By Jeremy Lovell
LONDON (Reuters) - Antarctica is melting, adding to the inexorable rise in global sea levels, endangering millions of lives and whole economies, leading scientists said on Monday.
But while the effect is well known after years of monitoring from land and space, the reasons for the sea warming are not.
"We know sea levels will rise. We need to know by how much and why," Anthony Payne of the University of Bristol and one of the organisers of a major scientific conference in London, told Reuters on the sidelines of the meeting at the Royal Society, Britain's national academy of science.
"This has implications for the whole world -- most people and industries are in coastal areas," he added.
Payne said there was a net loss of mass in Antarctica as the snowfall in the center of the frigid landmass was more than offset by sea ice melting around the edges.
The key was to find out whether the process was accelerating, or whether it might stabilize or even reverse.
And the important factor was understanding the complex interaction between ocean and wind currents and how much -- if any -- of the warming of the seas was due to mankind's contribution to global warming.
"We know a lot more about the ice sheets than we did before," Payne said. "We know change is happening and that it is rapid. What we don't know is why or what is causing it -- what proportion is anthropomorphic."
Scientists calculate that average world temperatures -- which have already risen by 0.6 degrees Celsius (1.1 Fahrenheit) since 1900 -- could rise by at least two more degrees this century, due in large part to greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.
HIGH ECONOMIC COST
Bob Bindschadler, a glaciologist from U.S. space agency (NASA) said the West Antarctic ice sheet was reducing -- albeit patchily -- but that if it all melted it would raise global sea levels by 6 metres.
Putting it in context he said that a 1-meter rise in sea levels would cost the United States alone $400 billion -- roughly twice the estimated cost of the destruction wrought by hurricane Katrina in New Orleans last month.
"We don't want to have too many New Orleans," he told the start of the two-day conference that will pool all Antarctic knowledge and help shape the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that is due in 2007.
Eric Rignot, a fellow NASA scientist, said marine ice on the world's coldest continent was in general retreat due to rising sea temperatures.
"The Antarctic ice sheet is changing at a faster rate than anticipated. The coastal changes are the most significant, with the potential to reach far inland," he told an audience of his peers from around the world.
While the vast East Antarctic ice sheet, which is more than double the size of its western neighbor, was more or less stable except at the coastal fringes, there was no guarantee it would remain so.
"The East Antarctic ice sheet is not immune to change," he said, noting that more than one third of the annual 1.8 millimetre rise in global sea levels came from Antarctica.
By Mary Milliken Decmeber 6th 10pm GMT
MONTREAL (Reuters) - While U.S. President George W. Bush refuses to accept the Kyoto Protocol to cut greenhouse gas emissions, at least 40 million Americans will find themselves bound to the international treaty to curb global warming.
Since the protocol took effect last February, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels has convinced 192 cities to agree to cut emissions 7 percent from 1990 levels by 2012 -- the recommended target for the United States, which emits 25 percent of the world's heat-trapping gases.
The cities join an increasing number of states, including California and New York, and leading corporations choosing to follow the Kyoto lead even while their country doesn't.
They can act by using renewable energy and alternative fuels, placing tougher controls on auto emissions or building energy-saving green buildings.
"We reject the idea that is put forward by our national leaders in the United States that we have a choice to save the environment or save the economy," Nickels said on Tuesday on the sidelines of the 189-nation United Nations conference on climate change.
Bush pulled the United States out of Kyoto in 2001, arguing that the mandatory emissions cuts for some 40 industrial nations would hurt U.S. growth and wrongly excluded developing economies like China and India.
And since then his administration has shown no sign of budging on accepting mandatory curbs, to the frustration of European leaders and environmental activists huddling in Montreal.
"Unfortunately, we are experiencing Category 5 denials by the Bush administration," said Jerome Ringo, who chairs the National Wildlife Federation in the United States and uses the term for the strongest hurricane rating.
Ringo said mayors, governors and congressmen are "filling the leadership vacuum left by the Bush administration."
CALIFORNIA LEADERSHIP
Cities, states and Congress are also showing that acting on climate change is a bipartisan effort, not one restricted to the Democrats who largely stand behind the Kyoto Protocol.
California's Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has won environmentalists' praise at the conference with progress on his ambitious plan to reduce greenhouse gases in the nation's most populous state 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050.
Per capita carbon dioxide emissions in California are around half of the U.S. average and have fallen 30 percent since 1975, while they have remained constant for the country.
"We are all part of the solution on climate change. The governor recognizes that, while California is only a piece of that, leadership is important and we can play that role," Alan Lloyd, California's secretary for the environment, said.
As nations debate in Montreal how to proceed after 2012, a bipartisan group of 24 U.S. senators wrote a letter to Bush on Monday asking the administration to participate in talks in a "constructive way" and not block discussions on binding emissions.
Mayor Nickels hopes results on the local and state levels will eventually lead the United States back into the Kyoto protocol for post-2012.
"It is inevitable that after the cities and states show it is safe, the politicians in Washington, D.C. will join and again the United States will take its moral responsibility," he said.
The most potent threats to life on earth - global warming, health pandemics, poverty and armed conflict - could be ended by moves that would unlock $7 trillion - $7,000,000,000,000 (£3.9trn) - of previously untapped wealth, the United Nations claims today.
The price? An admission that the nation-state is an old-fashioned concept that has no role to play in a modern globalised world where financial markets have to be harnessed rather than simply condemned.
In a groundbreaking move, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has drawn up a visionary proposal that has been endorsed by a range of figures including Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Laureate.
It says an unprecedented outbreak of co-operation between countries, applied through six specific financial tools, would slice through the Gordian knot of problems that have bedevilled the world for most of the last century.
If its recommendations are accepted - and the authors acknowledge this could take years or even decades - it could finally force countries to face up to the fact that their public finance and growth figures conceal the vast damage their economies do to the environment.
At the heart of the proposal, unveiled at a gathering of world business leaders at the Swiss ski resort of Davos, is a push to get countries to account for the cost of failed policies, and use the money saved "up front" to avert crises before they hit. Top of the list is a challenge to the United States to join an international pollution permit trading system which, the UN claims, could deliver $3.64trn of global wealth.
Inge Kaul, a special adviser at the UNDP, said: "The way we run our economies today is vastly expensive and inefficient because we don't manage risk well and we don't prevent crises." She downplayed concerns over up-front costs and interest payments for the new-fangled financial devices. "The gains in terms of development would outweigh those costs. Money is wasted because we dribble aid, and the costs of not solving the problems are much, much higher than what we would have to pay for getting the financial markets to lend the money."
The UNDP is determined to ensure globalisation, which has generated vast wealth for multinational companies, benefits the poorest in society.
It urges politicians to embrace some groundbreaking schemes put in place in the past 12 months to tackle global warning, poverty and disease, based on working with the global markets to share out the risk.
These include a pilot international finance facility (IFF) to "front load" $4bn of cash for vaccines by borrowing money against pledges of future government aid.
The scheme, which is backed by the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was born out of a proposal by Gordon Brown for a larger scheme to double the total aid budget to $100bn a year.
In an endorsement of the report, Mr Brown said: "This shows how we can equip people and countries for a new global economy that combined greater prosperity and fairness both within and across nations."
The UNDP says rich countries should build on this and go further. It proposes six schemes to harness the power of the markets:
* Reducing greenhouse gas emissions through pollution permit trading; net gain $3.64trn.
* Cutting poor countries' borrowing costs by securing the debts against the income from stable parts of their economies; net gain $2.90trn.
* Reducing government debt costs by linking payments to the country's economic output; net gain $600bn.
* An enlarged version of the vaccine scheme; net gain (including benefits of lower mortality) $47bn.
* Using the vast flow of money from migrants back to their home country to guarantee; net gain $31bn.
* Aid agencies underwriting loans to market investors to lower interest rates; net gain $22bn.
Professor Stiglitz, the former chief economist of the World Bank and a staunch critic of the way globalisation harms the poor, said: "Globalisation has meant the closer integration of countries, and that in turn has meant a greater need for collective action.
"One of the most important areas of failure is the environment. Without government intervention, firms and households have no incentive to limit their pollution." He said a global public finance system would force countries to acknowledge the external damage their policies had, "the most important being global climate change".
Solving the environmental crisis tops the UN's $7trn wish-list. It calls for an international market to trade pollution permits that would encourage rich countries to cut pollution and hit their targets under the Kyoto protocol.
But - and the UN admits it is a big "but" - the US would have to sign up to Kyoto and carbon trading to achieve the $3.64trn that it believes the system would deliver over time.
"We are dealing with a global problem as pollution can only be dealt with internationally," Ms Kaul said. Richard Sandor, the head of the Chicago Climate Exchange, added: "Many encouraging signs are emerging. When the business case is clear, private entrepreneurs step forward."
But, the proposal is unlikely to get support from some green groups who believe that action to curb consumption, rather than market incentives, are the way to reduce carbon emissions.
Andrew Simms, director of the New Economics Foundation, said it left unanswered questions over how these markets would be managed and how the benefits and costs would be distributed. "We have nothing against markets so it would be missing the point to get into a pro- or anti-market stance. The point is how you distribute the benefits."
He said the Nineties, the zenith decade for globalisation, had seen just 60 cents out of every $100 worth of growth reach the poorest in society, compared with the $2.20 in the Eighties.
He said a pollution trading regime had the potential to deliver "enormous" benefits to poor countries, but said the UN report failed to show a detailed plan.
"Our view is that you have to cap pollution, allocate permits and then you can trade. But it depends on how it is set up. Because you are dealing with a global commons of the atmosphere, the danger is that you could be effectively dealing in stolen goods."
He said a system set up now to trade in pollution permits could end up permanently depriving poor countries that joined the system further down the road.
International problems - and solutions
PANDEMIC DISEASES
Millions of people across the developing world have died from malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/Aids, as well as from other pandemics. Vaccines needed to avert them require much-needed investment.
SOLUTION: An advance commitment by rich countries to buy $3bn (£1.7bn) worth of vaccines would be enough to encourage pharmaceutical giants to invest in finding medicines that would eliminate these pandemics.
SAVING: $600bn
ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: Vaccines are needed but more should be done in the meantime. Extra aid is needed for simple tools such as mosquito nets that would curb spread of malaria.
PARIAH STATES
Big business and global money ignore countries where they see the risk of conflict outweighing their potential profit margins.
SOLUTION: Guarantees by international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund to lower the cost of borrowing for poor nations by underwriting investors' loans to conflict-torn states.
SAVING: $22bn
ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: Sometimes large volumes of cash are needed and this is one. Live8 showed there was huge support among taxpayers for higher aid to countries in distress.
Hitting a commitment made in the 1960s of 0.7 per cent of GDP would unlock $140bn a year.
NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY
Once great nations such as Brazil and Argentina were reduced to the status of beggars after poor economic policy combined with debts with national and international lenders.
SOLUTION: A system to enable countries to take loans linked to their average economic growth rate to ensure that they do not have to cut public spending to raise the money to borrow needed funds during the hard times.
SAVING: $600bn
ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: A system to allow countries to seek protection from their creditors in the same way that US companies can take so-called Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
SPECULATIVE INVESTORS
Poor countries suffer most from swings in investment tastes by the big global investors that means money can leave as soon as it arrives.
SOLUTION: Enable countries to buy "insurance policies" against big swings in growth that would ensure that they did not have to cut public spending every time. In 1997 it wreaked havoc across South-east Asia.
SAVING: $2,900bn
ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: Curb speculative investment by imposing a tax on foreign exchange transactions aimed at destabilising a currency. It could directly raise funds for development while preventing the worst excesses of the markets.
GLOBAL WARMING
Scientists believe human activity has led to climate change and disappearing Arctic ice. The world's poor also have to live with lethal storms and floods.
UN SOLUTION: A system of international trading in permits to allow pollution that would encourage countries to cut their emission of greenhouse gases so they can sell their "right to pollute" to other states. UNDP says it is more effective than just setting targets.
SAVING: $3,620bn
ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: An international approach is needed but one that prevents people from causing harm by setting pollution targets rather than trying to bribe them not to. Also agree global airline tax.
BRAIN DRAIN
Millions of skilled workers leave their home countries every year in search of a better life in the West. In some states nine out 10 professionals have left.
SOLUTION: Enable countries to borrow on the open markets against the money workers send home. The capital would be used to invest in the country to build infrastructure that would discourage people from leaving.
SAVING: $31bn
ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: An international code of ethical guidelines overseen by bodies such as the World Health Organisation (for doctors and nurses) to monitor the harm that migration of professionals causes.
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent Tue Feb 14, 11:27 AM ET
OSLO (Reuters) - Industrialized nations can reach 2012 United Nations goals for reining in gases blamed for global warming but many will have to take tougher measures, the U.N. climate change bureau said on Tuesday.
A year after the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol on reining in emissions from burning fossil fuels entered into force, it said information filed in early 2006 by rich nations showed "significant progress" in working out new policies and rules.
"Industrialized countries that have ratified the ... Kyoto Protocol can still reach their legally-binding emissions targets," the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said to mark the February 16 first anniversary.
Weakened by a U.S. pullout, Kyoto is meant as a small first step to force about 40 rich nations to cut emissions of carbon dioxide from factories, power plants and cars that are blamed for blanketing the globe and pushing up world temperatures.
Richard Kinley, acting head of the UNFCCC, said Kyoto nations were "on their way to lower their emission levels by at least 3.5 percent below 1990 levels" by the 2008-12 target.
With extra measures, they could reach the overall target of at least a 5 percent cut below 1990 levels, he said.
Extra measures include investing in clean energy projects in the developing world, ranging from hydropower plants in Honduras to solar energy schemes in China. Under such projects, firms can win credits that count against emissions back home.
ASKS FOR MORE
Even so, Kinley said many Kyoto backers would have to "sustain or even intensify their efforts." "More is needed," he said.
Many scientists say that rising temperatures will spur an ever more chaotic climate likely to spawn more droughts, heat waves, floods and drive up sea levels by almost a meter by 2100.
The UNFCCC said last year that overall emissions by rich nations had fallen to 17.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2003 from 18.4 billion in 1990.
It warned that most of the fall was due to the collapse of Soviet-era smokestack industries and could rebound.
On Tuesday, it said extra measures for investment in the developing world, known as the "clean development mechanism," had the potential to cut 700 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions by the end of 2012 or about the annual amount emitted by Canada.
It said the 15 European Union member states before the bloc's 2004 expansion to include eastern European nations, had cut emissions by 1.7 percent from 1990 levels -- roughly the equivalent of Denmark's annual emissions.
U.S. President George W. Bush pulled out of Kyoto in 2001, saying that it would cost U.S. jobs and wrongly excluded developing nations from the first round of cuts to 2012.
Last month Bush stressed more spending on cleaner energy technology, including solar and wind power, to break what he called the United States' addiction to oil.
Separately, the WWF environmental group said the Kyoto anniversary and high oil prices were a chance to spur a shift to cleaner energies.
"We are still far from winning the fight against global warming," said Jennifer Morgan, head of the WWF's climate change program.
By Mica Rosenberg
SAN ANTONIO SUCHITEPEQUEZ, Guatemala (Reuters) - At the Palo Gordo refinery two hours' drive south of Guatemala City, a Brazilian-designed ethanol processing plant hums next to decades-old machinery turning freshly cut cane into sugar.
The plant is part of a new push across Central America to reduce the region's reliance on expensive imported oil by following the example of Brazil, Latin America's alternative energy powerhouse.
Sugar-producing countries are looking to ethanol to breathe new life into the decades-old sugar industry. The fuel, also known as ethyl alcohol, is made from a sugar by-product and then mixed with gasoline to reduce pollution and lower prices.
"Sugar cane has changed its name," said Erick Perez, who manages alcohol processing at the Palo Gordo plant.
"Now we call it 'energy cane,"' he said, showing off the three-storey ovens that burn cane fibre to generate all the electricity used by the refinery.
Palo Gordo does not yet produce alcohol in a car-ready form because of a lack of demand, said Perez, but some countries in the region are trying to expand local markets for ethanol by passing laws that promote its use.
All the small Central American economies are net oil importers, and record high oil prices are causing economic hardship for local businesses and consumers in a region where a quarter of the population lives on less than $1 a day.
In Honduras, sugar producers are planting 11,000 hectares (27,200 acres) of new sugar cane to provide raw materials for two ethanol refineries.
"We need to reduce our dependence on oil by promoting the production of ethanol and biodiesel," Honduran President Manuel Zelaya said recently. "In addition to fuel, what we can generate is a number of important jobs growing sugar cane."
Zelaya's government is also promoting a four-year project to grow 200,000 hectares (494,000 acres) of African palm, a tree with oil that can be converted into biodiesel.
INVESTOR INTEREST
Costa Rica's state-run national gasoline refinery RECOPE began a pilot project last month to add 7.5 percent ethanol to gasoline at 63 gas stations in the country.
The programme, funded in part by Brazilian oil company Petrobras, cost $15 million and will eventually be expanded across the country in an attempt to bring down Costa Rica's oil costs, which jumped by 45 percent between 2004 and 2005.
Oil prices and environmental concerns are expanding worldwide markets for ethanol, since burning alcohol instead of gasoline reduces carbon emissions by more than 80 percent.
Green power and nuclear energy are competing to be the solution for reducing pollution from the electricity sector, the main greenhouse gas producer.
In Brazil, three-quarters of all new cars burn either ethanol or gasoline depending on which is cheaper at the pump, and ethanol is now available at nearly all of the country's 34,000 gas stations.
The U.S. ethanol market grew 11 percent between 1995 and
2004, according to the U.S. Trade Representative. The European Union
set a target for biofuels to account for 2 percent of all
transport fuels used in Europe by 2005, rising to 5.75 percent
by 2010. [Note
the dangers here in setting a target (a) regardless of the energy
required to produce the biofuel and (b) regardless of taking
agricultural land out of food production. - JB]
"Central American countries can be competitive producing ethanol from sugar and there are strong groups in the private sector who are investing," said Arnaldo Vieira de Carvalho, who promotes lending to alternative energy projects at the Inter-American Development Bank.
"If they don't sell it to the local market they can sell it internationally."
BIODIESEL
For those without access to massive sugar refineries, leftover grease from fast-food chains like Taco Bell is enough to run an environmentally friendly car.
Guatemalan chemist Pedro Ordonez says he powers his 2006 Lincoln Frontier on biodiesel he makes himself.
The fuel, made from almost any vegetable oil, can fill up the tank of a diesel engine or be used as an additive to diesel in the same way ethanol is mixed with gasoline.
Last year, a group of eco-minded travellers drove a 1974 bus from California to Mexico powered only by old cooking oil from taco stands and Chinese restaurants to make a point about the viability of alternative energy.
Most projects in the region are small-scale, like the grease-powered car used by Ordonez, but El Salavador last month opened Central America's first biodiesel plant with money from Finland, to produce 400 litres (quarts) of the fuel a day.
The plant will process seeds from the Higuerillo tree, commonly used to provide shade for coffee plants in the region and the fruits of the Jatropha bush, a plant native to Mesoamerica and ideal for biodiesel production.
Guatemalan entrepreneur Ricardo Asturias is also launching a biodiesel project using Jatropha plants and already has some 300,000 growing around the country in order to start fuel production next year.
"This boosts agricultural production and helps the environment," said Asturias. "Step by step, we are learning how to make it profitable."
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent Fri Jun 9, 7:04 AM ET
OSLO (Reuters) - A U.N. scheme to promote renewable energy use in poor nations is growing sharply and will axe emissions of greenhouse gases by more than a billion metric tonnes by 2012, the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat said on Friday.
It said that the program, part of the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol meant to combat global warming by curbing fossil fuel use, has more than 800 projects such as wind farms in India or power plants burning sugar cane waste in Brazil.
The first project under the scheme was approved only in late 2004.
By giving rich nations incentives to invest in green energy ranging from hydro to solar power, the program aims to brake a build-up of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from burning fuels such as coal or oil.
"The known project potential ... is presently estimated to generate around a billion tonnes of emission reductions by the end of 2012," the Bonn-based secretariat said in a statement.
That is the estimated reduction between now and end-2012.
Annual world greenhouse gas emissions from human activities -- mainly from fossil fuels burned in power plants, vehicles and factories -- exceed 25 billion tonnes. About a quarter is from the United States.
"The one billion tonne mark in emission reductions corresponds to the present (annual) emissions of Spain and the United Kingdom combined," the secretariat said. Britain emits about 650 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, Spain 350 million.
