmers are not used to this,” he said.

A draft U.N. report due to be released in Paris on Feb. 2 projects a big rise in temperatures this century and warns of more heat waves, floods, droughts and rising seas linked to greenhouse gases.

World leaders signed a U.N. Climate Convention in 1992 with an overriding goal of stabilizing greenhouse gases at levels preventing “dangerous (human) interference with the climate system”.

However, it did not define “dangerous” and the issue has been a vexed point in efforts to slow climate change ever since.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N. plan for fighting global warming, 35 industrial nations have agreed to cut emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.

President Bush pulled the United States out of the protocol in 2001, saying it would damage the U.S. economy and wrongly exempted developing nations from the first phase.

Emissions reduction

2008-08-25T06:52:00.001-07:00

A concerted effort is required to slow and reverse the projected growth in greenhouse gas emissions. The NSW Government is pursuing a strategic and comprehensive approach to emissions reduction and to achieve its medium and long term emission reduction targets.

Greenhouse gas emissions are produced by a wide range of sources and can be reduced by either modifying our behaviour or by employing technological solutions.

To make significant cuts in emissions cost effectively, we need to use energy more smartly and ensure the development and uptake of innovative technology. At the same time, significant reductions in emissions can be achieved at minimal cost, by improving energy efficiency.

NSW is using a mix of approaches, including market-based measures, information and awareness-raising, and regulation, to reduce emissions.

Many emerging technologies are under development and showing significant promise for delivering large scale emission reductions. We can anticipate significant technological innovation over a 40 year horizon, arising from a carbon price signal - the Australian emissions trading scheme - and the NSW emissions reduction targets.

Priority sectors for action in NSW include electricity generation and transport, the largest and fastest growing sources of emissions in NSW.

The Government is also leading by example - using its significant purchasing power to drive the uptake of new technologies and setting targets to improve the efficiency of Government use of water, energy and transport.

Climate Change and causes

2008-08-25T06:49:00.000-07:00

Greenhouse Effect

Much of the energy which drives the earth's natural processes comes directly from the sun. Around half of the sun's energy that reaches the earth breaks through the atmosphere, warming the surface of the planet. Some of this solar radiation is reflected back into the atmosphere by the land and oceans.

A portion of this reflected heat passes through the atmosphere, but some of it is trapped by atmospheric greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases absorb and emit radiation at specific wavelengths within the spectrum of infrared radiation (heat) emitted by the Earth's surface, the atmosphere and clouds. It is this property that causes the greenhouse effect.

The greenhouse effect keeps temperatures higher than they otherwise would be, just like a glass greenhouse keeps plants warm. Without this process, the global average surface temperature would be closer to 18 degrees Celsius below zero, instead of the current 15 degrees Celsius.

Greenhouse Gases

The primary greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere are: water vapour (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), methane (CH4) and ozone (O3). These are all naturally occurring, but humans can make them too.

In addition to these there are a number of entirely human-made (anthropogenic) greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as the halocarbons and other chlorine and bromine containing substances, dealt with under the Montreal Protocol.

Human Activity

Since the Industrial Revolution human activity - particularly the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas), agriculture and land clearing - has increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

This includes both naturally occurring greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, as well as anthropogenic greenhouse gases such as sulphur hexafluoride, perfluorocarbons and hydrofluorocarbons. Since 1750, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen 35%, and the current concentration is higher than any time in the last 650,000 years. The level of nitrous oxide has risen 17% and methane is up by 151%. Since 1900, global average temperatures have increased 0.74 degrees Celsius.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established by the World Meteorological Organisation and the United Nations Environment Program, has concluded that it is very likely* that human activities are responsible for most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century.

Both past and future anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions will continue to contribute to warming and sea level rise for more than a millennium, due to the timescales required for removal of this gas from the atmosphere.

Human being and Climate

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Human activities are increasingly altering the Earth's climate. These effects add to natural influences that have been present over Earth's history. Scientific evidence strongly indicates that natural influences cannot explain the rapid increase in global near-surface temperatures observed during the second half of the 20th century.