The secretariat said more than 200 green energy projects had now been approved under the program, known as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), with about 600 others in the pipeline.
Under the CDM, rich nations can invest in renewable energy projects in developing nations -- such as hydroelectric power plants in Guatemala or a methane capture scheme in China -- and then claim credits back home for the emissions they save.
$100 BILLION
Those credits can in theory then be sold -- giving the rich nations the incentive to invest. Some experts say that the CDM could eventually channel more than $100 billion to renewable energy schemes from Africa to Latin America.
The Kyoto Protocol obliges 35 industrial nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. The United States pulled out in 2001, saying Kyoto would cost U.S. jobs and wrongly excluded developing nations from targets under the first round.
Kyoto is meant as a first step to slow a rise in world temperatures that many scientists say could wreak havoc by causing more heat waves, floods and droughts and drive up world sea levels by up to a meter by 2100.
But the Climate Secretariat said that the growth in the CDM had been lopsided.
"Whilst the mechanism is seeing exponential growth, the growth is still too unevenly distributed," said Richard Kinley, officer in charge of the secretariat.
Many of the projects have been in Brazil, China, India and South
Korea with relatively few, for instance, in Africa. The
Netherlands, Britain and Japan have been the leading investors
in CDM schemes.
Friday September 22, 03:32 PM
Plans for better co-ordination
of Whitehall climate change policy have been unveiled by the
Government.
Environment Secretary David Miliband said ministers have agreed to the new Office of Climate Change (OCC), its scope, role and initial work plan.
The OCC will support ministers as they decide future UK strategy and policy on domestic and international climate change, providing high-level management and reporting on progress on existing commitments.
It will consolidate existing analysis to develop cross-government consensus on current progress and outstanding issues.
The OCC will also identify short and medium term goals for particular sectors and areas, and consequent priorities for action.
The new body will carry out time-limited, policy-focused projects where ministers agree that this adds value.
It will promote understanding of climate change across government and supporting departments and encourage them to adapt their policies.
Mr Miliband said: "Climate change is one of the biggest problems facing the UK and the world and we need to ensure that the action we are taking as a Government is co-ordinated and as effective as possible. The new Office of Climate Change will help us meet that challenge.
"The OCC will be a key resource to help us achieve the challenging targets we have set to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 60% by 2050.
"The office will co-ordinate climate change activity across government based on sound, objective analysis and drive forward progress on climate change policy and strategy."
: Wednesday, 4 October 2006, 01:58 GMT 02:58
UK 
 |
|
Climate
inaction 'has high cost'
|
||
|
The world must act now to curb climate change, as doing
nothing will cost more long-term, UK officials have said.
British government official and former World Bank chief economist Sir Nicholas Stern said pursuing alternative energy made economic and environmental sense. He was addressing a closed-door meeting in Mexico of representatives of 20 of the world's most-polluting nations. |
||
An independent system to gauge progress in reducing greenhouse gases is also likely to be included, BBC political editor Nick Robinson said.
The move follows a campaign by Friends of the Earth - supported by the Tories and Liberal Democrats - for such a law.
A Nasa study says the world is the warmest it has been for 12,000 years.
Pace of change
The climate change bill is likely to be included in next month's Queen's Speech.
Mr Robinson said a proposal, from Friends of the Earth, that ministers should be fined for missing environmental targets, would not be included.
Last month, Environment Secretary David Miliband said people "should be scared" by global warming and that more were recognising that "something funny is going on with the weather".
He has warned that the pace of action has to be much faster or carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 will be 137% higher than in 2003.
A Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesman said he could not comment on what would be in the Queen's speech.
But he added: "However, we think on big issues such as tackling climate change, we need to look at all the options.
"We are not interested in aspirations, but action. We are looking at whether legislation could help meet the global challenge of climate change."
Nasa scientists said last month that the world was at its warmest for the last 12,000 years as a result of rapid changes over the past 30 years.
The average temperature had increased by about 0.2C (0.4F) in each of the last three decades.
Pollution from human activity was pushing the world towards dangerous levels of climate change, Nasa warned.
Shadow Environment Secretary Peter Ainsworth said: "We need rolling annual carbon reduction targets to be agreed in parliament; an independent body to assess the science and make recommendations as that science evolves; and an annual report to parliament to ensure that ministers and civil servants are accountable."
Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Chris Huhne said: "The Climate Change Bill must include annual targets for cutting carbon emissions so that the government's efforts can be assessed, while an independent scientific body should report each year on progress.
"Climate change matters because if we don't tackle it quickly it will cost far, far more later on."
OCTOBER
19th
2006
More than 75 "ambitious" measures
include tougher energy standards for
electrical goods, a low-energy building strategy and more fuel
efficient cars.
FULL REPORT http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6060608.stm
The UK is heading towards energy shortages because of companies' burgeoning use of IT, according to new research yesterday that called on companies to overhaul their IT systems radically and install eco-friendly technology.
UK companies are using vast amounts of electricity to power the country's 1,500 data-centres that support the UK's growing IT needs. An average UK data-centre uses more power in a year than the city of Leicester.
Steve Prentice, the chief of research at Gartner, said: "IT's age of innocence is nearing an end. Technology's clean and friendly 'weightless economy' image is being challenged by its growing environmental footprint."
Power-hungry data- centres could result in electricity shortages unless energy-reduction is made a core priority within IT departments, according to new research from BroadGroup.
Companies using huge amounts of computer power will also come under increasing pressure to cut energy consumption as a result of spiralling energy costs.
"The data-centre is environmentally unfriendly," Keith Breed, a research director at BroadGroup, said. "The IT department has been divorced from reality as hardware costs have come down rapidly while computing power has risen dramatically. However, higher energy costs have not been factored in."
He said that the biggest consumers of IT power - financial services companies, internet gaming firms and internet service providers - may start to look at factoring rising energy costs into prices, a move that could mean the consumer ends up footing the ball.
Mr Breed estimates that a single UK data-centre's energy costs will more than double to about £7.4m a year by 2010, making the UK the most expensive place for IT in Europe.
One of the problems that companies face is that the servers needed to support current IT usage use about between three to four times the power of traditional servers. A similar amount of electricity is also required to dissipate the heat generated by high-end servers. Gartner estimates that energy costs represent about 50 per cent of a company's IT budget over the next few years, compared with about 10 per cent currently.
Hardware companies are looking at tackling these problems by designing technology that can run more applications with less power. However, Mr Breed said companies need to tackle the problem by investing in such technology and looking at better ways to utilise IT in a more efficient way.
Some companies have already
moved to improve power consumption
related to IT. BT is to include energy-saving equipment at five of its
12 data-centres and is considering ways to reduce its overall power
consumption
AND HERE IS THE PARADOX - of course the only solution is massive and continuous investment in energy saving IT hardware and lighting and in sources of power that do not emit as much CO2.
Wednesday October 25, 09:47 AM
LONDON (Reuters) - People could save energy, cut pollution and reduce deaths if they logged onto the information superhighway and left their cars at home, the RAC Foundation said on Wednesday.
The motoring organisation said the average commuter travels nearly 3,000 miles a year and spends 47 working days going to and from work or travelling on business trips.
"Many ordinary people spend large chunks of their working week stuck in traffic jams while driving to work or to business meetings, and equally large amounts of their salaries on fuel bills, " said the RAC Foundation's Sheila Rainger.
She said taking advantage of technology gains and considering working from home or remote working could help save the planet as well as making everyday life a bit easier.
"The e-highway has a vital role to play in curbing congestion chaos on the real highway," she said.
The call to consider ditching the car comes after the Energy Saving Trust on Monday said British people rank bottom in energy efficiency versus France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
The trust has calculated that if all British commuters left the car at home one day a week it would reduce the country's CO2 emissions by almost one percent.
According to the RAC Foundation around half of Britons in employment are now classed as "information workers" who do not need to be in a specific location to do their jobs.
Nine million homes in Britain
now have broadband and new
mobile systems such as wi-fi now make it possible to securely
access business networks from almost anywhere.
The Mail on Sunday quotes a leaked letter from David Miliband to Chancellor Gordon Brown.
Proposals include "pay as you drive" and cheap flight taxes and levies on energy-wasting appliances, it says.
Meanwhile Conservative leader David Cameron has told the BBC he would be prepared to tax air travel.
This comes ahead of a report expected to warn climate change may cut global annual economic output by up to 20%.
The influential report by economist Nicholas Stern is due to be published on Monday.
Ahead of this, the Mail on Sunday says the leaked letter from 18 October calls for urgent action in next month's public spending review and next year's Budget.
In the letter to Mr Brown, Mr Miliband calls for measures to combat "car use and ownership", and a "substantial increase" in road tax, the paper claims. He also calls for a new pay-per-mile pollution tax.
The paper said leaked proposals suggest families with big cars could end up paying more than £1,000 a year in additional tax.
'Tax flights'
Changing people's behaviour is only achieved by "market forces and price signals," Mr Miliband wrote.
He added: "As our understandings of climate change increases, it is clear more needs to be done."
The minister also suggests making flights subject to VAT, for either domestic flights or "better still all EU flights," the Mail says.
Meanwhile Mr Cameron spoke about green levies in a pre-recorded interview for the BBC One's The Politics Show.
He told the programme: "Some green taxes do hit the poorest in our society, so we have to think about that very carefully before we make taxation decisions.
"If it means putting a tax on air travel, then yes, that's something we'd be prepared to do."
But he said budgetary decisions should be made closer to budgetary times.
Mr Cameron also gave his backing to Liberal Democrat-controlled Richmond council's plans to charge the drivers of the most polluting vehicles higher parking fees.
Economic impact
Elsewhere, ex-cabinet minister Stephen Byers has said there may be need to introduce green taxes, according to the Observer newspaper.
The paper said he told an audience of businessmen in China this weekend that: "For the Labour party there must be no no-go areas for policy debate.
"We should consider how we can change the structure of our tax system in a way which benefits the lowest-paid and penalises environmentally damaging activity," it quotes him as saying."
The Stern Review, due out on Monday, will examine economic, not environmental, arguments of global warming.
Sir Nicholas's report is expected to claim that at the very best the cost of tackling global warming would be 1% of annual economic output.
The report looked at the impact of global warming on economic output, or gross domestic product (GDP), until 2100.
A report by economist Sir Nicholas Stern suggests that global warming could shrink the global economy by 20%.
But taking action now would cost just 1% of global gross domestic product, the 700-page study says.
Tony Blair said the Stern Review showed the scientific evidence of global warming was "overwhelming" and its consequences "disastrous".
Chancellor Gordon Brown promised the UK would lead the international response to tackle climate change.
| |
We have the time and knowledge to
act but only if we act internationally, strongly and urgently Sir Nicholas Stern |
The report says that without action, up to 200 million people could become refugees as their homes are hit by drought or flood.
"Whilst there is much more we need to understand -- both in science and economics -- we know enough now to be clear about the magnitude of the risks, the timescale for action and how to act effectively," Sir Nicholas said.
"That's why I'm optimistic - having done this review - that we have the time and knowledge to act. But only if we act internationally, strongly and urgently."
'No time to wait'
Mr Blair said: "Investment now will pay us back many times in the future - not just environmentally but economically as well."
"For every £1 invested now we can save £5 - or possibly more - by acting now". "We can't wait the five years it took to negotiate Kyoto - we simply don't have the time. We accept we have to go further (than Kyoto)."
Sir Nicholas, a former chief economist of the World Bank, told BBC Radio Four's Today programme: "Unless it's international, we will not make the reductions on the scale which will be required."
He went on: "What we have shown is the magnitude of these risks is very large and has to be taken into account in the kind of investments the world makes today and the consumption patterns it has."
The Stern Review forecasts that 1% of global gross domestic product (GDP) must be spent on tackling climate change immediately.
It warns that if no action is taken:
The study is the first major contribution to the global warming debate by an economist, rather than a scientist.
Mr Brown has recruited former US Vice President Al Gore as an environment adviser, while Environment Secretary David Miliband is considering a range of taxes designed to change people's behaviour to offset global warming.
"In the 20th century our national economic ambitions were the twin objectives of achieving stable economic growth and full employment," Mr Brown said.
"Now in the 21st century our new objectives are clear, they are threefold: growth, full employment and environmental care."
Monday
October 30, 06:43 PM
In an annual update on global-warming pollution, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said that, compared with the benchmark year of 1990, the 41 industrialised countries it monitors trimmed their emissions by 3.3 percent by the end of 2004.
But this was mainly due to the slump in the former Soviet bloc economies in the 1990s, which forced the closure or overhaul of thousands of power stations and factories that spewed out carbon dioxide.
Because of that historic change, countries in eastern and central Europe had a decrease in emissions from 1990-2004 of 36.8 percent. But from 2000-2004, they in fact increased their pollution by 4.1 percent as their economies emerged from the post-Soviet crash.
In contrast, the other industrialised countries saw an increase in pollution of 11 percent from 1990-2004. From 2000-2004, the increase was two percent.
The UNFCCC's executive secretary, Yvo de Boer, called on the world to heed the top scientific body on global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
"It's telling us is that we need to act on climate change very urgently or else it's going to get very expensive. It's showing us that by the middle of the century, emissions probably need to be reduced by 60 or 80 percent, at least by industrialised countries," he told a press conference on Monday.
De Boer added, though: "The encouraging thing is that some of the political signals in fact are going in that direction."
The new report applies to so-called Annex 1 countries of the UNFCCC, the offshoot of the famous 1992 Rio Summit on the planet's environmental future and parent of the Kyoto Protocol for curbing greenhouse gases. Annex 2 parties are developing countries and the poorer ex-Soviet republics.
The report showed:
-- the United States remains by far the world's biggest polluter.
Of the 17.931 billion tonnes emitted by Annex 1 countries in 2004, 39.4 percent was emitted by the US alone. With 7.067 billion tonnes, the United States accounts for nearly a quarter of the global total of greenhouse-gas pollution, i.e. from Annex 1 and Annex 2 countries together.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, which President George W. Bush abandoned in 2001 because of what he cited as its cost to the US economy, the United States pledged to reduce its emissions by six percent by 2012 compared to 1990.
In 2004, it was 21.1 percent above the benchmark year, the UNFCCC said. The increase from 2000 to 2004 was 1.3 percent.
-- The Kyoto Protocol ratifiers have pledged to cut emissions by on average five percent by 2012 compared with 1990. In 2004, they were 15.3 percent below the 1990 level, although this figure masks the effects of the economic post-Soviet slump in eastern and central Europe and some hugely varying performances.
Japan, for instance, pledged a cut of six percent by 2012, yet in 2004 it already had an increase of six percent over 1990. Spain is pegged to a rise of only 15 percent by 2012 but in 2004 was already 49 percent over the 1990 target.
De Boer was upbeat, though, holding up the performance of Britain and Germany as countries whose economies have expanded but whose emissions have fallen sharply.
"It is possible to decouple economic growth and climate change," he said.
-- Emissions by Annex 1 countries from agriculture fell by 20 percent from 1990-2004 and from industry by 13.1 percent. But pollution by transport rose by 23.9 percent, reflecting that reductions in this sector "seem to be especially hard to achieve," the UNFCCC said.
De Boer pointed out that the 2004 figures do not take into account the effects of the Kyoto Protocol, which took effect in February 2005.
That treaty includes an array of market incentives, including a market in carbon emissions and credits for transferring cleaner technology to poorer countries. Already, 1.4 billion tonnes of carbon would be eliminated by Kyoto countries by 2012 under this credits scheme, he said.
Greenhouse gases are so called because, as in a stuffy greenhouse, they linger invisibly in the air. Instead of letting solar radiation bounce back into space, the gases trap it, thus warming Earth's surface.
Scientists say there is mounting evidence that the world's climate system is starting to be affected by the warming and are demanding quick, deep cuts in the gases to avert what could be a catastrophe.
The big culprits for this carbon-based pollution are oil, gas and coal -- the fossil fuels on which today's prosperity was built and on which every economy still depends.
Curbing the pollution carries an economic and thus political cost, because it requires users of these fuels to be more efficient or switch to cleaner alternatives.
All three main parties say they want to use the tax system to encourage more environmentally-friendly behaviour.
But the Populus poll suggests they may have a fight on their hands convincing voters there is not a hidden agenda.
Some 62% of those polled said they thought green taxes were just a revenue-raising measure and nearly half were against the idea altogether.
This week the Stern report warned of disastrous consequences if no immediate action is taken against climate change.
| |
We can't wait the five years it
took to negotiate Kyoto - we simply don't have the time Tony Blair |
The Stern review claims the world's economy could shrink by 20% while droughts and floods displace up to 200m people.
Prime Minister Tony Blair responded to the 600 page report by pledging urgent action.
"For every £1 invested now we can save £5, or possibly more, by acting now," he said.
"We can't wait the five years it took to negotiate Kyoto - we simply don't have the time. We accept we have to go further."
'Unfair'
Talks are being held on using environmental taxes - a Climate Change Bill is expected to be unveiled in the Queen's Speech next month, the government has said.
Environment minister David Miliband has said any changes to the tax system would be "fair".
But he has stopped short of a commitment to offset any increases in "green taxes" with reductions elsewhere.
Both the Lib Dems and the Tories have also said they back the use of green taxes in some form, possibly including aviation tax and congestion charging.
Both parties stress they would not want to see the overall tax burden increase.
But of the 1,002 people interviewed by Populus on 1 and 2 November for the or BBC Two's The Daily Politics, 45% were against the idea of higher taxes on activities that cause pollution.
This is a similar figure to those polled a month ago, before the Stern report was published.
'Substantial increase'
Nearly 70% said green taxes would unfairly hit poor people, while the rich would continue to drive and fly as much as before.
The Mail on Sunday published what it described as a leaked letter from Mr Miliband to the chancellor, Gordon Brown, calling for measures to reduce car use, a "substantial increase" in road tax, a pay-per-mile pollution tax and VAT on some flights.
The paper said proposals suggest families with big cars could end up paying more than £1,000 a year in additional tax.
A report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies published on Thursday said green taxes account for a lower share of the UK's total tax take than when the government came to power in 1997. It found green tax receipts had peaked in 1999 but had fallen since then.
Speaking exclusive to Guardian Unlimited on the closing day of a fortnight of talks, the environment secretary said the summit had failed to gain sufficient momentum to agree a deal on greenhouse gas emissions because of a glaring "gap" between science and politics.
Mr Miliband lauded the significant progress made over adaptation funding for developing countries, and what he called a vigorous commitment to a works programme. But he said some "very difficult discussions" were still under way over the strength of international commitment to a deal.
Mr Miliband held out little hope that a firm international commitment would be ratified on the final day of talks. "That is where we have a real crunch point on some of the issues we have been discussing," he said.
Mr Miliband refused to name recalcitrant countries, but he hinted that industrialised and developing countries alike were hesitant. The latter group feared they would be expected to make the same level of contributions as their wealthier neighbours, he said.
"There are some richer countries who are concerned that that no country can have a free pass on this, and although not all countries will take on hard targets, every country needs to play some role.
"That is the essential balance. The need [is] for a global deal in which every country plays a part, but the fact is that richer countries are going to be able to contribute more.
" I am confident we can offer two cheers for this process. But the third cheer is going to rely on a real drive over the next year because 2007 is going to be a critical year for putting urgency and momentum into the drive for a global emissions deal."
The environment secretary added: "One of the reflections we will have is about the size of the gap between science and politics."
It was a "real issue" that only the UK and Germany had set binding, long-term targets for reducing carbon emissions.
Mr Miliband said the forthcoming G8 talks in Germany would provide an opportunity to revisit the need for "urgency and drive" in moving towards a new climate change agreement to operate after the current Kyoto commitments end in 2012.
The environment secretary declined to say whether a specific adaptation funding deal had been struck to help African countries cope with climate change, but he said general overseas aid should also be "carbon-proofed".
"We have to make sure there is an adaptation fund, but we also have to make sure that aid policies are generally sustainable", he said.
Mr Miliband, who is due to close the Commons debate on the Queen's speech this Monday, said he would tell government colleagues they all had a "part to play" in delivering the climate change agenda.
"From the prime minister to the chancellor and the foreign secretary, and me as environment secretary, every member of the cabinet has a role to play."
Earlier this week, Mr Miliband scotched rumours of a rift with the chancellor, Gordon Brown, over planned environmental policies targeted at business.