Human impacts on the climate system include increasing concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases (e.g., carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons and their substitutes, methane, nitrous oxide, etc.), air pollution, increasing concentrations of airborne particles, and land alteration. A particular concern is that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide may be rising faster than at any time in Earth's history, except possibly following rare events like impacts from large extraterrestrial objects.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have increased since the mid-1700s through fossil fuel burning and changes in land use, with more than 80% of this increase occurring since 1900. Moreover, research indicates that increased levels of carbon dioxide will remain in the atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years. It is virtually certain that increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases will cause global surface climate to be warmer.

The complexity of the climate system makes it difficult to predict some aspects of human-induced climate change: exactly how fast it will occur, exactly how much it will change, and exactly where those changes will take place. In contrast, scientists are confident in other predictions. Mid-continent warming will be greater than over the oceans, and there will be greater warming at higher latitudes. Some polar and glacial ice will melt, and the oceans will warm; both effects will contribute to higher sea levels. The hydrologic cycle will change and intensify, leading to changes in water supply as well as flood and drought patterns. There will be considerable regional variations in the resulting impacts.

Scientists' understanding of the fundamental processes responsible for global climate change has greatly improved during the last decade, including better representation of carbon, water, and other biogeochemical cycles in climate models. Yet, model projections of future global warming vary, because of differing estimates of population growth, economic activity, greenhouse gas emission rates, changes in atmospheric particulate concentrations and their effects, and also because of uncertainties in climate models. Actions that decrease emissions of some air pollutants will reduce their climate effects in the short term. Even so, the impacts of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations would remain.

The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change states as an objective the "...stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system." AGU believes that no single threshold level of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere exists at which the beginning of dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system can be defined. Some impacts have already occurred, and for increasing concentrations there will be increasing impacts. The unprecedented increases in greenhouse gas concentrations, together with other human influences on climate over the past century and those anticipated for the future, constitute a real basis for concern.

Enhanced national and international research and other efforts are needed to support climate related policy decisions. These include fundamental climate research, improved observations and modeling, increased computational capability, and very importantly, education of the next generation of climate scientists. AGU encourages scientists worldwide to participate in climate research, education, scientific assessments, and policy discussions. AGU also urges that the scientific basis for policy discussions and decision-making be based upon objective assessment of peer-reviewed research results.

Science provides society with information useful in dealing with natural hazards such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and drought, which improves our ability to predict and prepare for their adverse effects. While human-induced climate change is unique in its global scale and long lifetime, AGU believes that science should play the same role in dealing with climate change. AGU is committed to improving the communication of scientific information to governments and private organizations so that their decisions on climate issues will be based on the best science.

The global climate is changing and human activities are contributing to that change. Scientific research is required to improve our ability to predict climate change and its impacts on countries and regions around the globe. Scientific research provides a basis for mitigating the harmful effects of global climate change through decreased human influences (e.g., slowing greenhouse gas emissions, improving land management practices), technological advancement (e.g., removing carbon from the atmosphere), and finding ways for communities to adapt and become resilient to extreme events.

Human Impacts on Climate

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The Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming. Many components of the climate system—including the temperatures of the atmosphere, land and ocean, the extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, the sea level, the distribution of precipitation, and the length of seasons—are now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural and are best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activity during the 20th century. Global average surface temperatures increased on average by about 0.6°C over the period 1956–2006. As of 2006, eleven of the previous twelve years were warmer than any others since 1850. The observed rapid retreat of Arctic sea ice is expected to continue and lead to the disappearance of summertime ice within this century. Evidence from most oceans and all continents except Antarctica shows warming attributable to human activities. Recent changes in many physical and biological systems are linked with this regional climate change. A sustained research effort, involving many AGU members and summarized in the 2007 assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, continues to improve our scientific understanding of the climate.

During recent millennia of relatively stable climate, civilization became established and populations have grown rapidly. In the next 50 years, even the lower limit of impending climate change—an additional global mean warming of 1°C above the last decade—is far beyond the range of climate variability experienced during the past thousand years and poses global problems in planning for and adapting to it. Warming greater than 2°C above 19th century levels is projected to be disruptive, reducing global agricultural productivity, causing widespread loss of biodiversity, and—if sustained over centuries—melting much of the Greenland ice sheet with ensuing rise in sea level of several meters. If this 2°C warming is to be avoided, then our net annual emissions of CO2 must be reduced by more than 50 percent within this century. With such projections, there are many sources of scientific uncertainty, but none are known that could make the impact of climate change inconsequential. Given the uncertainty in climate projections, there can be surprises that may cause more dramatic disruptions than anticipated from the most probable model projections.

With climate change, as with ozone depletion, the human footprint on Earth is apparent. The cause of disruptive climate change, unlike ozone depletion, is tied to energy use and runs through modern society. Solutions will necessarily involve all aspects of society. Mitigation strategies and adaptation responses will call for collaborations across science, technology, industry, and government. Members of the AGU, as part of the scientific community, collectively have special responsibilities: to pursue research needed to understand it; to educate the public on the causes, risks, and hazards; and to communicate clearly and objectively with those who can implement policies to shape future climate.

Human-Caused Climate Change

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A new NASA-led study shows human-caused climate change has made an impact on a wide range of Earth's natural systems, including permafrost thawing, plants blooming earlier across Europe, and lakes declining in productivity in Africa.

Cynthia Rosenzweig of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Science in New York and scientists at 10 other institutions have linked physical and biological impacts since 1970 with rises in temperatures during that period. The study, to be published May 15 in the journal Nature, concludes human-caused warming is resulting in a broad range of impacts across the globe.

"This is the first study to link global temperature data sets, climate model results, and observed changes in a broad range of physical and biological systems to show the link between humans, climate, and impacts," said Rosenzweig, lead author of the study.

Rosenzweig and colleagues also found the link between human-caused climate change and observed impacts on Earth holds true at the scale of individual continents, particularly in North America, Europe, and Asia.
To arrive at the link, the authors built and analyzed a database of more than 29,000 data series pertaining to observed impacts on Earth's natural systems. The data were collected from about 80 studies, each with at least 20 years of records between 1970 and 2004.

Observed impacts included changes to physical systems, such as glaciers shrinking, permafrost melting, and lakes and rivers warming. Biological systems also were impacted in a variety of ways, such as leaves unfolding and flowers blooming earlier in the spring, birds arriving earlier during migration periods, and plant and animal species moving toward Earth's poles and higher in elevation. In aquatic environments such as oceans, lakes, and rivers, plankton and fish are shifting from cold-adapted to warm-adapted communities.

The team conducted a "joint attribution" study. They showed that at the global scale, about 90 percent of observed changes in diverse physical and biological systems are consistent with warming. Other driving forces, such as land use change from forest to agriculture, were ruled out as having significant influence on the observed impacts.

Next, the scientists conducted statistical tests and found the spatial patterns of observed impacts closely match temperature trends across the globe, to a degree beyond what can be attributed to natural variability. The team concluded observed global-scale impacts are very likely because of human-caused warming.

"Humans are influencing climate through increasing greenhouse gas emissions," Rosenzweig said. "The warming is causing impacts on physical and biological systems that are now attributable at the global scale and in North America, Europe, and Asia."

On some continents, including Africa, South America, and Australia, documentation of observed changes in physical and biological systems is still sparse despite warming trends attributable to human causes. The authors concluded environmental systems on these continents need additional research, especially in tropical and subtropical areas where there is a lack of impact data and published studies.

The information above was published as a NASA news release in May, 2008.

Human-Caused Climate Change

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THE CAUSES OF CLIMATE CHANGE

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THE CAUSES OF CLIMATE CHANGE

We’ve established that global warming is happening and this is leading to climate change, now we’ll look at what might be causing it and whether it’s natural, manmade or both.

THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT

Our atmosphere acts like a blanket trapping heat and keeping Earth at a habitable temperature, it’s this retaining of heat that is referred to as the Greenhouse Effect. The greenhouse effect is caused by greenhouse gases that trap heat from the sun, the more greenhouse gases there are the more heat is retained (Wikipedia - Greenhouse Gas).