The Bush administration could be forced to take action on global warming using a 30-year-old piece of legislation to control the nation's vast emissions of greenhouse gases.
The US Supreme Court will today be asked to force the government to order its environmental regulatory body to control, as a matter of the public health, the amount of carbon dioxide pumped out by vehicles.
Amid a growing disparity between the Bush administration and many US states on the issue of global warming, it will be the first time the country's highest court has heard a case relating to climate change.
A number of environmental groups have joined with a dozen US states and several cities to try to force the government to make the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulate carbon emissions under the framework of the Clean Air Extension Act. This legislation, passed by Richard Nixon's administration in 1970, requires the EPA to develop and enforce regulations to protect the public from exposure to airborne contaminants.
The Bush administration has argued that the EPA lacks the authority under the act to regulate CO2 as a pollutant. The agency has argued that even if it had the authority, it would still have the discretion not to impose emission controls.
Carbon dioxide is one of the main greenhouse gases pumping into the atmosphere that a broad majority of scientists believe are responsible for raising the planet's temperature. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded that most of the planet's warming over the past 50 years has been the result of human activity.
The US, with 5 per cent of the world's population, is responsible for 25 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions and accounts for 37 per cent of the world's vehicles. The Bush administration has repeatedly refused to agree to limits on emissions, saying it would damage the economy. It has instead proposed developing better technology to limit emissions. One of the first things George Bush did on taking office in 2001 was to signal that the US would not support the Kyoto treaty.
A divided lower court had ruled in favour of the government in this test case, but the Supreme Court has agreed to a request, filed by the State of Massachusetts, to consider an appeal.
The Massachusetts attorney general, Thomas Reilly, said "global warming is the most pressing environmental issue of our time and the decision by the court on this case will make a deep and lasting impact for generations to come".
In his filing to the court, he added: "Delay has serious potential implications. Given that air pollutants associated with climate change are accumulating in the atmosphere at an alarming rate, the window of opportunity in which we can mitigate the dangers posed by climate change is rapidly closing."
In papers filed with the Supreme Court, the government has argued that the EPA should not be required to "embark on the extraordinarily complex and scientifically uncertain task of addressing the global issue of greenhouse gas emissions" when there were other ways to tackle climate change.
The Associated Press reported that James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, told reporters: "We still have very strong reservations about an overarching, one-size-fits-all mandate about carbon."
The government is being supported by a number of industry groups representing car makers and manufacturers. Quentin Riegel, a lawyer with the National Association of Manufacturers, said dealing with climate change required a global response that was enforced fairly. "It's not a problem you can solve unilaterally," he said. "We want a system where everyone shares the burden."
| By Jonathan Amos Science reporter, BBC News, San Francisco |
The latest data presented at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting suggests the ice is no longer showing a robust recovery from the summer melt.
Last month, the sea that was frozen covered an area that was two million sq km less than the historical average.
"That's an area the size of Alaska," said leading ice expert Mark Serreze.
"We're no longer recovering well in autumn anymore. The ice pack may now be starting to get preconditioned, perhaps to show very rapid losses in the near future," the University of Colorado researcher added.
The sea ice reached its minimum extent this year on 14 September, making 2006 the fourth lowest on record in 29 years of satellite record-keeping and just shy of the all time minimum of 2005.
'Feedback loop'
Dr Serreze's concern was underlined by new computer modelling which concludes that the Arctic may be free of all summer ice by as early as 2040.
| |
This is a positive feedback loop
with dramatic implications for the entire Arctic region Marika Holland |
"As the ice retreats, the ocean transports more heat to the Arctic and the open water absorbs more sunlight, further accelerating the rate of warming and leading to the loss of more ice," explained Dr Marika Holland.
"This is a positive feedback loop with dramatic implications for the entire Arctic region."
Eventually, she said, the system would be "kicked over the edge", probably not even by a dramatic event but by one year slightly warmer than normal. Very rapid retreat would then follow.
Locally, this would have major consequences for wildlife in the region, not least polar bears which traverse ice-floes in search of food.
Loss of summer ice would seriously compromise the lifestyles of the region's indigenous peoples, though it could also bring new trading opportunities as sea routes opened up.
On a global scale, the Earth would lose a major reflective surface and so absorb more solar energy, potentially accelerating climatic change across the world.
Sooner or later
In one of the model's simulations, the September ice was seen to shrink from about 5.9 million sq km (2.3 million sq miles) to 1.9 million sq km (770,000 square miles) in just a 10-year period.
By 2040, only a small amount of perennial sea ice remained along the north coasts of Greenland and Canada, while most of the Arctic basin was ice-free in September.
Dr Serreze, who is not a modeller and deals with observational data, feels the tipping point could be very close.
"My gut feeling is that it might be around the year 2030 that we really see a rapid decline of that ice. Now could it occur sooner? It might well. Could it occur later? It might well.
"It depends on the aspects of natural variability in the system. We have to remember under greenhouse warming, natural variability has always been part of the picture and it always will be part of the picture."
The average sea ice extent for the entire month of September this year was 5.9 million sq km (2.3 million sq miles). Including 2006, the September rate of sea ice decline is now approximately -8.59% per decade, or 60,421 sq km (23,328 sq miles) per year.
At that rate, without the acceleration seen in the new modelling, the Arctic Ocean would have no ice in September by the year 2060.
Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
| By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website |
Its research shows many Britons regard items such as cordless phones and electric toothbrushes as "essential".
Electrical consumption by consumer gadgets is expected almost to double over the next five years.
The trust is calling for gadgets to carry labels warning shoppers how much they will cost to run.
It believes labelling might persuade shoppers either to buy less or to choose more energy-efficient models.
| |
This increase in electricity
consumption would result in greater carbon dioxide emissions Philip Sellwood |
"We don't want to be saying 'don't have it' - a lot of it is about information and choices," said EST chairman Edward Hyams.
"On televisions, for example, we would like to see labels saying 'if you watch it, it will cost x pence per hour, if you leave it on standby, it will cost y pence'. Then you can present the environmental cost in monetary terms," he told BBC News.
More juice
Research carried out for the trust suggests Britons are increasingly regarding electrical and electronic items as indispensable.
Two-thirds of people planning to purchase a cordless phone said it was an "essential item", while a half of those intending to buy an electric toothbrush said the same.
| |
UK'S GADGET
SHOPPING LIST - THE TOP 10
Over the
next six months, Britons intend to buy:
digital
cameras - 2.5 million
mobile
phones - 2.5 million
televisions
- 2.25 million
computers -
1.75 million
cordless
phones - 1.25 million
DVD
players/recorders - 1.25 million
microwave
ovens - 1.25 million
mp3 players
- 1.25 million
electric
kettles - 1.25 million
hairdryers/stylers
-
1
million
|
Newer appliances are generally more efficient than old ones; so in principle, purchasing new goods can reduce energy demands.
But many gadgets are not bought as replacements, but as additions to the household. By 2020, British households are forecast to contain 2.6 televisions on average.
Televisions are an exception to the trend of rising efficiency. Modern plasma screens can use four times as much electricity as a conventional cathode-ray set, though exact comparisons are difficult because plasma screens tend to be much bigger.
The trust describes plasma TVs as "a prime example of gadget addiction".
And Britons are clearly becoming more voracious addicts. Over the past 10 years, the trust says, electricity use by electrical and electronic gadgets has risen by 47%; but the next five years will see an increase of 82%.
"This increase in electricity consumption would result in greater carbon dioxide emissions, one of the major causes of climate change," observed EST chief executive Philip Sellwood.
Market leading
The trust is working with manufacturers to increase the efficiency of their product lines and to develop labelling, and says that some are responsive.
"It's a bit like food labelling - those who did it early were able to have a more decisive voice in how it looked and how it worked."
But even if gadgets are labelled, even if each one becomes more efficient, that does not mean the power used by gadgets overall will decline.
The efficiency of refrigerators has increased markedly, so that the least efficient new fridge freezer on sale today consumes only half as much energy as the least efficient products available eight years ago.
However, so many houses now have two fridges that the total energy consumed by home refrigeration has gone down by only 2% over the same period.
Increases in consumption are keeping pace with increases in efficiency.
Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
In a broad attack on airlines' efforts to tackle carbon emissions, Ian Pearson said Ryanair was the "irresponsible face of capitalism".
But Mr O'Leary said Mr Pearson was "silly" and "hadn't a clue what he is talking about".
Mr Pearson also said the attitude of US airlines to emissions was "a disgrace".
In an interview with the Guardian, Mr Pearson said: "When it comes to climate change, Ryanair are not just the unacceptable face of capitalism, they are the irresponsible face of capitalism."
He also attacked British Airways, saying it was "only just playing ball" on environmental regulations, and Lufthansa, the German airline.
| |
Ian Pearson's comments are
absolutely incredible Caroline Lucas, Green MEP |
Mr O'Leary defended his company and the industry as a whole.
''We are the greenest airline in Europe but you know being savaged by a dead sheep - as we were by this minister this morning - is like water off a duck's back.''
"What he should be attacking is the power generation stations and the road transport who between them account for over 50% of emissions."
'Wrong target'
He said the "silly" minister and "eco-lunatics" were targeting the aviation industry when it accounted for 2% of the problem.
Even though his company was growing, the new planes it had invested £10bn in the last five years had cut its emissions and fuel consumption by 50%, Mr O'Leary said.
He added: "He hasn't a clue what he's talking about and is attacking the wrong target in the airlines."
But Green Party MEP Caroline Lucas said Mr Pearson should resign or scrap the government's aviation expansion plans.
"Ian Pearson's comments are absolutely incredible," she said.
"If anyone other than a government minister had made them they would have been a useful contribution to our efforts to tackle climate change.
| |
HAVE YOUR
SAY
Airlines have been
and always will be a soft target Jack Kilms, Turin, Italy |
"But for someone with collective responsibility for the government's support of the biggest expansion of the aviation industry in a generation to do so is nothing less than a deceptive admission of failure."
Chancellor Gordon Brown attempted to boost the government's green credentials in his pre-Budget report by doubling air passenger duty from £5 to £10 on short haul flights. Passengers on long haul flights could pay up to £80 extra.
But green campaigners said the increased levy would make little difference to emissions.
Friends of the Earth said if the government was serious about fighting climate change it should scrap airport expansion plans and tax breaks for the air industry.
EU scheme
Ryanair has opposed efforts by the EU to control aviation carbon emissions by including them in a trading scheme, saying it would discriminate against low-cost airlines.
| |
Intriguingly Labour are not alone
in taking on the low-cost airline BBC political editor Nick Robinson |
The EU's scheme will see airlines pay for exceeding their current level of emissions.
Flights within Europe will come under the jurisdiction of the Emissions Trading Scheme by 2011.
The scheme would be expanded from 2012 to include all international flights that arrive at or depart from an EU airport.
Airlines would be issued with pollution permits - those that cut emissions would be able to sell their surplus while an airline that increased its emissions would have to buy more permits.
The US has already questioned whether it would be legal within global trading rules to force airlines flying into the EU to take part in the scheme.
And there are reports that US airlines are considering legal action to overturn the EU's efforts.
Easyjet support
In a statement, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: "Urgent progress is needed to ensure that aviation addresses its climate change impacts."
Toby Nicol, spokesman for Budget airline Easyjet, said the company "stands full-square with the government" on the proposal to include EU internal flights and international flights in the carbon trading scheme.
Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Chris Huhne said Mr Pearson's focus should be directed at the chancellor to encourage him to make "the right framework to ensure that airlines are sustainable in the long run so the planet is there for our children and our grandchildren rather than whinging about the airlines."
By Chris Baltimore
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Six U.S. senators, including potential 2008 presidential contenders from both major parties, unveiled legislation on Friday that would force power plants and industry to curb heat-trapping greenhouse gases, seeking to cut emissions to one-third of 2000 levels by 2050.
Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican and possible 2008 presidential contender, introduced a new version of the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act, which he has pursued since 2003 with Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent.Their "cap-and-trade" plan would place a ceiling on emissions of six kinds of greenhouse gases. It would allow emitters from four sectors -- electric utilities, transportation, general industry and commercial -- to either reduce emissions outright or buy tradable permits to comply with the rules.
The two have been pursuing climate change legislation since 2003, but the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress repeatedly rejected their proposals.
"Given our will and what's at stake, America can and must assume its proper leadership role in addressing the preeminent environmental issue of our time," maverick Republican McCain said in a statement.
The bill's four co-sponsors include Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois Democrat and a possible 2008 presidential candidate.
The United States is the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, one of several greenhouse gases blamed for melting glaciers and rising sea levels. Efforts to put mandatory caps on U.S. carbon emissions have repeatedly failed in the Senate.
A majority of scientists, many in the U.S. government,
accept that global warming is spurred by human actions and the
emission of greenhouse gases.
President George W. Bush has consistently opposed mandatory carbon caps as disastrous to the U.S. economy, and the former chairman of the Senate Environment Committee - Republican James Inhofe of Oklahoma, called global warming a "hoax."
But the political chances for greenhouse gas limits could improve in coming months, after Democrats took over both chambers of the U.S. Congress.
This year's bill, tweaked from last year's version, would allow coal-burning utilities and other industry to trade in emissions credits to comply with the reduction requirements, which would gradually increase.
U.S. emissions from four regulated sectors would fall to 2.096 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2050, versus 6.130 billion metric tons in 2000.
The new bill allows regulated emitters to borrow more credits from one another, and creates more "offsets" -- forest plantings or other carbon-reducing projects. Those changes are meant to lower compliance costs, sponsors said.
In the Senate, other lawmakers are pursuing similar climate change proposals. Sen. Barbara Boxer, California Democrat and incoming chairman of the environment panel, has called for a hearing on climate change on January 30.
In the House of Representatives, Rep. John Dingell, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, has called for hearings on climate change, and has invited former Vice President Al Gore to testify, according to a letter Dingell sent to Gore on Thursday.Gore's documentary on global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," has been a box-office hit.
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, New Mexico Democrat and incoming Energy Committee chairman, also has a bill that would reduce carbon "intensity," or output per unit of U.S. economic growth.
According to a U.S. government analysis released this week,
Bingaman's proposal would lower emissions by 5 percent, or 372
million tons, by 2015, and by 14 percent, or 1.26 billion tons,
by 2030
BBC Radio 4's new documentary series that gets inside the stories
that matter to people and is not afraid to challenge.
Simon
Cox looks at the debate over global warming in this country. In October
2006, the Government published The Stern Review on the economics of
climate change. But is the report worth the acclaim it got?
FBRUARY 1st 2007
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
PARIS - Global warming has made stronger hurricanes, including those in the Atlantic such as Katrina, an authoritative panel on climate change has concluded for the first time, participants in the deliberations said Thursday.
During marathon meetings in Paris, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change approved language that said an increase in hurricane and tropical cyclone strength since 1970 "more likely than not" can be attributed to man-made global warming, according to Leonard Fields of Barbados and Cedric Nelom of Surinam.
In its last report in 2001, the same panel had said there was not enough evidence to make such a conclusion.
"It is very important" that the language is so strong this time, said Fields, whose country is on the path of many hurricanes. "Insurance companies watch the language, too."
The panel did note that the increase in stronger storms differs in various parts of the globe, but that the storms that strike the Americas are global warming-influenced, according to another participant.
Fields said that the report notes that most of the changes have been seen in the North Atlantic.
The report — scheduled to be released Friday morning — is also a marked departure from a November 2006 statement by the World Meteorological Organization, which helped found the IPPC.The meteorological organization, after contentious debate, said it could not link past stronger storms to global warming. The debate about whether stronger hurricanes can be linked to global warming has been dividing a scientific community that is otherwise largely united in agreeing that global warming is human-made and a problem.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Kerry Emanuel, who pioneered much of the research linking global warming to an uptick in hurricane strength, looked at the original language in an IPCC draft and called it "a pretty strong statement."
"I think we've seen a pretty clear signal in the Atlantic," Emanuel said. The increase in Atlantic hurricane strength "is so beautifully correlated with sea surface there can't be much doubt that there's a relationship with sea surface temperature."
But U.S. National Hurricane Center scientist Christopher Landsea has long disagreed with that premise. While he would not comment on the IPCC decision, Landsea pointed to the meteorological organization's statement last fall.FEBRUARY
2nd
2007
Now
we
have
what
has
been
obvious
for
25
years
confirmed
by
a
few
thousand
qualified
scientists
working
together
on
solid
data.
My
argument has been, for some time, that even if we were not the cause we
needed to prepare to control it. Now we know we are part of the cause,
some of the means for slowing it are obvious, even if politically not
that easy. The complaint against Gordon Brown that his tax on aviation
is plugging a tax loophole rather than solving a problem is utterly
ridiculous. It was a tax loophole. Plugging it will avoid raising taxes
on other activities, maybe even reducing them. This is in conformity
with the Liberal tax ideas, yet they complain. The hipocrisy is
staggering.
KEY FINDINGS
| |
IPCC REPORT
DEFINITIONS
Probability of
occurrence:
virtually
certain - more than 99%
extremely
likely - more than 95%
very likely
- more than 90%
likely -
more than 60%
more likely
than not - more than 50%
unlikely -
less than 33%
very
unlikely - less than 10%
extremely
unlikely - less than 5%
(Source: IPCC) |
FOURTH ASSESSMENT REPORT
WHAT IS THE IPCC?
The environment secretary said there was a "global battle" ahead for the UK and other countries working together.
But the Tories said the government was not doing enough bring about the necessary "culture change".
And the Lib Dems urged Labour to back "green" taxes - and come up with policies rather than PR stunts.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said temperatures were probably going to increase by 1.8-4C (3.2-7.2F) by the end of the century.
It also projected that sea levels were most likely to rise by 28-43cm, and global warming was likely to influence the intensity of tropical storms.
"Every country in the world [has] to sort out their own emissions," Mr Miliband said.
"That's why we're publishing a climate change bill, the world's first climate change bill that will set a path of emissions' reductions of 60 per cent for the UK by 2050."
It was also important for nations to work together, he said.
"We need to make sure that countries like the United States and in the end China and India also play their part in this global battle against climate change."
Shadow environment secretary Peter Ainsworth said temperature changes would be "extremely significant".
"This report simply reinforces the need for urgent action.
"The science is clear - mankind is responsible for climate change. Now we must be responsible for preventing it."
'Culture change'
He said technology to tackle climate change already existed, but "a cultural change" was needed too, headed by the government.
The Conservatives want annual targets for emission reductions set.
Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Chris Huhne said the report was "a cautious and consensual statement of the overwhelming scientific evidence that we have to act quickly".
He warned of "disastrous consequences" if action is not taken immediately and urged Chancellor Gordon Brown to "make a serious effort to use the tax system to change people's behaviour. We need greener and fairer taxes, but not higher taxes overall."
His frontbench colleague, Sarah Teather, attacked the government for failing to match warm words on the environment with policies.
Commenting its decision to send copies of Al Gore's climate change film An Inconvenient Truth to schools, she said: "The sad fact is that policies seem to be a little too inconvenient for a government that has presided over rising carbon emissions and a fall in green taxes every year since they came to power."
Domestic emissions
Green Party MEP Jean Lambert warned that emissions from domestic houses could cause the UK to fail to meet targets.
She described government policies as "not robust enough".
Responding to the report, the UK government's chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir David King, said pressure was increasing on the US to sign an international agreement to combat climate change.
However, environmental group Greenpeace advocated action by individuals while longer-term alternatives to fossil fuels were introduced.
Friends of the Earth urged governments to act faster.
Of
course population control is not discussed much in the UK and European
context as we are not currently overbreeding, but for the planet as a
whole, lack of population control alone will scupper all plans at
climate control. Nature will take care of the problem in its own way if
we do not.
The crops will be used to generate biodiesel to fuel mobile base stations in unconnected rural areas, without access to electricity.
One third of Indian homes are not connected to the power grid and demand for mobile phones is growing rapidly.
A pilot scheme in west India has been set up by mobile firms and industry body the GSMA development fund.
"It is about connecting the unconnected," said Dawn Hartley, development fund manager at the GSMA.
Rural connection
Mobile phone use has exploded across India. In 2003 there were just 13 million mobile phone subscribers. Today, there are nearly 130 million.
Much of this take-up has been in urban areas where there is a comprehensive mobile network.
But outside the major towns, where approximately three-quarters of India's 1.2 billion people live, mobile coverage is fragmented.
This is in-part because the electricity network, used to power the mobile network infrastructure, is often unreliable and does not cover the whole of the country.
"As GSM operators expand their network coverage into new areas, one of the biggest challenges is to overcome operational issues associated with the lack of basic infrastructure," said Mats Granryd, managing director, Ericsson India.
Remote base stations, which transmit and receive information from handsets, are already powered by conventional fuel generators.
But these can be dirty and require a lot of maintenance.
They can also be expensive to run requiring weekly deliveries of fuel. Ericsson estimates that half of the cost of a remote base station goes on fuel.
Clean running
The pilot scheme, put forward by the GSMA and mobile firms Idea Cellular and Ericsson, hopes to overcome some of these problems by using mobile base stations that use generators running on biodiesel.
The fuel is created by combining plant oils with alcohol, in the presence of a catalyst to speed up the process.
The scheme in India will use oil derived from plants such as cotton, a mahogany-like tree called neem and jatropha.
Jatropha trees are already widely grown across India, specifically as a biofuel crop. The seeds of the plant are a traditional remedy for constipation.
Biodiesel has a lower environmental impact than conventional fuels and crucially, can be grown and processed locally.
Although at pilot stage, the scheme hopes to have up to 10 base stations operating in Pune, in the Maharashtra region of west India, by mid-2007.
The projects build on other GSMA projects operating in Lagos, Nigeria, where the biofuel is derived from groundnuts.
A week of special programming about India can be heard on the BBC World Service from 3 to 11 February
Tony Blair said G8 leaders had a chance to create a new framework, for when the Kyoto Protocol runs out in 2012.
But he said the next few months were crucial if a deal was to be secured at the G8 meeting in Heiligendamm in June.
Ms Merkel, whose country is hosting the G8 presidency, said climate change was one of humanity's biggest challenges.
Speaking after the meeting in Berlin, Mr Blair said the next few months, which will be his last in office, were "absolutely crucial" for climate change and other priorities like the Middle East peace process.
'Delicate moment'
He said Britain and Germany were "very much on the same lines" on key issues.
Both stressed the need for progress on the Middle East peace process, which Mr Blair said was at a "delicate moment", and on the environment.
| |
This is the right moment to look at
how we protect our environment and
grow sustainably, but also make sure we have got secure supplies of
energy in the years go to come Tony Blair |
Mr Blair said there was widespread agreement on the threat posed by climate change, and demand from people across the world for their governments to do something about it.
"This is the right moment to look at how we protect our environment and grow sustainably, but also make sure we have got secure supplies of energy in the years go to come," he said.
But he said it was vital that any post-2012 process was supported by the US, China and India - as well as those who had signed up to Kyoto.
Renewables targets
Ms Merkel said details of a climate change deal would be worked out during a conference in May - to be put to the leaders of the G8 countries in the summer.
It would include a CO2 reduction goal, an international system of carbon pricing to boost the development of greener technology, and ways of giving emerging economies like China and India access to such developments.
| |
This is one of the great challenges
that mankind faces in our time and
one of the great challenges that mankind can do most on if it acts
together Angela Merkel |
She also said the aim was for Europe to reduce greenhouse gases by 30% and increase the share of energy from renewable sources by 20%, by 2020.
"We think that the time has come to work with all our energy and ambition," she said.
"We think this is one of the great challenges that mankind faces in our time and one of the great challenges that mankind can do most on if it acts together and in concert."
Mr Blair, who has said he will resign as prime minister by September, was asked how much he could hope to achieve when he had only a few months left to serve.
He replied: "As much as I can".
The long-term stability of the massive ice sheets of Antarctica, which have the potential to raise sea levels by hundreds of metres, has been called into question with the discovery of fast-moving rivers of water sliding beneath their base.
Scientists analysing satellite data were astonished to discover the size of the vast lakes and river systems flowing beneath the Antarctic ice sheets, which may lubricate the movement of these glaciers as they flow into the surrounding sea.
The discovery raises fresh questions about the speed at which sea levels might rise in a warmer world due to the rate at which parts of the ice sheets slide from the land into the ocean, scientists said at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco.
"We've found that there are substantial subglacial lakes under ice that's moving a couple of metres per day. It's really ripping along. It's the fast-moving ice that determines how the ice sheet responds to climate change on a short timescale," said Robert Bindschadler, a Nasa scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, one of the study's co-authors.
"We aren't yet able to predict what these ice streams are going to do. We're still learning about the controlling processes. Water is critical, because it's essentially the grease on the wheel. But we don't know the details yet," Dr Bindschadler said. "Until now, we've had just a few glimpses into what's going on down there. This is the most complete picture to date about what's going on," he said.
The findings, to be published in the journal Science, came from satellite surveillance of the surface elevation of the ice sheets, which found that they rise or lower depending on the amount of water flowing between the base of the ice sheet and the rock beneath.
The scientists identified many regions of the ice sheet either rose or deflated between 2003 and 2006 as a result of water movements below. Water would be capable of this because it is highly pressurised under the weight of the overlying ice, they said.
Glaciologists have known for some time that water exists under the Antarctic ice sheets - which can be hundreds of metres thick - but they were surprised to find how much water is involved and the speed at which it moves from one subglacial reservoir to another, said Helen Fricker at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego.
"We didn't realise that the water under these ice streams was moving in such large quantities, and on such short time scales. We thought these changes took place over years and decades, but we are seeing large changes over months. The detected motions are astonishing in magnitude, dynamic nature and spatial extent," Dr Fricker said.
The West Antarctic ice sheet is the second biggest on the continent, and the rate at which ice flows from it to the Ross ice shelf, and then ultimately into the sea, is critical in assessing the likely impact of climate change on global sea levels.
The study provides evidence that subglacial water is stored in a linked system of reservoirs underneath the ice and can move quickly into and out of those reservoirs. This activity may play a major role in controlling the rate at which ice moves off the continent, Dr Fricker said.
"The links between ice stream activity and the climate are not well understood. To predict how the ice sheets might respond to global warming, this new information is vital as it gives us a more complete picture of what is happening under the ice," she said.
The study was conductedusing the Icesat satellite. It carries a laser altimeter instrument to detect changes as small as 1.5 centimetres in the elevation of the ice sheet's surface, from an orbit of 400 miles above the earth. "From 600 kilometres up in space, we were able to see small portions of the ice sheet rise and sink," Dr Bindschadler said.
Zoologists from around the world were gathering in Atlanta yesterday to plead for a global action plan to save hundreds of species of frogs believed to be on the brink of extinction, because of, in part, a strange and rapidly expanding fungus.
In the past 10 years, the world has lost 170 species of frog to the fungus and other causes. Of the roughly 6,000 varieties of frog and other amphibians still remaining, such as newts and salamanders, almost a third are believed to also be under threat in regions as far apart as Japan, California, Australia and the Andes.
The two-day conference will launch a rescue operation dubbed the "Amphibian Ark". Scores of zoos, botanical gardens and aquariums will create protected habitats for the amphibians and there will also be controlled breeding programmes to save as many species as possible.
In the meantime, research will be stepped up to try to find a remedy to the fungus. Known as a chrytid fungus, it clogs the pores preventing the normal process of breathing through the skin. The condition first makes amphibians drowsy and eventually kills them as skin begins to peel away.
Herpetologists, who specialise in the study of amphibians, suspect that global warming may be partly responsible for the sudden spread of the fungus. Higher temperatures have caused increased daytime cloud cover in high tropical forests, creating perfect conditions for the fungus to thrive on the frogs.
"Something really terrifying is happening to the planet," said Joseph Mandelson, a herpetologist at Zoo Atlanta, and an organiser of this week's conference. "We'd be very stupid if we did not pay very close attention to this."
The plague, now being likened to the HIV-Aids epidemic afflicting humans, is particularly alarming because it is threatening all amphibians, which are a crucial link between water and land animals and a vital part of the ecological food chain in many habitats.
"This is the precedent of a disease working its way across an entire species on the scale of all mammals, all birds or all fish," Mr Mandelson added.
Medical research for humans would also suffer from the disappearance of many kinds of frog that have been found to offer chemicals that contribute to the manufacture of pain relievers. One species had been linked with a chemical that may help in disabling the virus that causes Aids.
Making the Amphibian Ark work, however, will not be cheap. The group organising it aims to create a special endowment next year to help raise the roughly $500m (£256m) that the project will cost.
There is no definitive word yet on the origin of the deadly fungus but scientists suspect that it may have shown up first in Africa, home to the African clawed frog, which is known to carry the fungus but which appears to be immune to its effects. Other factors in the amphibian deaths include the use of pesticides and the effects of human development.
Last month, Japan for the first time confirmed that it had recorded frog deaths from the fungus. Species known to have been rendered extinct from it have been identified in Australia and Costa Rica. Other regions seeing the impact of the fungus include parts of the Rocky Mountains, all of Mexico, every country in Central America and several in the Andes range.
| By Jonathan Fildes Science and technology reporter, BBC News, San Francisco |
| |
Crab populations were seen to crash Dead zones |
Entire marine ecosystems have been wiped out, devastating populations of sea birds and larger marine mammals.
These "dead zones" occur where there are disturbances to the nutrient-rich ocean currents, which are driven by coastal winds.
Extreme marine suffocations have occurred off the west coast of the US every year for the last five years.
The most intense event, which left the ocean floor littered with the carcasses of crabs, happened in 2006.
| |
Climate models predict increasing
uncertainty with wild fluctuations. We should expect more surprises
Dr Jane Lubchenco, OSU |
Other coastal countries including Chile, Namibia and South Africa have also been affected.
Plant bloom
The common factor between all of the areas is that marine currents off the coast rise from the deep ocean.
These upwelling zones bring nutrient-rich water up from the deep, triggering plankton blooms that underpin the coastal food chain. Nearly 50% of the world's fisheries are in these areas.
The currents are driven by winds that move surface water away from the coast, drawing more up from the deep.
But now, observations along the west coast of the US suggest that the upwelling is being disrupted, changing its timing and intensity.
For example, in 2005 the upwelling was delayed which meant that the plankton blooms did not occur, leading to a collapse in fish populations.
This particularly hit migrating salmon, which pass along the coast in April and May every year.
"In 2005 they found nothing to eat," said Dr Bill Peterson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa). "By the time upwelling started, they were dead."
Huge graveyard
An even more catastrophic event occurred in 2006 when the amount of upwelling doubled, leading to a huge influx of nutrients and a supercharged plankton bloom.
When these sank to the ocean floor they stripped the water column of oxygen, creating a 3,000 sq km (1,150 sq miles) dead zone, where creatures unable to swim away suffocated en masse.
"We were shocked to see a graveyard," he said. "Frame after frame of carcass, carcass, carcass."
Crabs, worms and sea stars all perished in the anoxic water.
The event was so severe that the researchers fear that marine life cannot return to the area.
"In previous years, fish that have escaped the low-oxygen area appear to have returned once the oxygen was renewed," said Dr Jane Lubchenco, also of OSU.
"This year may be different, however, because unlike earlier years, the living habitat was also suffocated."
Uncertain future
The researchers believe the cause of these events was changes in the intensity of the coastal winds, perhaps brought about by global warming.
"What we know from the climate change models is that the land will warm more than the sea," colleague Jack Barth told the BBC News website.
It is this difference in temperature and pressure that drives the winds.
To confirm this link to climate change, the researchers say they need another 10 to 15 years of data.
In the meantime, they say, we must change our approach to managing and using these ecosystems, particularly for fish stocks.
"The most prudent course of action is to begin to think differently about what is happening," said Dr Lubchenco.
"Climate models predict increasing uncertainty with wild fluctuations. We should expect more surprises."
The research was presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in San Francisco, US.
Could these
men reduce the amount of sunshine hitting earth?
Some scientists and engineers are proposing radical, large-scale ideas that could save us from disaster.
The first three proposed ideas featured in the film, look at reducing the power of the sun - thereby cooling the planet.
Professor Roger Angel from Arizona - the designer of the world's largest telescope - is proposing to put a giant glass sunshade in space.
Professor Angel's sunshade will deflect a small percentage of the sun's rays back into space.
Dutch Professor Paul Crutzen won the Nobel Prize for chemistry when he discovered the causes of the hole in the ozone layer.
His plan is to fire hundreds of rockets loaded with tons of sulphur into the stratosphere creating a vast, but very thin sunscreen of sulphur around the earth.
British atmospheric physicist Professor John Latham and engineer Stephen Salter, have designed a fleet of remote-controlled yachts.
These will pump fine particles of sea water into the clouds, increasing the thickness of the clouds and reflecting the suns rays.
Carbon dioxide debate
The other two men in the programme want to tackle the problem of excess carbon dioxide - the cause of global warming.
Ian Jones (L)
and Klaus Lackner (R) are tackling carbon dioxide head-on
Sydney engineer Professor Ian Jones proposes to feed plankton with gallons of fertiliser.
This will make the plankton grow and absorb carbon dioxide from the air.
And New York-based Professor Klaus Lackner has designed a carbon dioxide capturing machine and his plan is to locate more of them across the globe.
They would suck in carbon dioxide, turn it into a powder and he would bury it deep under the ocean in disused oil or gas fields.
Most of the scientists are reluctant advocates of these ideas, and all believe we should be cutting down on our use of fossil fuels to heat our homes and drive our cars.
But is time running out for planet earth?
Although these ideas might have unknown side effects, some scientists believe we may soon have no choice but to put these radical and controversial plans into action.
Five Ways To Save The World was broadcast on 19 February 2007 at 2100 GMT on BBC Two.
Producer/director: Jonathan Barker
Directors: Cecilia Hue & Anna Abbott
Executive producer: Karen O'Connor
Faced with the latest, drastic predictions of the effects of climate change, European countries have agreed to a fresh cut in CO2 emissions of one-fifth and to press for a global reduction of 30 per cent.
Environment ministers yesterday dismissed calls to water down EU objectives and approved a binding set of new targets to be fulfilled by 2020, covering the period after the expiry of the Kyoto protocol in 2012. Cuts of 20 per cent on 1990 levels will be implemented unilaterally by the EU but that figure will rise to 30 per cent if it can be agreed internationally.
Although Poland and Hungary had voiced concerns ahead of yesterday's gathering, neither country stood in the way of a deal. However the detail remains to be worked out and European countries will now negotiate a "burden sharing" regime. This will allow the less developed eastern European nations to catch up economically while their wealthier counterparts compensate by cutting emissions more than the average figure.
The accord was hailed as "an historic decision," by Sigmar Gabriel, Environment Minister of Germany which holds the EU presidency. He said targets could be differentiated depending "on the economic situation in the country".
Germany could, he said, attain a 40 per cent cut in CO2 to help bring average reductions down.
In a key concession, some of the EU's newer members can use different starting points for their calculations. That would permit them to take advantage of the drop in CO2 arising from the disappearance of heavy industry following the collapse of Communism.
Poland, which is allowed to calculate from 1988, says that between then and 2004 emissions dropped by 31.6 per cent, making the new, post-2012 targets easily attainable.
Slovenia will be allowed to use 1986 as a base date while Hungary can calculate emissions from a baseline date of 1985-87.
The overall package agreed yesterday will have to be approved by European heads of government at a summit next month.
Environmental groups gave the deal a mixed reaction, welcoming the fact that targets will be binding but calling on EU countries to implement the 30 per cent reduction irrespective of what other nations around the world agree.
Mahi Sideridou of Greenpeace said: "We happily welcome the 30 per cent emission cut proposed for the EU and for developed countries for 2020. Ministers have listened to the science and made a leap forward in addressing the climate crisis. But to then suggest a meagre 20 per cent unilateral EU emissions cut, while admitting this is inadequate and that a 30 per cent cut will be necessary, is a bizarre discrepancy."
David Miliband, the Environment Secretary, said: "The unilateral commitment to cut EU greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 - the first of its kind - shows we're willing to take concrete action on an issue that citizens care about.
"Action in the EU alone is not enough. Our commitment to a 30 per cent cut in emissions as part of a global agreement strengthens the EU's ability to lead the debate at the G8 and UN climate change talks and to secure an ambitious outcome."
The symptothermal method (STM) assesses fertility levels during the monthly cycle by measuring body temperature, and observing cervical secretions.
The Human Reproduction study found using STM correctly led to a rate of 0.4 pregnancies per 100 women per year.
UK experts said natural family planning was effective - provided it was taught properly and carried out correctly.
A University of Heidelberg team assessed STM in a study of 900 women.
The lowest pregnancy rate was found among women who abstained from sex during their most fertile period, as defined by STM.
| |
SYMPTOTHERMAL
METHOD
Start
of fertile period:
The first fertile day is when the woman first identifies either: 1) first appearance or change of appearance of cervical secretion, or 2) the sixth day of the cycle. After 12 cycles, this second guideline is replaced by a calculation that subtracts seven days from the earliest day to show a temperature rise in the preceding 12 cycles. End of
fertile period:
The fertile phase ends after the woman has identified: 1) the evening of the third day after the cervical secretion peak day, and 2) the evening when the woman measures the third higher temperature reading, with all three being higher than the previous six readings and the last one being 0.2 degrees Celsius higher than the previous six. |
Among those who used a barrier method during this time, such as a condom, the pregnancy rate rose to 0.6 pregnancies per 100 women per year.
Even among those women who had unprotected sex during the fertile period, the pregnancy rate was only 7.5 pregnancies per 100 women per year - around a quarter of the rate one would usually expect.
The researchers believe this was because the women probably only had unprotected sex around the boundaries of their most fertile period.
For a contraceptive method to be rated as highly effective it should lead to less than one pregnancy per 100 women per year when used correctly.
Effective alternative
Lead researcher Dr Petra Frank-Herrmann said: "We maintain that the effectiveness of STM is comparable to the effectiveness of modern contraceptive methods such as oral contraceptives, and is an effective and acceptable method of family planning."
| |
CHANGE IN
CERVICAL SECRETION
The amount
of the hormones oestrogen and progesterone varies in the
menstrual cycle, which alters the quantity and the consistency of
cervical mucus
Just
before ovulation the secretions become clearer, wetter, stretchy and
slippery, like raw egg white
|
STM is governed by a precise set of rules, which do take some time to learn.
Some studies have suggested that a woman's libido is higher during her fertile period, and this could be one of the reasons why natural family planning methods have had a reputation for being less effective than other methods of family planning.
However, Prof Frank-Herrmann said: "There are studies that suggest that this is only the case for a small proportion of women, and that, in fact, women also identify other parts of their cycle with increased sexual desire."
Toni Belfield, of the Family Planning Association (FPA), said: "Natural family planning when taught properly and carried out correctly is a highly effective method of family planning.
"Research has always shown that combining two or more fertility indicators is more effective than relying on a single fertility indicator.
"FPA has always provided full information about natural family planning as this is an important contraceptive choice for women to know about and use."
By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent Tue Feb 27, 1:14 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Declaring the global warming debate over, an international team of scientists urged the world's nations on Tuesday to act now to keep climate change from becoming a catastrophe.
The international community needs to take stronger steps to cut the pace of global warming, adapt to the climate changes that have already taken place and ensure development can be sustained throughout the process, the scientists said in a report released at the United Nations."We make the argument that it is essential that we get started now: not next year, not next decade, but now," said John Holdren, a professor of environmental policy at Harvard University and member of the scientific panel that crafted the report.
This report is a logical next step after the February 2 release of a much-heralded document by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in Paris, which stated that global warming is real and human activities caused much of it over the past half-century.
The earlier report was prohibited from making policy recommendations; the current one, funded by the non-profit U.N. Foundation and Sigma Xi scientific society, centers on just such recommendations.
And while the recommendations are global, certain specific items are sure to affect the United States, Holdren said in a telephone interview before the report's formal release.
For example, scientists said no country should build any traditional coal-burning power plants -- big emitters of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide -- unless they are designed to be able to capture and bury the carbon dioxide they emit.
The United States, which emits about 25 percent of the world's carbon dioxide, relies heavily on coal-fired power plants.
MORE EFFICIENT ENERGY
One recommendation urges improved energy efficiency for vehicles, homes, commercial buildings and in industry, to save money, cut dependence on oil and reduces the balance of payments to pay for oil imports.
Biofuels, such as the ethanol advocated by the Bush
administration, should increasingly replace oil in transport,
the report said.
[Note the dangers
here in setting a target (a) regardless of the energy required to
produce the biofuel and (b) regardless of taking agricultural land out
of food production. - JB]
In the tropics, the international community should aim to slow and eventually reverse deforestation, a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, Holdren said.