GREENHOUSE GASES

Water vapour (H20) is the most prevalent of all the greenhouse gases and depending how humid the air is, it can account for up to 4% of the composition of air (note 1). Excluding water vapour, the air comprises 78.084% nitrogen (N2), 20.946% oxygen (O2) and 0.9340% argon (Ar); together these account for 99.9% of the composition of air. However, they do not have the same heat retaining capacity of other gases and are not considered greenhouse gases (Wikipedia - Greenhouse Gas).

Water vapour can be considered to be a natural greenhouse gas (note 2). Some greenhouse gases are both natural and manmade including carbon dioxide (C02), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (NO) and tetraflouromethane (CF4). There are several synthetic gases consisting of carbon and halogens (note 3), the group of gases called chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s) are perhaps the best known of these. Many of the manmade greenhouse gases are also responsible for ozone depletion (EPA - Ozone).

As with temperature, there is a natural cycle in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Ice core samples extending back some 650,000 years show the minimum amount of atmospheric CO2 to have been around 190 ppmv (note 4) and the maximum about 300 ppmv [see graphs below]. The worry is that the current levels of CO2 are considerably higher at around 385 ppmv [San Francisco Chronicle].

LEVELS OF GREENHOUSE GAS

From the table below we can see that, excluding water vapour, carbon dioxide is by far the most prevalent of the greenhouse gases accounting for over 99% of all of them. The only other gas present in appreciable quantity is methane and this accounts for nearly 0.5% of the greenhouse gases. Between them, these two gases account for more than 99.9% of all greenhouse gases.

By comparing levels of greenhouse gases in 2000 with levels in 1750 we can see that there has been a 31% increase in the amount of carbon dioxide, a 16% rise in levels of nitrous oxide and a 149% increase in the levels of methane. Several of the gases are entirely synthetic and didn’t exist back in 1750.

Different greenhouse gases are more effective than others at contributing to the greenhouse effect, an effect called the global warming Potential (GWP). Although carbon dioxide accounts for 99.4% of the greenhouse gases by volume, the contribution it makes as a total of all the greenhouse gases is considerably lower at just 72.3%; this is because, as greenhouse gases go, it’s not very good. Nitrous oxide on the other hand is nearly 300 times as effective and although it occurs in very small amounts when compared to carbon dioxide, it manages to contribute 18.4% towards the total greenhouse effect. The other gases which make sizeable contributions are methane and dichlorodifluoromethane, respectively these are responsible for nearly 8% and nearly 1% of the contribution to the greenhouse effect.

CHANGES IN LEVELS OF GREENHOUSE GAS

Four gases are responsible for 99.5% of the greenhouse effect - carbon dioxide (72.3%), nitrous oxide (18.4%), methane (7.9%) and dichlorodifluoromethane (0.9%). Below are three graphs showing how the levels of three of these gases have changed during the last 1000 years, there is no graph for dichlorodifluoromethane (freon) as this is a man-made gas and didn’t exist until quite recently and it’s production has now been discontinued.

Carbon Dioxide

Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have been fairly constant at around 280 part per million, in the last 200 years there has been a marked rise in levels. In the 250 years between 1750 and 2000 levels increased by 31.3%. Current levels are 385ppmv.

Nitrous Oxide

Historically levels of nitrous oxide have been between 260 and 275 parts per billion. In 1750 there were 270 ppb, by 2000 there were 314 ppb, a rise of 16.3%.

Methane

In 1750 the levels of methane in the atmosphere were 700 parts per billion, about the same as they had been previously. By 2000 the levels had risen sharply to 1745 parts, a rise of 149.3%.

SOURCES OF GREENHOUSE GASES

One of the primary causes of greenhouse gas emissions for which humans are responsible result from the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) and much of the remainder results from farming and agricultural activities. Fossil fuels are used in power generation, to heat homes and offices, to power factories, to fuel transport and many more uses.