Global investment in advanced energy technology should be tripled or quadrupled, the report said. This and the other recommendations are aimed at cutting global warming but also providing economic opportunity and new jobs, he said.
The report stressed the reality of the global warming problem now, and noted the inadequate response to the stronger storms, worse droughts and heat waves and more severe wildfires that are a consequence of higher world temperatures.
"We need to make greater investment in the capacity of the world to deal with those sorts of extreme events, not only because climate is changing, making those events ever more frequent, but because the suffering already associated with our inadequate responses to those needs to be corrected," Holdren said.
The scientists considered nuclear power as a carbon-free option, but said this energy source must address the problem of disposal of radioactive waste and break the link between nuclear technology and weapons proliferation.
On Capitol Hill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said late on Monday she hoped to see a "substantial package" of global warming legislation by June 1.
A two-year international research effort kicked off this week to study the polar regions and how they're tied in to global climate change, in the first such collaborative scientific project in more than 50 years.
Despite its name--International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008--the research project will run from February 2007 to March 2009, and it will call on scientists from 50 to 60 countries to study the Earth's north and south polar regions, or what's called the cryosphere. The stated goal is to investigate changes at the poles, enhance scientific collaboration and understanding of those regions, invest in new technologies and inspire a generation of young scientists through school curricula and public awareness.
"This planet's polar region, for most of us, conjures images of intrepid pioneers, of penguins...of inhospitable areas," Lynn Scarlett, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, said during the opening ceremony held this week in Washington, D.C.
"Yet the polar regions are remote only in their geographic distance from the planet's concentration of human population; they are not remote in their relevance. (They) are interconnected with the ebbs and flows of planetary changes critical to global climate, for example. Changes in polar condition affect biological, atmospheric and human systems around the world," Scarlett said.
The IPY comes 126 years after the first-ever project began in 1881, which was eventually followed up by a second in 1932. The scientific collaboration also inspired the 1957 International Geophysical Year, which studied a broader scope of earth sciences and marked the launch of the Soviet Union's first successful artificial satellite, Sputnik 1.
Such international collaborations are designed to share the costs of technology, infrastructure and expertise needed to study the Earth as a whole. But the Polar Year also enables scientists to study otherwise desolate, remote and freezing parts of the world that are expensive to reach.
Part of the IPY mission is to engage the public in science, much the way Sputnik encouraged a generation of scientists and gave people a new picture of the Earth. U.S. scientists are particularly eager to craft school curricula around IPY because of fears that interest and aptitude in science is waning. Government funding for NASA's science research has also fallen off in recent years as the Bush administration has set priorities for sending people back to the moon and then onto Mars.
As part of a public awareness effort, the U.S. Postal Service in February issued its first-ever commemorative stamp for IPY--an 84-cent international-rate stamp that will have counterparts from eight countries, including Denmark, Finland, Greenland and Sweden. In 1958, the United States issued a 3-cent stamp to commemorate the International Geophysical Year.
IPY will also emphasize scientific research into human-natural systems at the poles; explore new scientific frontiers like plenary and molecular systems in those environments; and create multidisciplinary observing networks for ice, atmosphere and ocean.
In recent weeks, for example, scientists using NASA satellites reported finding an extensive network of lakes and waterways under an Antarctic ice stream that reveal how "leaks" in the system can affect sea level. These systems can sway sea level given that Antarctica holds about 90 percent of the globe's ice and 70 percent of its reservoir of fresh water. Scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography discovered the waterways with data from NASA's highly sensitive satellites, which can capture 3D images of the waterways beneath the ice sheet and measure changes in its surface elevation.
Understanding how the ice sheet changes and affects sea level is one of the primary goals of the IPY.
"(My) hope as a result of this Polar Year is that we will have permanent observatories for ice, cryosphere, atmospheric and ocean that will last well beyond this year," said Conrad Lautenbacher, undersecretary for oceans and atmosphere at the U.S. Department of Commerce and administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Used with permission from CNET
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The assessment of 19 departments by the Sustainable Development Commission found "patchy data and poor performance across most areas" - as it did in 2005.
Most ministries were "using energy less efficiently" although recycling had increased by 8% over the year.
The government said steps were being taken to ensure the targets were met.
The report said most departments were unlikely to hit the target of cutting carbon emissions by 12.5% from 1990 levels by 2010.
"Overall, government performance is simply not good enough," said Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC).
"Against a backdrop of non-stop messages on climate change and corporate social responsibility, the government has failed to get its own house in order.
"It is absolutely inexcusable that the government is lagging so far behind the private sector, when it should be leading the way."
Missing data
The report, Sustainable Development in Government 2006, examined the environmental impact resulting from the operations of 19 departments and their executive agencies.
The findings showed that the government estate during 2006 was responsible for 806,000 tonnes of carbon emissions, generated 186,400 tonnes of waste, and consumed 25 million cubic-metres of water.
Eleven ministries, including the Department of Transport and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), saw an increase in their carbon emissions compared with the previous 12 months.
Although recycling increased, the overall amount of waste produced increased by about 23,000 tonnes. Nine departments could not provide "proper waste data".
During a year that saw widespread water restrictions across southern England, officials consumed an average of 10.2 cubic metres per person, failing to meet the government imposed target of 7.7 cubic metres.
| |
It is time permanent secretaries
were held accountable for meeting these targets Jonathon Porritt, SDC chairman |
The study, compiled for the SDC by Entec UK, an environmental consultancy, did highlight areas where progress had been made.
Three percent more electricity was being sourced from renewable sources, and Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) located on the government estate were "well managed".
The commission praised "strong performances" by the departments for trade and industry, health, and work and pensions.
But it was critical of "very poor performances" by the Cabinet Office and the transport and culture departments.
Held to account
Mr Porritt called on the government to "get to grips" with Whitehall's environmental impact.
"It must ratchet up responsibility to the most senior level, instead of leaving it to hopelessly under-resourced officials down the line," he said.
"It is time permanent secretaries were held accountable for meeting these targets."
Environment Secretary David Miliband accepted it was not enough just to set targets, but said they had to be met too.
"Government is committed to playing its role in tackling climate change and reducing emissions, alongside the actions already being taken by business and individuals," he said.
The minister added that he had asked Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell to take "personal charge" of delivering the targets.
"And we have asked the prime minister's delivery unit to recommend by the end of April the structures we need to put in place to ensure these targets are delivered," Mr Miliband said.
The Pacific's storm system plays an important role in the circulation of the Earth's atmosphere, transporting heat and moisture to the northern latitudes. Renyi Zhang, an atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University, said this weather system had been affected by aerosols - tiny particles of pollution such as soot produced when burning coal.
Damian Wilson, an atmospheric scientist at the Met Office in Exeter, said the Pacific storms formed in the central part of the ocean and headed west, hitting Canada and the northern US. "It's caused by the temperature difference between the northerly latitudes and the more southerly, tropical latitudes - the storms mix the heat around." The weather system is active all year long, reaching its peak every winter in December and a minimum around July. Aerosols can affect weather by influencing the formation and duration of clouds, but to what extent this happens is not well understood.
"Aerosols affect the size of water droplets," said Dr Wilson. "The more pollution particles there are in the air, the smaller the water droplets will be."
Smaller droplets are less likely to run into each other and coalesce into drops of rain, meaning clouds stay in the air longer. To work out how pollution was changing the Pacific weather system Dr Zhang led a team of researchers in analysing the information recorded on clouds over the Pacific from 1984 to 2005. They found that the clouds which make up many of the Pacific storms, called deep convective clouds (DCC), seemed to arise in connection with pollution emission from Asia.
His data showed that the number of these clouds from 1994 to 2005 had increased by 20% to 50% compared with the previous 10-year period. "Our results suggest that the winter Pacific is highly vulnerable to the aerosol effect. The intensified storms over the Pacific in winter are climatically significant and represent a detected climate signal of the aerosol-cloud interaction associated with anthropogenic pollution." The intensified storms highlighted by Dr Zhang would also transfer more of the aerosols further north. "In particular, efficient northward transfers of sensible heat and anthropogenic aerosols can exacerbate warming at higher latitudes," he wrote.
This could have devastating implications for the Arctic. The recent assessment of global warming by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that some of the largest warming occurs over the polar regions. This is partly due to the reduction in ice cover (which means that less sunlight is reflected away) but also because of the increasing presence of aerosols from pollution in the region.
"Warming in the polar regions has catastrophic climate consequences, such as polar ice caps shrinking and sea level rising," wrote Dr Zhang. "The change in the Pacific storm track and its associated climate impacts require further studies from a large scientific community, including investigation with global climate models."
| By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News |
Professors Paul Hardaker and Chris Collier, both Royal Meteorological Society figures, are voicing their concern at a conference in Oxford.
They say some researchers make claims about possible future impacts that cannot be justified by the science.
The pair believe this damages the credibility of all climate scientists.
Both men hold the mainstream view on climate change - that human activity is the cause.
But they think catastrophism and the "Hollywoodisation" of weather and climate only work to create confusion in the public mind.
They argue for a more sober and reasoned explanation of the uncertainties about possible future changes in the Earth's climate.
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I've no doubt that global warming
is occurring, but we don't want to undermine that case by crying wolf
Professor Chris Collier |
As an example, they point to a recent statement from one of the foremost US science bodies - the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
The association released a strongly worded statement at its last annual meeting in San Francisco in February which said: "As expected, intensification of droughts, heatwaves, floods, wildfires, and severe storms is occurring, with a mounting toll on vulnerable ecosystems and societies.
"These events are early warning signs of even more devastating damage to come, some of which will be irreversible."
According to Professors Hardaker and Collier, this may well turn out to be true, but convincing evidence to back the claims has not yet emerged.
"It's certainly a very strong statement," Professor Collier told BBC News.
"I suspect it refers to evidence that hurricanes have increased as a result of global warming; but to make the blanket assumption that all extreme events are increasing is a bit too early yet."
'Scientific basis'
A former president of the Royal Meteorological Society, Professor Collier is concerned that the serious message about the real risks posed by global warming could be undermined by making premature claims.
"I think there is a good chance of that," he said. "We must guard against that - it would be very damaging.
"I've no doubt that global warming is occurring, but we don't want to undermine that case by crying wolf."
This view is shared by Professor Hardaker, the society's chief executive.
"Organisations have been guilty of overplaying the message," he says.
"There's no evidence to show we're all due for very short-term devastating impacts as a result of global warming; so I think these statements can be dangerous where you mix in the science with unscientific assumptions."
The AAAS said it would not be commenting directly on the professors' remarks.
"We feel that the recent consensus statement of the AAAS Board of Directors speaks for itself and stands on its own," a spokesperson explained.
"The AAAS Board statement references (at the end), the scientific basis upon which the conclusions are based, including the joint National Academies' statement and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."
The 'right thing'
Professor Hardaker also believes that overblown statements play into the hands of those who say that scientists are wrong on climate change - that global warming is a myth.
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We have to stick to what the
science is telling us Professor Paul Hardaker |
"We have to stick to what the science is telling us; and I don't think making that sound more sensational, or more sexy, because it gets us more newspaper columns, is the right thing for us to be doing.
"We have to let the science argument win out."
The pair have contributed to a pamphlet called Making Sense of the Weather and Climate, which will be presented on Saturday at the Garden Quadrangle Auditorium at St John's College, Oxford.
The AAAS position on climate can be read on the organisation's website.
There can be no disguising the fact that the open skies aviation issue poses some rather uncomfortable questions for a newspaper like The Independent, which is serious about protecting the environment and yet also supports the free market. Few would defend the existing restrictions on transatlantic air traffic. There is no reason why a handful of British and American airlines should be the only carriers that can operate freely on this route. The European Union was right to get rid of this piece of shameless protectionism. Doing so will boost competition and should result in a superior service for passengers.
The only economically regrettable aspect about yesterday's agreement by European transport ministers - aside from the fact that it remains somewhat biased towards the US airlines - is that it will not come into effect until next March. A handful of airlines have had an unfair advantage for three decades. Why should they be given an extra year in which to cash in?
Yet this reform will also, by bringing down airfares, eventually increase the volume of transatlantic air traffic. This is what happened when a similar open skies agreement was agreed in Europe 10 years ago. That resulted in the runaway success of the low-cost budget carriers Ryanair and easyJet. This is all bad news from the perspective of the struggle against climate change. Air travel is the fastest-growing source of the UK's greenhouse emissions. If it begins to grow internationally at the same rate, all the world's efforts to reduce emissions in other areas will be cancelled out.
A similar conflict of principle is presented by BA's flights from London to Newquay which began this week. BA has a perfect legal right to enter this market. Other carriers are already shuttling between the two points. But these new flights are clearly detrimental to the environment, as is the rapid expansion of regional UK airports. Though domestic flights are short, they are extremely harmful because they release carbon dioxide at a high altitude. They are also a hugely inefficient method of transport because they use so much energy taking off and landing.
But before we conclude that the two principles held by this newspaper are incompatible, it is worth looking more closely at the issue of aviation. While the monopoly on transatlantic flights is manifestly wrong, that is not to say that the feebleness of the international community in curbing the number of flights being taken is right. In other words, handing a handful of airlines a lucrative monopoly is a very unsatisfactory way of keeping down air traffic volumes.
There is a far more effective and honest way. Measures such as a hefty tax on flights, tax on aviation fuel and restrictions on airport expansion are required. The tax breaks for airlines have been a colossal hidden subsidy over the past five decades. The result is that it makes financial sense for some airlines to fly empty flights from point to point, solely to retain their lucrative airport landing slots. This is the Alice in Wonderland economics that has been created by the world's mollycoddling of the airline industry.
And domestic flights are a very different issue. There is no realistic alternative to at least some transatlantic air travel. But there is a very clear green alternative to most domestic air travel: the railways. Put simply, governments should clamp down on domestic air travel and curtail regional airport expansion because passengers can take the train instead.
Ideally, greater international aviation competition and a new tax regime would have been introduced in tandem. We now have the first. For the sake of the planet, it is incumbent on our leaders to establish the second soon.
He said the environment historically had played a part in conflicts, while the world's "oil dependence creates real danger".
By moving towards a low-carbon society, he said that "a post-oil economy is not an unrealistic prospect."
He predicted that technology would develop fully electric cars eventually.
Mr Miliband said: "Over a 20-year period, it is possible to imagine the car industry providing the investment and innovation required to move to a post-oil economy, if governments, preferably across a major market such as the EU, can provide a clear long term signal about the regulatory landscape."
| |
The consequence of failure to
mitigate and adapt to climate change will be suffering on a grand scale
David Miliband Environment Secretary |
He described Sweden's approach to a low-carbon society as "ambitious".
It has announced proposals to reduce petrol consumption by 40 to 50% by 2020.
Mr Miliband, in a speech to the global environment campaign group WWF, said tackling climate change was "our best hope of addressing the underlying causes of future conflict in the world, and is as significant for foreign policy as it is environment policy".
Tensions aggravated
Climate change was more than a threat to nature - "it is a potential humanitarian emergency - since the consequence of failure to mitigate and adapt to climate change will be suffering on a grand scale".
Migration prompted by rising sea levels, water scarcity and the loss of agricultural land represented a major risk, Mr Miliband said, although they would not cause conflict in themselves.
"More often they aggravate tensions that are already there, and act in conjunction with other sources of instability from weak governance, existing armed conflicts, and existing ethnic or religious tensions."
While it was important to focus on the short-term triggers of conflict, "we also need to focus on addressing the long term and underlying causes of conflict, on non-military security solutions, on the material and environmental factors as well as the ideological".
Mr Miliband said it was "right" for a growing movement in the US to push for energy independence in the United States, "focusing mainly on the hidden costs of Middle East oil".
"The cause of energy security can help the world develop the ambition, pace and institutions to move to embrace environmental sustainability."
'Unsustainable rate'
Declining species, degraded ecosystems and increased water use were all examples of "a society consuming resources at an unsustainable rate".
He said it was hoped that the UK's plans to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 60% would show "the developing world that industrialised countries are prepared to act and break the logjam of distrust where each country will only act if they think others will follow suit."
"By moving early, we can ensure our transition to a low-carbon economy is gradual rather than abrupt and costly, and provide the long-term clarity businesses require for investment."
He said it was possible to give people access to light, warmth, mobility, food and water without damaging the environment.
Thu Mar 29, 2:41 AM ET
HOUSTON (Reuters) - A Texas-sized piece of the Antarctic ice sheet is thinning, possibly due to global warming, and could cause the world's oceans to rise significantly, polar ice experts said on Wednesday.
They said "surprisingly rapid changes" were occurring in Antarctica's Amundsen Sea Embayment, which faces the southern Pacific Ocean, but that more study was needed to know how fast it was melting and how much it could cause the sea level to rise.
The warning came in a joint statement issued at the end of a conference of U.S. and European polar ice experts at the University of Texas in Austin.
The scientists blamed the melting ice on changing winds around Antarctica that they said were causing warmer waters to flow beneath ice shelves.
The wind change, they said, appeared to be the result of several factors, including global warming, ozone depletion in the atmosphere and natural variability.
The thinning in the two-mile-(3.2-km)- thick ice shelf is being observed mostly from satellites, but it is not known how much ice has been lost because data is difficult to obtain on the remote ice shelves, they said.
Study is focusing on the Amundsen Sea Embayment because it has been melting quickly and holds enough water to raise world sea levels six meters, or close to 20 feet, the scientists said.
"The place where the biggest change is occurring is the Amundsen Sea Embayment," said Donald Blankenship of the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics.
"One, it's changing, and two, it can have a big impact," he said in a Webcast with a number of conference participants.
Other parts of the continent also were losing ice, he said, but generally not as quickly.
By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court rebuked the Bush administration Monday for its inaction on global warming in a decision that could lead to more fuel-efficient cars as early as next year.
The court, in a 5-4 ruling in its first case on climate change, declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
The Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate those emissions from new cars and trucks under the landmark environment law, and the "laundry list" of reasons it has given for declining to do so are insufficient, the court said.The politics of global warming have changed dramatically since the court agreed last year to hear its first case on the subject, with many Republicans as well as Democrats now pressing for action. However, the administration has argued for a voluntary approach rather than new regulation.
The reasoning in the court's ruling also appears to apply to EPA's decision not to impose controls on global warming pollution from power plants, a decision that has been challenged separately in court, several environmental lawyers said.
In the short term, the decision boosts California's and 11 other states' prospects for gaining EPA approval of their own program to limit tailpipe emissions, beginning with the 2009 model year. Those cars begin appearing in showrooms next year. Emission limits would become stricter each year until 2016.
Automobile makers have said stricter emission limits would be accomplished by increasing fuel-economy standards.
Reacting to the court ruling, the automakers called for an economy-wide approach to global warming, cautioning that no single industry could bear the burden alone.
Monday's ruling also improved the odds that Congress would take action on comprehensive legislation to reduce global warming, said business groups, environmental advocates and lawmakers. Several measures already have been introduced.
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee urged President Bush "to work with Congress to enact a mandatory cap-and-trade proposal and other programs to reduce our nation's greenhouse gas emissions."EPA spokeswoman Jennifer Wood said the agency is studying the court's ruling.
In the meantime, she defended EPA's voluntary partnerships to reduce emissions. "These national and international voluntary programs are helping achieve reductions now while saving millions of dollars, as well as providing clean, affordable energy," Wood said.
Ann R. Klee, who was general counsel at the EPA from 2004 through mid-2006, said the Bush administration's "options are now considerably more limited." She said EPA could still decide not to regulate carbon dioxide, but only if it also concluded that such emissions do not contribute to climate change or endanger public health and welfare.
That's an argument that could be difficult to make given the widespread view among climate scientists that carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is the principal heat-trapping "greenhouse" gas that, if not contained, will lead to significant warming of the Earth, rising sea levels and other marked ecological changes.
Carbon dioxide is produced when fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas are burned. One way to reduce those emissions is to have more fuel-efficient cars.
In handing an almost-total victory to Massachusetts, 11 other states, three cities and 13 environmental groups that sued the EPA, the court adopted many of their concerns and their belief that taking even limited action concerning new American cars and trucks is better than doing nothing.
The court's four conservative justices — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — dissented."In many ways, the debate has moved beyond this," said Chris Miller, director of the global warming campaign for Greenpeace, one of the environmental groups that sued the EPA. "All the front-runners in the 2008 presidential campaign, both Democrats and Republicans, even the business community, are much further along on this than the Bush administration is."
Democrats took control of Congress last November. The world's leading climate scientists reported in February that global warming is "very likely" to be caused by man and is so severe that it will continue for centuries. Former Vice President Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth" — making the case for quick action on climate change — won an Oscar. Business leaders are saying they are increasingly open to congressional action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, of which carbon dioxide is the largest.The court had three questions before it.
_Do states have the right to sue the EPA to challenge its decision?
_Does the Clean Air Act give EPA the authority to regulate tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases?
_Does EPA have the discretion not to regulate those emissions?
The court said yes to the first two questions. On the third, it ordered EPA to re-evaluate its contention it has the discretion not to regulate tailpipe emissions. The court said the agency has so far provided a "laundry list" of reasons that include foreign policy considerations.
The majority said the agency must tie its rationale more closely to the Clean Air Act.
In his dissent, Roberts focused on the issue of standing, whether a party has the right to file a lawsuit.
The court should simply recognize that dealing with the complaints spelled out by the state of Massachusetts is the function of Congress and the chief executive, not the federal courts, Roberts said.
He said his position "involves no judgment on whether global warming exists, what causes it, or the extent of the problem."
Justice Antonin Scalia, in a separate dissent, said the court should not substitute its judgment in place of the EPA's, "no matter how important the underlying policy issues at stake."
Whatever else comes of the decision, "this administration's legal strategy for doing nothing has been repudiated," said David Doniger, counsel for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group involved in the case.
Other states that have adopted California's standards on emissions of greenhouse gases are: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
The case is Massachusetts v. EPA, 05-1120.
By JULIE WATSON, Associated Press Writer
MEXICO CITY - Rising global temperatures could melt Latin America's glaciers within 15 years, cause food shortages affecting 130 million people across Asia by 2050 and wipe out Africa's wheat crop, according to a U.N. report released Tuesday.
The report, written and reviewed by hundreds of scientists, outlined dramatic effects of climate change including rising sea levels, the disappearance of species and intensifying natural disasters. It said 30 percent of the world's coastlines could be lost by 2080.
Scientists with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change outlined details of the report in news conferences around the world Tuesday, four days after they released a written summary of their findings. The report is the second of three being issued this year; the first dealt with the physical science of climate change and the third will deal with responses to it.
In Mexico City, scientists predicted that global warming could cost the Brazilian rain forest up to 30 percent of its species and turn large swaths into savannah. They said ocean levels are projected to rise 4.3 feet by 2080 and flood low-lying cities including Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Polar ice caps will likely melt, opening a waterway at the North Pole and threatening to make the Panama Canal obsolete, IPCC member Edmundo de Alba said. Warmer waters will spawn bigger and more dangerous hurricanes that will threaten coastlines not traditionally affected by them.
Latin America's diverse ecosystems will struggle with intense droughts and flooding and as many as 70 million people in the region will be left without enough water, according to the report.
"What's clear is places suffering from drought are going to become drier, and places with a large amount of precipitation are going to see an increase in precipitation," de Alba said.
Many Latin American farmers will have to abandon traditional crops such as corn, rice, wheat and sugar as their soil becomes increasingly saline, and ranchers will have to find new ways to feed their livestock, scientists said.
They warned that governments are doing too little to prepare for the changes.
"We don't have medium- or long-term plans in Latin America. Governments look the other way," IPCC member Osvaldo Canziani said in Buenos Aires.
The report said Africa is most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The fallout from a swiftly warming planet — extreme weather, flooding, outbreaks of disease — will only exacerbate troubles in the world's poorest continent, said Anthony Nyong, one of the lead authors.
Wheat, a staple in Africa, may disappear from the continent by the 2080s, the report said.
Africa has "the least responsibility for climate change and yet it is perversely the continent with the most at risk if greenhouse gases are not cut," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program.
But Nyong said African governments cannot rely on outside aid to fix problems from climate change. "It is dangerous ... for African governments to continually and perpetually depend on aid for such things that have such a major impact on what we do," he told reporters in Nairobi, Kenya.
In Asia, nearly 100 million people will face the risk of floods from seas that are expected to rise between 0.04 inches to 0.12 inches annually, slightly higher than the global average.
The report suggests that a 3.6-degree increase in mean air temperature could decrease rain-fed rice yields by 5 percent to 12 percent in China. In Bangladesh, rice production may fall by just under 10 percent and wheat by a third by the year 2050.
The drops in yields combined with rising populations could put close to 50 million extra people at risk of hunger by 2020, 132 million by 2050 and 266 million by 2080, the report said.
"It is absolutely vital that international action is taken now to avoid dangerous climate change," Steiner said. "Otherwise the consequences for food and water security in Asia, as for many other parts of the world are too alarming to contemplate."
In Europe's Mediterranean region, climate change is expected to sap electric power generation, raise sea levels in coastal regions, reverse tourism trends and leave millions of people with water shortages, scientists said.
For Australians and New Zealanders, the warming temperatures will be felt mostly through more extreme weather.
"Heat waves and fires are virtually certain to increase in intensity and frequency," said Kevin Hennessy, a lead author on the chapter for Australia and New Zealand. "Floods, landslides, droughts and storm surges are very likely to become more frequent and intense."
___
Associated Press writers Mayra Pertossi in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tom Maliti in Nairobi, Kenya, and Michael Casey in Bangkok, Thailand, contributed to this report.
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent 23 minutes ago
Even tough long-term curbs foreseen by the EU or California fall short of reductions needed to avert a 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) temperature rise over pre-industrial times, seen by the EU as a threshold for "dangerous change," they said.
"If we are to have a 50 percent chance of meeting a 2 Celsius target we would have to cut global emissions by 80 percent by 2050," Nathan Rive of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo told Reuters.
"Any delay in implementing emissions reductions will make a 2 degree target practically unreachable," he and colleague Steffen Kallbekken wrote of findings to be published in the journal Climatic Change.
The EU reckons that there would be dangerous disruptions to the climate such as ever more droughts, heatwaves, floods and rising seas beyond a 2 C ceiling. Temperatures already rose by about 0.7 Celsius in the 20th century.
An 80 percent global cut would mean rich nations, responsible for most heat-trapping emissions from fossil fuels burnt by power plants, factories and cars, would have to axe emissions by about 95 percent below 2000 levels by 2050.
Developing countries such as China, India, Brazil and Indonesia, where emissions are rising sharply in line with energy use to help lift millions from poverty, would have to take on less swinging reductions, they said.
CALIFORNIA
"Even the most ambitious proposals for emissions cuts in 2050, such as the UK draft climate bill which sets a cut of 60 percent, or the California target to reduce emissions by 80 percent by 2050, fall short," they said.
A draft report by the U.N. climate panel due for release on May 4 in Bangkok also concludes that a maximum 2 C rise would be hard to achieve. Restraints on emissions consistent with the goal could cost up to 3 percent of world gross domestic product.
And Kalbekken and Rive said that global emissions would have to peak in 2025, with cuts in place by 2010, to achieve an 80 percent cut by mid-century. Any delays would sharply raise costs.
Under the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, 35 industrialized nations now have goals of cutting emissions by 5 percent below 1990 by 2008-12. The United States, which says the plan is too costly and wrongly excludes developing states, is the main outsider.
U.N. climate negotiations focused on widening Kyoto beyond 2012 are stalled. Developing nations say they cannot be expected to cap emissions when energy use has been a key to economic growth by rich states since the Industrial Revolution.
Mr Howard said there would only be enough water in the huge Murray-Darling river system for drinking purposes.
He acknowledged that this would have a "potentially devastating" impact on many horticultural, crop and dairy industries around the river basin.
But he said there was no choice, and he described the situation as "grim".
Irrigators are already warning that if they cannot water their land, there will be huge crop losses and Australian consumers will face large price rises.
Praying for rain
Australia is suffering from its worst drought on record, and the lack of rainfall has already severely reduced the production of major irrigated crops in the Murray-Darling river basin.
The basin, which covers an area the size of France and Spain combined, accounts for 41% of Australian agriculture and usually provides about 85% of the nation's irrigation supply.
"If it doesn't rain in sufficient volume over the next six to eight weeks, there will be no water allocations for irrigation purposes in the basin" until May 2008, Mr Howard told reporters in Canberra.
"It is a grim situation, and there is no point in pretending to Australia otherwise," he said. "We must all hope and pray there is rain."
Mr Howard acknowledged that banning irrigation for crops and livestock in the Murray-Darling basin would have a "critical" impact on many industries in the area.
Farmers are warning that Australians could face major food price rises if no water is allocated to irrigators in the Murray-Darling Basin.
National Farmers' Federation head Ben Fargher said that thousands of farmers could lose their citrus, almond and olives trees if they cannot be watered this year.
"If those ... trees do die, then it takes a number of years to recover - maybe five to six years of lost production," he told ABC radio.
Australia may not have a rice crop at all this season if it gets no irrigation allocations, Laurie Arthur, president of the Ricegrowers Association, told Reuters news agency.
"If it stays dry there will potentially be catastrophic losses," he said.
Australia's wine grape production and the farming of stone fruits is also likely to be affected.
Election issue
Mr Howard's government is anxious to tackle the country's drought - which is now in its sixth year.
In January, he announced a A$10bn ($7bn) package to tackle the country's water problems, including a plan to overhaul irrigation pipes along the Murray-Darling river system.
He also introduced plans for the federal government to assume regulatory control of the river system from the four states that currently administer irrigation rights.
All states but one - Victoria - have so far agreed to the plan.
Water scarcity is likely to be a key issue in Australia's elections later this year.
The prime minister said businesses, government and the public had to "step up to the mark and do something".
Mr Blair's comments came as he met the bosses of eight of Britain's biggest firms, and ahead of a meeting of 13 of the world's biggest countries in June.
"By working together... we can meet this challenge," he added
'Crucial'
Environment Secretary David Miliband, also attending a meeting with Mr Blair and business leaders in London, said: "2007 is going to be an absolutely crucial year for the battle against climate change."
Mr Blair said: "The government will continue to give a lead in tackling climate change, both at home and internationally, to reduce emissions globally."
Mr Blair said a meeting of the G8 group of major economies - plus Brazil, South Africa, India, China and Mexico - in June would be vital.
These countries accounted for 70% of global carbon dioxide emissions, he added.
Mr Blair and Mr Miliband were attending the launch of the Climate Group's We're In This Together campaign to bring businesses, government and communities together to provides ideas for reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
Eight major businesses, including Marks and Spencer, Tesco, BSkyB and B&Q, set out steps they are taking.
China has admitted that global warming will have a massive impact on its environment but it is ready to take only limited action to reduce its soaring carbon emissions.
Its first report on climate change says that the country has warmed up more than most in the past 50 years and that drought and flooding will cause severe damage to crop production unless something is done.
China is already poised to overtake the United States as the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide — possibly this year and no later than next year — the International Energy Agency said at the weekend.
The National Climate Assessment Report says that by 2020, the nation’s average temperature will increase from 1.1C to 2.1C. This will result in increased floods in the east and more droughts in the north and the west. The higher than average temperatures will also mean spreading deserts, shrinking glaciers and more outbreaks of disease.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]By the end of the century glaciers on the Tibet plateau that feed the Yangtze river — an important source of water and power for the Shanghai basin and its hinterland — could shrink by two-thirds. Higher rainfall downstream would also trigger landslides and other geological disasters around the massive Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze.
The report says that water scarcity and extreme weather could reduce nationwide crop production by as much as 10 per cent by 2030. In the second half of the century wheat, rice and corn production could drop by up to 37 per cent. “If we do not take any actions climate change will damage China’s longterm grain security,” it says.
However, it rules out absolute and compulsory caps before 2050 on China’s rising greenhouse gas emissions in favour of much less ambitious goals. Instead it suggests cutting the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide created per unit of national wealth. That, if adopted, would be China’s first — albeit unambitious — climate change goal.
The main proposal is to cut emissions of carbon dioxide per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 40 per cent from 2000 to 2020. That is a measure called carbon intensity. However, China’s aim over the same two decades is to quadruple its GDP — so that reaching its carbon intensity goal would imply more than a doubling of emissions.
The European Union says that the plan is incompatible with avoiding more dangerous climate change. It believes that to minimise warming greenhouse gas emissions will have to fall in rich nations and no more than double in developing countries.
China, however, believes that international emission limits are unfair and could cause economic problems. It claims that it lacks the technology to meet such ambitious goals. Its leaders are also concerned that closing older factories or power plants could destroy jobs in poorer areas, where the government worries about unrest among the unemployed.
By Noah Barkin
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, on her first trip to Washington since assuming the presidency of the EU, is seeking to convince the Bush administration take concrete steps to curb the greenhouse gases blamed for climate change.
Merkel hopes the joint statement will lay the groundwork for a broader deal on combating global warming at a June G8 summit she will host in the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm.
"I think on climate and energy efficiency, we've taken a step forward," she told reporters in Washington before her meeting with President George W. Bush. "We want to use this as a foundation for a broader agreement at the summit between the G8 countries, and perhaps also India and China.The statement on energy security, efficiency and climate change will be presented alongside a broader "Transatlantic Economic Partnership" designed to cut costly non-tariff barriers to trade between the EU and United States.
Under that agreement, the partners will agree to harmonize regulatory standards and cooperate in areas like intellectual property, trade security, investment and financial markets.
A council led by EU Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen and White House economic adviser Allan Hubbard will be set up to monitor progress in aligning regulations and present annual reports to EU and U.S. leaders.
In addition to the fixed agenda, Merkel and Bush will hold talks on an array of international issues from Iran's nuclear program to Middle East peace.
RUSSIA TENSIONS
Russian relations have also been thrust to the forefront after a hawkish speech by President Vladimir Putin last week in which he denounced U.S. plans to put a missile shield in central Europe and froze Moscow's commitments under a key arms treaty.German officials have painted the joint declaration on climate change as a rhetorical leap forward for the Bush administration, but the statement does not contain any concrete pledges to take action.
The draft says the EU and U.S. are committed to stabilizing greenhouse gases and acknowledges work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, which released a report this month that said rising temperatures were changing the globe and could lead to more hunger, water shortages and extinctions.
The draft urges the development and commercialization of advanced technologies to "slow, stabilize and significantly cut" global emissions and promises a joint effort to deliver results at Heiligendamm and work constructively in the run-up to a key U.N. meeting on climate change in Bali, Indonesia in December.
On her fourth visit to Washington, Merkel has developed a close relationship with Bush, repairing ties which became badly strained when her predecessor Gerhard Schroeder clashed with the U.S. president over the Iraq war.But with less than six weeks to go until Heiligendamm, she faces a daunting task in persuading Bush to agree to broader, binding international steps to fight climate change.
German officials have also expressed concern the escalating Cold War-type showdown between Washington and Moscow over the missile shield and another looming battle over Kosovo independence could overshadow the June 6-8 summit.Boosting renewable energy, reducing deforestation and improving energy efficiency can all help, they said.
This is the third report this year from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and aims to set out the costs and benefits of various policies.
IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri said the report was "stunning".
| |
If we continue to do what we are
doing now, we are in deep trouble Ogunlade Davidson, IPCC http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM040507.pdf |
The report suggests that if major climate impacts are to be avoided, global emissions should peak and begin declining within one or two decades.
The IPCC has already this year produced the two other elements of this global assessment report - its fourth since 1990 - dealing respectively with the science of climate change and the potential impacts.
Continued growth
Greenhouse gas emissions have risen by 70% since 1970, and will rise by between 25% and 90% over the next 25 years under "business as usual".
| |
Renewable energy generally has a
positive impact on energy security, employment and air quality IPCC report |
"If we continue to do what we are doing now, we are in deep trouble," observed Ogunlade Davidson, a senior author on the report.
During the early part of the week, China had repeatedly tried to tone down some elements of the draft text, delegates said, being keen to remove references to scenarios which it feared could affect its short-term economic growth.
But in later sessions it played a more consensual hand.
Stable futures
The report assesses the likely costs to the global economy of stabilising greenhouse gases at various concentrations in the atmosphere.
Stabilisation at reasonable cost is possible, it concludes, commenting: "There is considerable economic potential for the mitigation of global greenhouse gas emissions over the coming decades, that could offset the projected growth of global emissions or reduce emissions below current levels."
The sharpest cuts, keeping greenhouse gas concentrations to levels equivalent to between 445 and 535 parts per million of carbon dioxide, might cost anything up to 3% of global GDP by 2030, while milder curbs could even enhance growth.
| |
COSTS OF
STABILISATION
IPCC
assesses the likely impacts on global GDP by 2030 if cost-effective
routes are used
Stabilisation
between
445ppm
and
535ppm
would
cost
less
than
3%
of
global
GDP,
it
concludes
Between
535ppm and 590ppm would cost 0.2-2.5%
Between
590ppm and 710ppm would bring anything between a net benefit of 0.6%
and a net cost of 1.2%
Different
greenhouse gases have different impacts on warming per
volume; total concentrations are expressed as the equivalent in parts
per million of a certain volume of CO2 (ppm CO2-eq)
Current
concentration
is
about
425ppm
CO2-eq
|
Assessing the impacts of a given concentration is not an exact science, but many researchers believe that keeping concentrations below about 450ppm CO2-eq is necessary if the average global temperature rise is to be kept below 2C, and major impacts avoided.
The IPCC suggests that concentrations between 445ppm and 490ppm would keep the temperature rise to 2.0-2.8C. European Union policy is to avoid a rise greater than 2C.
"If you want to stabilise around 450ppm, that means in a decade or two you have to start reducing emissions far below the current level," said Dr Pachauri.
"So in other words, we have a very short window for turning around the trend we have in rising greenhouse gas emissions. We don't have the luxury of time.
Building concensus
Many technologies can play a role in cutting emissions, the IPCC says; but it singles out the building sector as a potential major contributor, and energy efficiency as something that "plays a key role across many scenarios for most regions and timescales".
Nuclear power and carbon capture and storage, where emissions from fossil fuel power stations are captured and buried underground, could play important roles; but with nuclear, "safety, weapons, proliferation and waste remain as constraints".
"Technology alone will not be enough," he told BBC News, "and in any case, technology has a clear connection with government policy.
"Incentives... must come from taxes or a carbon price."
Catherine Pearce, international climate campaigner with Friends of the Earth UK, said there was now no economic excuse for inaction.
"By introducing measures and investment that will stimulate sustainable renewable energies and energy efficiency, governments can help to achieve cuts in global emissions by 50% by 2050. Without this, we face devastating consequences."
By Deborah Zabarenko,
Environment Correspondent Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Southern Ocean around Antarctica is so loaded with carbon dioxide that it can barely absorb any more, so more of the gas will stay in the atmosphere to warm up the planet, scientists reported on Thursday.
Human activity is the main culprit, said researcher Corinne Le Quere, who called the finding very alarming.
The phenomenon wasn't expected to be apparent for decades, Le Quere said in a telephone interview from the University of East Anglia in Britain.
"We thought we would be able to detect these only the second half of this century, say 2050 or so," she said. But data from 1981 through 2004 show the sink is already full of carbon dioxide. "So I find this really quite alarming."
The Southern Ocean is one of the world's biggest reservoirs of carbon, known as a carbon sink. When carbon is in a sink -- whether it's an ocean or a forest, both of which can lock up carbon dioxide -- it stays out of the atmosphere and does not contribute to global warming.
The new research, published in the latest edition of the journal Science, indicates that the Southern Ocean has been saturated with carbon dioxide at least since the 1980s.
This is significant because the Southern Ocean accounts for 15 percent of the global carbon sink, Le Quere said.
GLOBAL WARMING SPURS WINDS
Increased winds over the last half-century are to blame for the change, Le Quere said. These winds blend the carbon dioxide throughout the Southern Ocean, mixing the naturally occurring carbon that usually stays deep down with the human-caused carbon.
When natural carbon is brought up to the surface by the winds, it is harder for the Southern Ocean to accommodate more human-generated carbon, which comes from factories, coal-fired power plants and petroleum-powered motor vehicle exhaust.
The winds themselves are caused by two separate human factors.
First, the human-spawned ozone depletion in the upper atmosphere over the Southern Ocean has created large changes in temperature throughout the atmosphere, Le Quere said.
Second, the uneven nature of global warming has produced higher temperatures in the northern parts of the world than in the south, which has also made the winds accelerate in the Southern Ocean.