Other manmade causes of greenhouse gases include deforestation (note 6), fertilisers, air conditioning units, open fires, fridges and freezers, numerous industrial and chemical processes, fire suppressants, coal mining, effluent, landfill sites, livestock and rice cultivation [Knauer Group].

There are several natural causes of greenhouse gases including volcanic activity, the seas and oceans, natural decay of plants and animals and the natural melting of ice caps.

THE CARBON CYCLE

There’s a natural cycle of carbon dioxide. Annually 120 billion tons of CO2 are absorbed from the atmosphere by vegetation and soil whilst at the same time 119 billion tons are released into the atmosphere. A similar exchange takes place between the oceans and the atmosphere with 90 billion tons of CO2 being absorbed and 88 billion tons being released. The net effect is that each year the atmosphere loses 3 billion tons of CO2.

One very important factor not taken into account here is the anthropogenic effect. In 2006 humans added 7 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere just through the burning of fossil fuels resulting an overall increase in atmospheric CO2 of 4 billion tons.

Carbon dioxide is exchanged between the atmosphere and the oceans and between the atmosphere and vegetation, this is the natural cycle and results in 3 billion tons of carbon dioxide being lost from the atmosphere each year. In 2006 humans added 29 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere resulting in an overall increase of 26 billion tons.

CARBON IMBALANCE

During the last 400,000 years levels of carbon dioxide have fluctuated between 190 and 310 ppmv. In the last 200 years levels have risen sharply to 385 ppmv.

Enlarge - More info and explanation Left to it’s own devices the natural carbon cycle is more or less in equilibrium and significant changes to levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere occur over timeframes spanning many thousands of years and correlate with the ice age cycles.

The first graph to the left show how concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere have changed over the last 400,000 years with levels fluctuating between 190 and 310ppmv (note 7). The inset graph shows that for the last 1000 years atmospheric CO2 levels have been consistent until approximately 250 years ago when they began rising rapidly.

The peaks and troughs are quite consistent, lows of around 190ppmv and highs of around 300ppmv. Coming out of a recent ice age we would expect to have seen levels peak at around 300ppmv and then start to fall again. Indeed, up to 250 years ago levels were behaving as would have been expected but then began rising dramatically. The third graph shows that in the last 50 years levels have risen from 315ppmv to 380ppmv, a rise of 65ppmv. Compared to natural variations this is at least 100 times as fast as would be expected, even when natural levels are increasing at their fastest.

The graph in the middle illustrates that over periods of hundreds of millions of years there are significant changes in the levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide with some sources estimating that levels half a billion years ago were as much as 18 times as high as they are now. Estimates this far back rely on oxygen isotope analysis and only give an indication of the approximate levels of gases that may have been present. A much more accurate way of analysing the atmosphere from years gone by is by extracting air trapped in ice, using this approach there is now an accurate record dating back 650,000 years.

250 years ago the Industrial Revolution began (note 8), the demand for energy started rising and has continued rising ever since. Not only are there far more people living on the planet than ever before but the average amount of energy each person uses grows year on year. Today over 80% of the world’s energy still comes from fossil fuels, before the days of nuclear power and renewable energy sources it was even higher.

Industrialisation is by far the biggest factor in the carbon imbalance but there are others including deforestation. Carbon dioxide plays a vital role in nature in that it enables plants to photosynthesise (note 9) and each year some 17 billion tons of CO2 are absorbed in this way, this is just one of the natural processes which in total absorb 120 billion tons of CO2 a year. For many decades huge swathes of forest have been cut down and although new forests are being planted the net loss is still about 100,000 square kilometres of forest a year [UN Report]. With an ever decreasing amount of forest there is a corresponding decline in the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed for photosynthesis.

SOLAR VARIATION

Solar variations cause changes in the amount of heat energy emitted from the sun and there are many reasons for this. The primary variation is caused by solar cycles, a pattern that repeats itself at 11 year intervals. However, the difference between the highest and lowest output is very small - about 0.1% [Wikipedia - Solar Variation]. There are many other cycles that the sun goes through ranging from 22 years to several thousand years; there may be longer ones that haven’t yet been detected.