"Since the beginning of the industrial revolution the world's oceans have absorbed about a quarter of the 500 gigatons (500 billion tons) of carbon emitted into the atmosphere by humans," Chris Rapley of the British Antarctic Survey said in a statement.
"The possibility that in a warmer world the Southern Ocean -- the strongest ocean sink -- is weakening is a cause for concern," Rapley said.
Another sign of warming in the Antarctic was reported on Tuesday by NASA, which found vast areas of snow melted on the southern continent in 2005 in a process that may accelerate invisible melting deep beneath the surface.
The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which is supposed to offset greenhouse gases emitted in the developed world by selling carbon credits from elsewhere, has been contaminated by gross incompetence, rule-breaking and possible fraud by companies in the developing world, according to UN paperwork, an unpublished expert report and alarming feedback from projects on the ground.
One senior figure suggested there may be faults with up to 20% of the carbon credits - known as certified emissions reductions - already sold. Since these are used by European governments and corporations to justify increases in emissions, the effect is that in some cases malpractice at the CDM has added to the net amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.
The problems focus on the specialist companies that validate and verify the projects in the developing world which produce the certified emission reductions. Three of those companies have failed spot checks, which revealed a catalogue of weakness.
Separately, one of the CDM's experts calculates that as many as one third of the projects registered in India are commercial ventures which do not produce any additional cut in greenhouse gases and were wrongly approved.
There are only 17 of these validating and verifying companies. Most of them have a clean track record and will have approved reliable emissions reductions, but three of them have been performing so poorly that the CDM's executive board ordered spot checks - and all three companies failed on multiple grounds. The findings on one company, which is believed to have validated dozens of projects and verified millions of tonnes of carbon reductions, were so bad that the board considered suspending its right to work.
The chairman of the CDM board, Danish energy consultant Hans Jürgen Stehr, insisted that in the end the problem was not bad enough to require any of the companies to be suspended. However, he said: "This has been serious. We are talking about competence and the ability of the company to do a proper job." He ruled that none of the three companies be named.
In the formal language of the UN, the minutes record findings for each of the three companies variously of "non-conformities regarding...its competencies to perform validation and verification functions, its quality assurance and quality control mechanisms and compliance with the CDM requirements...procedural and operational requirements, such as its management and operational structure, contract control...and compliance with its own stipulated procedures." The board has called for a new regime of surveillance of their work.
One source who has been working closely with the CDM board had seen some companies filing reports with "all kinds of basic errors which make you wonder if they have any idea what they're doing". They included an entire report in a foreign language when basic rules require it to be in English; submitting a report containing remarks such as "we must check this before we submit the report".
Other errors are said to be more serious, including conjuring up numbers when projects on the ground failed to provide them; giving a green light to commercial projects which make no contribution to reducing greenhouse gases; and approving existing projects which cannot claim to be part of the drive to cut emissions.
Most of the concern is around the crucial CDM test of "additionality" - proof that a project is delivering cuts in greenhouse gases that would not otherwise have happened. In an unpublished report, one of the CDM board's expert advisers, Axel Michaelowa, examined all 52 Indian projects which had been registered up to May 2006 and found that a third of them failed this additionality test.
Mr Michaelowa found evidence of projects supplying false information which was then accepted by the companies who were supposed to check it. In one case cited in the report, he accuses an Indian company of making statements which were "blatantly false". Despite his protests, that scheme was approved.
· Additional reporting by David Adam
By Gerard Wynn - Reuters
Rich countries meeting in Germany this week will agree that they need to confront climate change, but unpleasant tradeoffs are already emerging.
Unless properly managed, a rush to reshape the world's economy to arrest climate change could end up trampling the lifestyles of the rich, the livelihoods of the rural poor, and the earth's most vulnerable habitats.
A tequila shortage is perhaps one of the least-expected results of planting lucrative, "climate-friendly" biofuels -- as Mexican farmers set ablaze their fields of cactus-like agave to make way for corn, a feedstock for ethanol. Biofuels are also blamed for raising food prices and destroying forests.
The result of misguided climate policies could be to undermine public support for action and discourage businesses from buying in.
"Definitely there'll be tradeoffs between climate change and the local environment, and with energy security," said Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency (IEA), which advises rich countries.
"We are not in the luxury of being able to choose from hundreds of energy types."
Just how mankind plans to battle climate change is still
sketchy, but one buzz word is "scaling up" -- for example by
boosting research into and deployment of clean energy
technologies like wind and nuclear power and biofuels.
[Note the dangers
here in setting a target (a) regardless of the energy required to
produce the biofuel and (b) regardless of taking agricultural land out
of food production. - JB]
Urgency has been spurred by a series of U.N. climate reports this year confirming threats like desertification, droughts and rising seas and calling for action now to cut the long-term cost.
But evidence is emerging of the repercussions. British charity Christian Aid says Colombian rebel groups are forcing poor people off their land to grow lucrative palm oil for biodiesel, likening it to diamonds financing African wars.
"You could have blood biofuels in the same way as blood diamonds. It's a classic case of exploiting natural resources behind the veil of conflict," said Christian Aid climate policy analyst Andrew Pendleton.
"Unscrupulous private sector operators, rebel groups, are keen to make a fast buck."
POOR
Biofuels already occupy an area equal to all of the arable land in France, says the IEA, and they are blamed for raising the cost of corn, sugar and other foods they compete with for land.
But negative repercussions are hard to prove.
A hike in the price of tortillas, a Mexican staple, was blamed on biofuels and sparked riots, but may have more to do with the monopoly power of dominant tortilla producers, says Annie Dufey, research associate at Britain's International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
Such fears risk fatalism and favor the status quo, said Bert Metz, chair of a major U.N. report published last month on policy options.
"Problems of land ownership and poor people are there, let's do something about it, but not blame it on climate change," he said.
"There's no basis for supposing climate policies will create more problems than they solve, provided they're put in place wisely. I'd view that as another excuse for doing nothing."
The report did not weigh the cost and benefit of the recent consumer fad of boycotting air freight and travel to reduce carbon emissions, which could inadvertently hurt African exports and tourism.
"It's inequitable, tokenism," said the IIED's Bill Vorley of such consumer concerns.
Fresh fruit and vegetable exports from sub-Saharan Africa accounted for less than 0.1 percent of total British greenhouse gas emissions, but supported more than one million people, the IIED estimates.
SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL
On energy supply, a focus on small-scale distribution is the answer to fighting climate change and poverty both at once, say non-governmental and U.N. organizations.
In an interview with Reuters, Clemens Betzel, the president of Cardiff-based solar power company G24 Innovations, put on a table a bendy, solar power generator the size of a sheet of paper.
It produces enough power to run a mobile phone or light bulb, but there's plenty of demand for that, he said.
"People sit on a street corner selling power from a car battery. They're paying $60 to a $100 a year for kerosene to light their home," said Betzel, who said he could market his product for $20.
"We're going into Africa, India, China."
Small-scale biomass and solar power projects could also work in rich countries, reducing the need to switch to big, low-carbon alternatives like nuclear, hydroelectric and wind power, all of which face some opposition.
Environmental group Greenpeace says that a renewed focus on nuclear energy could divert political and financial capital from longer-term, renewable energy alternatives, although operators such as France's EDF point to affordability..
Meanwhile, hydropower could itself become a victim of global warming as rainfall patterns change, while it brings old problems of obliterating homes and wildlife. On June 1, a Brazilian court allowed the Estreito hydroelectric power project to move forward, over the opposition of indigenous and other groups.
Similarly, projects like burying greenhouse gases underground -- so-called carbon capture and storage (CCS) -- could simply delay the phase-out of coal and its associated effects on human health and the landscape.
"The biggest negative spin-off is that people continue to mine coal, so if you happen to live in Kentucky they'll strip-mine your backyard," said Stuart Haszeldine, professor of geology at Edinburgh University.
The worry that CO2 could leak from underground and asphyxiate people above was almost unfounded, however, he added.
Another proposal, installing mirrors or other reflective objects in the earth's atmosphere to reflect the sun's light and heat back into space draws short shrift from critics for its excessive complexity.
That would be like calming a rocking boat by rocking the sea, said clean energy entrepreneur Bill Joy.
By Jeff Mason and Thomas
Krumenacker Reuters
HEILIGENDAMM,
Germany (Reuters) - World leaders agreed on Thursday to pursue
substantial but unspecified cuts in greenhouse gases and work with the
United Nations to clinch a new deal to fight global warming by 2009.
The agreement, sealed at a G8 summit on the Baltic coast, binds the world's largest polluter, the United States, more closely into international efforts to curb the gases scientists say are causing dangerous changes to world weather patterns.
But it does not commit the club of industrialised nations -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States -- to the firm emissions reduction targets that the summit host, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, had wanted.
U.S. President George W. Bush has refused to sign up to numerical targets before rising powers like China and India make similar pledges. Convincing them to join the U.N. process will be crucial to reversing a rise in global temperatures.
Bush and Russian leader Vladimir Putin met face-to-face in Heiligendamm for the first time since an ugly diplomatic row erupted over U.S. plans to put parts of a missile shield in central Europe.
At the meeting, Putin appeared to catch Bush off guard with a new proposal that Washington and Moscow jointly use a radar system in Azerbaijan as an alternative to the disputed U.S. plan to base parts of a shield in the Czech Republic and Poland.
"We can do this automatically, and hence the whole system which is being built as a result will cover not only part of Europe but entire Europe without an exception," Putin said.
He said the plan would mean Russia did not need to follow through on a threat to train missiles on Europe.
Protests by anti-globalisation activists continued around the venue, with demonstrators blocking road access and stopping a steam train meant to shuttle officials to and from the elegant 19th century seaside hotel where leaders met.
Police patrol craft rammed two inflatable speed boats that breached a security zone around the venue, tipping environmental activists into the Baltic and injuring three of them.
GLOBAL WARMING
On global warming, the G8 agreed that "resolute and concerted international action" was urgently needed, vowing to stem a rise in greenhouse gases, followed by "substantial" reductions.
Leaders also said they would pursue a new global climate deal by 2009 to extend and broaden the Kyoto Protocol. The final text noted that the EU, Canada and Japan all wanted emissions halved by the middle of the century -- a sign of the split over targets advocated by Merkel.
Under the deal, new climate proposals unveiled by Bush last week would be integrated into the established United Nations process -- a key demand of European countries.
The language represented a partial victory for Merkel, who spent months pressuring the United States, the only G8 country not to sign up to Kyoto, to compromise.
"It's a very positive outcome," Yvo de Boer, the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat in Bonn, told Reuters.
"But bear in mind that this is a G8 conclusion and there are one or two other countries in the world who have to commit to a launch in Bali," he said, referring to a December U.N. meeting in Indonesia where talks will begin to extend Kyoto beyond 2012.
Prime Minister Tony Blair, who put the climate issue on the global agenda at a G8 summit two years ago, hailed the deal as a "major step forward" and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Bush had shown "real flexibility".
However, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was less enthusiastic: "If you want me to say that we could have done better then, yes. I want to speak frankly."
As G8 countries finalised pledges of aid for Africa, rock stars Bono and Bob Geldof launched a last-ditch effort to force leaders to honour the commitments made at Gleneagles in 2005.
"The Chancellor has asked us to trust her - and we are tempted, but we cannot risk being let down by the G8 again," Bono said.
(Additional reporting by Gernot Heller, Alister Doyle, Katherine Baldwin, Tabassum Zakaria, Madeline Chambers, Erik Kirschbaum, Caren Bohan, Christian Lowe, Crispian Balmer, Louis Charbonneau, Knut Engelmann)
| By Roger Harrabin BBC Environment Analyst |
He said there was no point blaming China for rising global CO2 emissions.
Rich nations had to set an example of low-carbon development for China to follow, Mr Ashton told the BBC.
His statement came as a new report suggested that China may have already become the world's biggest polluter - much earlier than expected.
The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency said China's CO2 emissions had risen by 9% last year, compared with 1.4% in the US.
Carbon footprint
"It is a massive challenge," Mr Ashton told the BBC following a recent trip to China.
"We need to convince China that they don't have to make a choice between prosperity and protecting the climate. We need to help them towards a low-carbon future.
"There is also a moral case. Most of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have been put there by developing countries without the constraint of having to worry about the climate. That means we should bear the leading edge of responsibility.
Mr Ashton added that the Chinese had put out their first climate strategy, in an effort "to get to grips with their emissions and use energy efficiently".
He pointed out that much of China's emissions growth was being driven by consumers in the West buying Chinese goods, and noted that China's emissions per person were still well below those of rich nations.
It is estimated that the average American still pollutes between five and six times more than the average Chinese person.
Climate sceptics in the UK have been asking why Britons should switch off lights, turn down central heating and avoid foreign flights in order to save carbon when the Chinese are increasing emissions at their current rate.
"Responsibility for China's soaring emissions lies not just in Beijing but also in Washington, Brussels and Tokyo," said Greenpeace UK director John Sauven.
"All we've done is export a great slice of the West's carbon footprint to China, and today we see the result.
"Let us not forget that the average Chinese emits just 3.5 tonnes of CO2 per year, whereas Britons emit nearly 10 tonnes and Americans 20 tonnes.
"The West moved its manufacturing base to China knowing it was vastly more polluting than Japan, Europe or the US," he added.
"No environmental conditions were attached to this move; in fact the only thing manufacturers were interested in was the price of labour.
"This trend kept the price of our products down but at the cost of soaring greenhouse gas emissions. Long term, this policy has been a climate disaster.
"We should export clean energy technology to China to increase low carbon and renewable energy take-up so the products we import have a smaller carbon footprint."
Visit the In Our Time website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/Here is Melvyn's letter. It is important.
or download the latest edition as an mp3 file: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime.shtml
Hello
I’m afraid this is going to be a series of jottings. After the programme
yesterday I went to see a rough cut about a series we’re making on
written Britain, and then a lunch meeting with the editor of Arena to
discuss common tactics, and then to the Lords, and then back for
another rough cut, this time on Dame Emma Kirkby, then, and then,
and then … ending up, curiously enough, with dinner with someone
whom I’d scarcely met before who turned out to be an expert on the
Permian-Triassic Boundary, which took me back to breakfast.
After the programme there was a lot of talk about methane. All three
seemed to agree that there would very soon be a world power
shortage and the common opinion was that we would go back heavily
to coal, but that methane, properly used, could develop a technology
which would solve many problems. For instance, there’s enough
methane in America alone to power the whole of North America for
between 500 and 5000 years. It’s just a question of finding out how
to use it. There is also a fear that the methane hydrates, which seem
to have been the truly lethal factor 250 million years ago, are still with
us and are already leaking out of the Siberian ice-cap.
Methane, as was said on the programme, warms the atmosphere up
much more quickly than carbon dioxide. Apparently, cows and
termites are big culprits here.
Jane Francis, who leads expeditions to the Antarctic and is about as
unflappable as you could imagine, thinks that the most serious fact in
discussions about climate change is that, without any question, the
carbon dioxide tally in the atmosphere is rocketing. It has stayed
stable – this can be proved – for tens of thousands of years but now it
is not just going up in a blippish way, as she said, but really rocketing.
She even used the phrase “it’s scary”. In the last five years alone,
she’s watched the ice-cap diminish and seen the carbon dioxide
increase, although she doesn’t think we’re necessarily talking about
long-term consequences.
Indeed, there is still a school of thought (with which, for reasons
perhaps to do with psychology rather than science, I sometimes
sympathise) which says we do not have enough evidence to make a
theology out of the certain apocalypse of climate change. Richard
Corfield pointed out that in this country 300 years ago there was a
mini Ice Age and surely records were too short for predictions of
imminent doom. Something, incidentally, that my companion at
dinner also pointed out.
But Jane Francis is not to be trifled with, I think. She also pointed out
that the decision to go for bio-fuel was turning into a complete
disaster. Cutting down the Amazon forests to grow bio-fuels was
utterly ridiculous, she said. Nevertheless, although doom
accompanied the BBC tea and croissants, I can report that it was
discussed in a most cheerful and understated manner.
Best wishes
Melvyn Bragg
JUNE 30th 2007
BP and Associated British Foods say the facility near Hull will reduce greenhouse gases from transport, and deny it could increase the price of food or lead to overcapacity in the fast-growing new fuel sector. But the move coincided with a financial restructuring at a fledgling UK biofuels company which claimed that a flood of subsidised green diesel supplies from America had pushed it close to insolvency.
Hundreds of thousands of acres of land will need to be set aside for wheat production to make ethanol for the BP plant at Saltend near Hull. Iain Conn, the chief executive of the group's refining and marketing arm, said the biodiesel market was quite separate from food, and "the impact on food prices is likely to be negligible".
George Weston, chief executive of ABF, said the move would soak up some of the two to three million tonnes of surplus wheat produced in the UK and bring some agricultural land back into use. "It will get farmers back to growing crops instead of using set-aside and (EU) grants."
The Saltend facility, on an existing chemical works site, will make 420m litres of ethanol a year when it begins production in 2009.
BP and ABF will both hold a 45% stake in the new plant where 70 jobs will be created, with DuPont of America holding a 10% share. ABF is already constructing a biofuels facility in Wissington, Norfolk, which is due to open next month. The Hull plant will make it the biggest producer in Britain, it said.
Government regulations coming into force in
2010 demand that petrol sales be made up of at least 5% in biofuels,
with wider European rules asking for 5.75% by the same date.
[Note the dangers
here in setting a target (a) regardless of the energy required to
produce the biofuel and (b) regardless of taking agricultural land out
of food production. - JB]
BP is already marketing, blending and distributing 3bn litres of ethanol a year and claims to account for around 10% of the global biofuels sector.
BP and DuPont expect to import some of the corn-based biobutenol from China to feed a research and demonstration pilot plant on the same Saltend site.
Environmentalists and human rights campaigners are concerned that biofuels will force up the price of food for developing countries which can least afford it, and lead to the rainforest and other fragile ecosystems being destroyed to grow unsustainable biofuel crops.
Roger Higman, campaign coordinator for Friends of the Earth, said he would like to see mandatory requirements on companies involved in biofuels to ensure that their crop production was sustainable, whether in the developing world or in the UK: "We are neutral on this kind of proposal [from BP and ABF] because we support green fuels, but you have to be careful because you could destroy the British countryside and the habitat for wildlife with the intensive growing of wheat."
Meanwhile a slump in the price of crop-based diesel and technical difficulties with its own processing plant has forced fledgling Biofuels Corporation into a debt-for-equity swap. Shares slumped 40% to 7.25p as the company's board agreed to a deal under which it will hand over 94% of the company to Barclays bank in return for retiring £40m of the company's £100m debts. Among the casualties of the shake-up is Clare Spottiswoode, the former UK gas regulator, who will lose her position as a director of Biofuels when it ends its listing on London's junior stock market.
Shareholders
will be called to an extraordinary general meeting on July 23 and be
asked to vote on the decision to dilute their equity to a tiny stake in
what will be a newly named company. They were warned that the company
faces insolvency if restructuring is not agreed.
Explainer: The green grail
Biofuels can be mixed with petrol and diesel to provide cleaner and greener power. They are made from a variety of sources; bio-ethanol is derived from crops such as maize or wheat, while biodiesel comes from vegetable oils such as soya or palm.
The holy grail is finding a cheap, flexible biofuel which does not consume crops that might be used for food and is more energy-intensive. Biobutanol, from crop by-products such as straw and maize stalks, is one such biofuel that can be more easily blended with conventional fossil fuels and used at higher proportions in car engines.
Biofuels are said to offer a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas on a well-to-wheels basis. C02 emitted when biofuel is burned is largely offset by C02 absorbed by growing the crop. The International Energy Agency says biofuels could meet 30% of global road transport needs by 2050, while the US energy department believes biofuels could fuel 30% of US transport by 2020.
· This article was amended on Friday June 29 2007. The Saltend site in Hull for a new biofuels plant is presently home to a chemical works and not an oil refinery. This has been corrected.
BP will put in an initial £31.75m, while D1 will incorporate its planting business and the trees it has planted to date. The venture requires £80m in funding over five years, and the rest of the money will be put in on a 50-50 basis.
News of the link came as Grain, a charity that promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity, warned that the stampede into biofuels was "causing enormous environmental and social damage". Their report said hundreds of thousands of indigenous people and peasant communities in developing countries were being thrown off their land as biofuel firms needed more and more space for their crops.
Elliott Mannis, chief executive of D1 Oils, said the report did not apply to jatropha, as it grows on land that is unsuitable for arable crops.