The heat energy received from the sun is 1366 W/m²/yr (Watts per square metre per year) and it’s estimated that since 1750 this has increased by 0.3 W/m²/yr. During the same time, anthropogenic global warming has contributed a further 2.4 W/m²/yr [IPCC].

In the short term at least, solar variation has little effect on global warming and climate change. Over many thousands and millions of years the changes are significant and together with other astronomical factors (note 10) can explain globalwarming awareness2007 and cooling cycles over long periods of time.

FEEDBACK OR COMPOUND PROCESS

Globalwarming is a self-perpetuating cycle. If we take the frozen tundra of Siberia as an example, the permafrost here is melting and in the last few years one million square kilometres has melted [The Guardian]. Trapped in the peat beneath the permafrost is up to 70 billion tons of methane, as the ice melts the methane is released into the atmosphere. Methane, as we’ve established, is a more effective greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and releasing this much methane has the same globalwarming awareness2007 potential as releasing 1.6 trillion tons of CO2.

The release of the methane increases global warming which leads to more ice melting, more methane released, more ice melting...

Further, as the ice melts it exposes the land beneath and forms melt-water lakes, both land and water are less reflective than ice so they absorb more solar heat radiation, further adding to Global warming and the feedback process.

Global Warming causes an increase in the levels of greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases cause an increase in the levels of global warming.

Causes of climate change varied: poll

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EDMONTON - Only about one in three Alberta earth scientists and engineers believe the culprit behind climate change has been identified, a new poll reported today.

The expert jury is divided, with 26 per cent attributing global warming to human activity like burning fossil fuels and 27 per cent blaming other causes such as volcanoes, sunspots, earth crust movements and natural evolution of the planet.

A 99-per-cent majority believes the climate is changing. But 45 per cent blame both human and natural influences, and 68 per cent disagree with the popular statement that "the debate on the scientific causes of recent climate change is settled."

The divisions showed up in a canvass of more than 51,000 specialists licensed to practice the highly educated occupations by the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists of Alberta.

"We're not surprised at all," APEGGA executive director Neil Windsor said today. "There is no clear consensus of scientists that we know of."

The only agreement among professionals is "we should do everything we can" to understand climate, adapt structures such as buildings and bridges to change and reduce human contributions to harmful trends, Windsor said.

The survey received 1,077 replies or a sample rated as an accurate portrait of the occupational groups' views to within three percentage points 19 times out of 20, APEGGA reported.

Alberta Environment helped design the poll and will give the results to the provincial government, association spokesman Philip Mulder said.

APEGGA is planning an "environmental summit" with other concerned agencies on Alberta climate change causes, effects and adaptations.

No date is set yet for the event. "We would prefer to have it sooner rather than later," Mulder said.

"These sessions can be structured so that they result in ... a concerted action plan to be directed at policy makers," APEGGA's environment committee said in a report to association members.

Potential actions include devising Alberta climate change forecasts, encouraging greenhouse-gas cleanups like industrial waste carbon disposal, and developing adaptation programs such as water conservation and energy efficiency, the committee said.

Only one-third of engineers and earth scientists polled by APEGGA rated the province's current climate change action plan as adequate.

About two-thirds of the professionals said the government should take on a leading role in developing renewable or sustainable energy sources and promoting energy efficiency among consumers. About half urged the province to make Alberta a world capital of capturing and storing industrial greenhouse-gas waste.

Engineers and earth scientists mostly feel free to speak out about climate change and take it into account in their work.

About two-thirds of the professionals say they feel no peer pressure to take particular stances on global warming, and 70 per cent report they have enough independence to take the issue into account in their professional roles.

But willingness to spend money on long-range climate change adaptations is still rare among employers of the science-based occupations, the survey results indicated.

In the poll of APEGGA's highly educated membership, "66 per cent state that corporate decision making is governed by short-term cost considerations rather than long-term investment."

Only 31 per cent of Alberta engineers and earth scientists say the organizations they serve regard them as valuable technical advisers on climate change. Just 26 per cent of the professionals believe they can influence corporate decisions.