Philip New, head of BP Biofuels, added: "As jatropha can be grown on land of lesser agricultural value with lower irrigation requirements than many plants, it is an excellent biodiesel feedstock."
BP and D1 want to plant one million hectares over four years. D1 has a presence in India, southern Africa, and south-east Asia, including China. Mr Mannis said it was thinking of expanding to South America, and possibly Australia.
D1 will keep the plant science, as well as its refinery and trading activities. The joint venture will plant the trees, harvest the seeds and extract the oil. D1 and BP will share the crude oil and sell it.
The Statoil petrol station in the Stavanger suburb of Forus is on first impressions unremarkable. But if you look carefully, you'll notice that on one side of the forecourt, away from the cars filling up with petrol, is a pump that stands seemingly unnoticed. If the forecasters prove correct, the gas this pump dispenses – hydrogen – is set to take centre stage in the global fight against climate change.
The only emission from the exhaust pipe of a hydrogen-powered car is water. There's no carbon dioxide, no particulates and no sulphur emissions. It's this clean-burn nature that's firing the interest of growing numbers of oil multinationals, car-makers and energy companies.
The hydrogen filling station at Forus, the first in Norway, was opened last August and will be joined by a further four on the main road that hugs the country's southern coast. Eventually these stations will form a 360-mile long "hydrogen highway" stretching from Stavanger to Oslo.
"The goal is that by 2009 it will be possible to drive a hydrogen-powered car along the entire route," says Anders Hermansen from Statoil, Norway's biggest oil company and one of 40 partner organisations involved in the project, called HyNor. "This is very much a 'learning by doing project', as we want to increase our knowledge of hydrogen as well as stimulating wider interest in more environmentally friendly fuels."
Thirteen Toyota Prius hydrogen cars have been acquired for HyNor at an eye-watering cost of £60,000 each. These are the only hydrogen cars in Norway, and are leased out to Statoil and local government groups, which are also partners in the project. The cars are powered by a regular engine that has been adapted to run on hydrogen, with backup being provided by a battery-powered motor. They have a range of around 80 miles before they need to be refuelled. The number of hydrogen cars driving along the highway is expected to steadily increase as the project develops. It's thought that a further 20 cars will be on the streets of Oslo when a hydrogen station opens there later next year.
Bjønar Kruse from the Oslo-based environmental group Zero, another HyNor partner, believes that the growing awareness of climate change in Norway is making people more aware of alternative fuels. "There's been a dramatic change in people's attitude towards climate change in the past 12 months," says Kruse, "and this makes it easier to mainstream hydrogen technology. I'm already receiving inquiries from people wanting to buy hydrogen cars."
But there is some bad news. While hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, it rarely exists in its pure form in the environment, preferring instead to bond with other elements such as oxygen to form water and carbon to form hydrocarbons such as oil and gas. To create pure hydrogen, energy is needed to break these bonds.
Because an external energy source is needed to produce it, hydrogen strictly speaking isn't a primary energy source like coal, sunlight or wind, but instead is generally referred to as being an energy carrier like electricity. Hydrogen's critics claim that since its production invariably involves natural gas, hydrogen's energy budget doesn't add up. And with CO2 being produced every step of the way, hydrogen, it's claimed, isn't very green at all.
Ulf Hafseld, HyNor's project manager, accepts that making hydrogen using fossil fuels isn't sustainable. "The answer is to produce hydrogen from water using electricity from renewable energy, which is very easy," he says. "This is already happening in Berlin, where a small electrolysing plant at a filling station is generating the gas from water, using 100 per cent renewable energy from a hydroelectric plant in the Alps. It produces no CO2 emissions at all."
Along with using renewable energy to produce "green hydrogen", Hafseld believes that the increasing use of hydrogen-powered fuel cells in cars are crucial for maximising hydrogen's potential. "Fuel cells are about twice as efficient as internal combustion engines so can help compensate for any energy loss in the gas's production."
Scandinavia is now emerging as a champion of hydrogen technology, following the launch last year of the Scandinavian Hydrogen Highway Partnership. The scheme unites existing hydrogen highway projects in south-west Sweden and Denmark with the project in Norway. "The vision is to make Scandinavia one of the first regions in Europe where hydrogen is used in a network of refuelling stations," says Hafseld. "There are already plans to use surplus electricity from Denmark's wind farms to produce green hydrogen."
After a slow start, the UK is finally getting in on the act with the news that up to 600 hydrogen-powered buses could be serving the streets of London by 2012, after a successful trial earlier this year. There's even greater interest in the US where concerns over the security of oil supplies has seen President Bush recently spend $1.7bn (£845m) turning the States into a world-leader in hydrogen-powered cars. In California, Governor Schwarzenegger has launched a hydrogen highway network and aims to build up to 200 hydrogen-fuelling stations by 2010.
With global interest in hydrogen on the rise and with most car-makers pouring millions into developing hydrogen vehicles, when can we expect to see the mass production of affordable hydrogen cars? "Our target is to produce a hydrogen fuel-cell car for $50,000 by 2015," says Peter Froeschle, a senior manager at DaimlerChrysler, which has already spent more than €1bn (£675m) developing its fleet of prototypes, " though we don't expect the operation to be profitable until 2020."
While nobody is claiming that hydrogen and fuel cells are the solution to our energy needs, there's a growing consensus among oil companies, car manufacturers and environmental groups that it will play a key role in our future mix of low-carbon fuels.
The hard cell
* Fuel cells produce electricity from a chemical reaction involving hydrogen and oxygen. They emit no carbon, although it may be released when producing the hydrogen itself.
* Fuel cells will be at the heart of any future hydrogen economy. Their supporters claim that they potentially offer a carbon-free alternative to fossil fuels.
* While fuel-cell cars are expected to reach mass production by 2025, some believe that we will see widespread use of fuel cells in everyday applications within a few years.
* Anticipated uses of fuel cells include mobile phones, laptops, home heating and power plants.
A survey of British business has delivered a damning verdict on the Government's environmental policies.
The study, carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers, concludes that "current economic policy instruments to reduce the environmental impact of industry are not encouraging sufficient behavioural change".
Some 71 per cent of respondents said that climate change and environmental issues were affecting the way they conduct business. However, almost half said that Government policy and economic instruments - taxes, duties, the climate-change levy and investment allowances - are "not effective" in encouraging business to "significantly" change its behaviour. Of all the measures at the state's disposal, regulation is seen by business as the most effective, with taxes ranked next and emissions-trading schemes least favoured (though more liked by those involved in them).
The draft Climate Change Bill published in March proposed a legally binding target of a 60 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050, and a 26-to-32 per cent cut by 2020.
The report suggests that business is content with such aims, but that, in the words of one figure, "Government needs to find a way of getting companies to do the right thing, but in a way that doesn't penalise companies".
Legislation and regulation are the key driver for many, as are fulfilling customers' rising green/organic demands and savings on fuel and energy bills. Most are unhappy with the lack of a stable long-term framework for environmental policy (unlike in economic policy), and are frustrated by the lack of "joined-up thinking" between overlapping responsibilities of officialdom.
Most of those who responded to the survey were "not confident" about making long-term decisions in the current regime and many were sceptical about the link between green taxes and environmental action.
Arrangements such as the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme were markedly more popular with those participating in them, especially in the energy sector, than in the rest of industry. Predictably, companies prefer carrots to sticks, with tax reliefs for using renewable energy and low-emission cars rated highly.
When it comes to going carbon neutral - dismissed by some environmentalists as "greenwashing" - only 3 per cent of companies claim to have achieved it. A majority opposed road charging, with the stiffest resistance coming from the retail sector. Business people owned up to a failure to identify a key individual with responsibility for green issues in their organisations.
John Manning, head of environmental tax and regulation at PricewaterhouseCoopers, said: "The appetite for dealing with the environmental consequences of doing business has never been greater.
"We know that some instruments work more effectively than others. Business needs a clear and meaningful framework if it is to take the important action needed to combat global warming."
Michael Roberts, for the CBI, responded: "It is vital that the Government gives firms a straightforward, long-term, framework to make green decisions in."
Claims that increased solar activity is the cause of global warming - rather than man-made greenhouse gases - have been comprehensively disproved by a detailed study of the Sun.
Scientists have delivered the final blow to the theory that recent global warming can be explained by variations in the natural cycles of the Sun - a favourite refuge for climate sceptics who dismiss the influence of greenhouse-gas emissions.
An analysis of the records of all of the Sun's activities over the past few decades - such as sunspot cycles and magnetic fields - shows that since 1985 solar activity has decreased significantly, while global warming has continued to increase.
Mike Lockwood, of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Chilton, Oxfordshire, said: "In 1985, the Sun did a U-turn in every respect. It no longer went in the right direction to contribute to global warming. We think it's almost completely conclusive proof that the Sun does not account for the recent increases in global warming."
The study, published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A, shows there is no doubt that solar activity over the past 20 years has run in the opposite direction to global warming, and therefore cannot explain rises in average global temperatures.
Dr Lockwood and his colleague Claus Fröhlich, of the World Radiation Centre in Davos Dorf, Switzerland, have produced the most powerful counter argument to suggestions that current warming is part of the natural cycle of solar activities. "There is considerable evidence for solar influence on Earth's pre-industrial climate, and the Sun may well have been a factor in post-industrial change in the first half of the last century," they write.
However, since about 1940 there has been no evidence to suggest that increases in global average temperatures were caused by solar activity. "Our results show that the observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability, whichever of the mechanisms is invoked and no matter how much the solar variation is amplified," the two scientists said.
The theory that past changes in solar activity may have explained some changes in the climate before the industrial revolution is not in dispute. In previous centuries, for instance, notably between about 1420 and 1570, when the Vikings had to abandon their Greenland settlements, solar minima corresponded with unusually cool weather, such as the "little ice age" of the 17th century.
But climate sceptics have exploited this to dispute the idea that man-made emissions are responsible for global warming. In the recent Channel 4 programme The Great Global Warming Swindle, the rise in solar activity over the latter half of the 20th century was erroneously presented as perfectly matching the rise in global average temperatures.
Dr Lockwood said he was outraged when he saw the documentary, because of the way the programme-makers used graphs of temperature rises and sunspot cycles that were cut off in the 1980s, when the two trends went in the opposite direction.
"The trouble is that the theory of solar activity and climate was being misappropriated to apply to modern-day warming. The sceptics were taking perfectly good science and bringing it into disrespect," Dr Lockwood said.
The Royal Society said yesterday: "There is a small minority which is seeking to confuse the public on the causes of climate change. They are often misrepresenting the science, when the reality is that the evidence is getting stronger every day."
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This week Andrew Marr is joined
by Walt Patterson, Jim Al-Khalili, Georgina Ferry and Dan Hind.
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We are
making a mess of energy and this is endangering the planet, says energy
analyst WALT PATTERSON. In his new book, Keeping The Lights
On: Towards Sustainable Electricity,
he discusses how to deliver a genuinely sustainable electricity system
for the future. He argues that we have to stop treating electricity as
a commodity if we are to address the problems of the climate. Keeping
The
Lights
On:
Towards
Sustainable
Electricity is published by
Earthscan.
Quantum physicist JIM AL-KHALILI dives into the science we can’t see, exploring the life of the atom and the story of its discovery. It’s only one ten millionth of a millimetre across, yet it has the power to create the cosmos, or to destroy the world. In his new series Atom, starting on BBC4 on Thursday 26 July at 9.00pm, Jim Al-Khalili recounts the chequered history of the atom and the lives of those who discovered and explored it. The Nobel Prize-winning scientist Max Perutz founded a small research group in which Francis Crick and James Watson discovered the structure of DNA. Science writer and broadcaster GEORGINA FERRY talks about her biography, Max Perutz and the Secret of Life, and discusses his 22-year quest to reveal the structure of the protein molecule haemoglobin that led to more efficient ways of creating and testing new drugs, as well as his involvement in a secret World War Two project to build aircraft carriers out of ice. Max Perutz and the Secret of Life is published by Chatto & Windus. DAN HIND is calling for a new Enlightenment in his book The Threat to Reason. He argues that any questioning of the state or corporations leads to being labelled as an enemy to progress, a technophobe or a religious fanatic. He calls for us all to become researchers for truth, counteracting the control of information from those who pay our wages and run our public lives. The Threat To Reason is published by Verso. |
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First, what is a carbon footprint?
Think of it as a way of measuring how heavily we all tread on the planet. It's a colourful way of expressing the amount of carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming, we each emit each year. And this is serious stuff it's measured in tonnes.
How many tonnes?
It depends on who you are and where and above all how you live. On average each of us in Britain has a carbon footprint of about nine tonnes. That compares with about 20 tonnes for each American and around 18 tonnes for each Australian. But the Swiss and the Swedes with higher standards of living than us manage to keep theirs down to about six tonnes.And the big difference,of course, is with the Third World. The average Chinese carbon footprint is about three tonnes, the average Indian one about one tonne and the average Ethiopian about a tenth of a tonne. Lightest of all in their impact are the people of Chad, contributing just one hundredth of a tonne of carbon dioxide each that's 900 times less than us.
Does that matter?
Yes. It matters in rich countries like ours because our profligancy is helping to drive climate change: 44 per cent of all Britain's emissions of carbon dioxide come as a result of the choices we each make in our daily lives such as how we use transport and heat and light our homes. And it matters in poor ones, because they will have to use more energy much of it from the fossil fuels that emit the greenhouse gas if they are to develop. Their need to grow means that we will have to cut our carbon footprints even more if we are to avert global warming running out of control. Science suggests that people in rich counties will have to shrink theirs by 80 per cent by the middle of the century.
Can it be done?
Absolutely. Really simple things like installing energy-efficient light bulbs, improving the insulation of our homes, and not leaving appliances on standby can do a lot. Investments such as getting a hybrid car, or installing solar panels on the roof, can do a great deal more. And new technologies and techniques will keep coming onstream. But human nature being what it is, it would be a great help if Governments took measures to encourage or push us to save energy.
What sort of measures?
Those most mentioned are "economic instruments" which often boils down to a fancy way of describing taxes. Green taxes are becoming ever more popular: opinion polls suggest that Britons back them by a 2 to 1 majority. All the main political parties support them, if to differing extents and several have been introduced by successive Governments, mainly on industry, over the past 15 years. Other countries, particularly Scandinavian ones, have done more. But nowhere has even begun to tap their full potential.
Won't that mean paying even more tax?
Not if it's done properly, as part of what has come to be called " ecological tax reform". That involves reducing taxes like income tax and national insurance by the same amount as green ones are increased, so that the Government's total "take" remains the same. We would therefore be paying more for electricity and petrol, but out of a bigger pay packet. In fact, this could create many more jobs as well as cutting pollution.
How so?
Income tax and national insurance effectively penalise work and employment, things we ought to be promoting, whereas green taxes bear down on things like pollution, which we should be curbing. Ecological tax reform would therefore switch the burden from "goods" to "bads", giving companies a greater incentive to lay off kilowatt hours than to sack people. Indeed a big EU study concluded that it would create at least 2.7 million jobs across Europe, while tackling global warming. Taxes on labour have helped cause employers to use labour 20 times more productively over the last 150 years. Increasing energy costs, partly through taxation, could cause firms to make similar improvements in efficiency, greatly reducing pollution.
But won't this just disappear into the Treasury's coffers?
It could do, but it would be much better at least at first to spend the money on things that will help tackle global warming. People are suspicious: two thirds of Britons believe that governments use climate change as a way of increasing revenue. Making sure that money from green taxes was spent on green projects like improving the infrastructure for public transport would help allay this concern and achieve a double whammy for the environment.
Surely there are drawbacks?
Indeed there are. Perhaps the biggest is that, while income tax is " progressive", hitting richer people harder, taxes on energy could be " regressive", disproportionately hurting the poor, who tend to spend a greater part of their income on keeping warm or getting around. But the Netherlands has shown that these can be tweaked so that they actually benefit the poor, by providing cheap energy to meet basic needs while charging more for luxury use.
So is tax always best?
Not necessarily. People do not always respond to price signals as neatly as economists like to think. Look at how many people still use old incandescent light bulbs even though they cost much more in electricity bills than new energy-efficient ones. It's unfashionable to say so, but regulation can work best. Australia for example has announced it is banning sale of the old style bulbs by 2010.
What about the future?
The really radical idea, increasingly supported by some leading politicians, is to introduce 'personal carbon allowances'. These would give everyone a set allowance of carbon dioxide each year but allow these to be bought and sold. Thus those who wanted to emit more for example by frequent flying - could buy some of the allowance of those who lived more modestly. It would not exactly be a tax - but, one way or another, people who want to have big carbon footprints in future are likely to have to pay heavily.
What is HSBC doing to help? Find out more at www.hsbc.com/cr
For HSBC, carbon matters. The energy we use to heat, light and cool our buildings and power our IT equipment emits large amounts of CO2. So does our business travel. Increasing levels of CO2, caused by human activity, contribute to climate change and HSBC believes that climate change is the greatest environmental challenge we face this century. As a result, we:
* Measure our carbon footprint and report annually on how much carbon dioxide we emit;
* Manage our carbon footprint to reduce the amount of energy we consume. HSBC has recently committed a further £45 million over the next five years to reduce the bank's carbon footprint. The Global Environmental Efficiency Programme will enable HSBC offices worldwide to showcase environmental innovation and share best practice through a series of initiatives, involving renewable energy technologies, waste reduction programmes and employee engagement to help the bank achieve its environmental reduction targets;
* Buy green electricity. In many parts of the world, including the UK, HSBC buys electricity from renewable sources generated from wind, water, the sun or biogas which produces fewer or no CO2 emissions;
* Offset the remaining CO2 emissions we produce.
HSBC believes accounting for the CO2 we emit is the right thing to do. In 2005, HSBC was the first major bank and the first FTSE 100 company to become carbon neutral. Going carbon neutral reflects our desire to act responsibly and reduce our carbon footprint. As a carbon neutral company, HSBC will incur the additional costs that arise from buying carbon offsets to neutralise the remaining CO2 emissions we produce from our operations.
Their report said the target of a minimum 60% cut in carbon emissions by 2050 may not be adequate.
International aviation emissions should be included in targets and there should be a cap on the use of "carbon credits" to meet them, the joint committee said.
Friends of the Earth said the prime minister should set a higher target for cutting carbon emissions.
The report backed the government's five-yearly carbon targets, but said there should be annual "milestones" and reports. Both the Tories and the Lib Dems have called for annual carbon targets.
No limit
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READ
THE FINDINGS
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/02_08_07_draftclimatereport.pdfMost computers will open this document automatically, but you may need Adobe Reader |
The joint committee on climate change was examining the government's draft Climate Change Bill - which ministers say shows Britain is "leading by example".
It sets out plans to reduce carbon emissions by a minimum of 60%, from the 1990 base level, by 2050 - and sets an interim target of "at least 26% but not more than 32%" by 2020.
The committee said that the 32% upper limit on carbon reductions should be removed, as there was no "compelling reason" for it.
And it expressed "surprise" that the government intended to buy foreign carbon credits to meet 70% of its emission savings under the EU emissions trading scheme.
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If Britain is prepared to step up
and set an example to the rest of the
world, you will be surprised how quickly the rest of the world might
follow Lord Puttnam Committee chairman |
It says there should be an "absolute cap" on their use, saying: "The bill as currently drafted would still theoretically allow all the savings to be made externally to the UK, notably in developing countries, and thereby postponing the decarbonisation of the UK economy."
The joint committee said it was a "serious weakness" that emissions from international aviation were not included in the targets and says the government is not taking sufficient account of predicted growth in aviation emissions.
'Groundbreaking bill'
"Further thinking" on legal enforceability of targets and budgets is needed, it said and it stressed the need for sufficient powers, resources and independence for the proposed oversight body, the Committee on Climate Change.
And the report says the government must give a higher priority to changing the behaviour of individuals with major public information campaigns.
The committee's chairman, Labour's Lord Puttnam, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme there would have to be a "quite significant shift in behaviour change".
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The government must include
international aviation in the emissions
reductions targets and it must set a higher target to cut emissions
Mike Childs Friends of the Earth |
But he welcomed the "groundbreaking" draft bill and dismissed arguments that Britain's contribution mattered little, when other, larger countries continued to pollute.
Lord Puttnam said the same arguments had been applied to the abolition of the slave trade, adding: "I think there's a very good chance, if Britain is prepared to step up and set an example to the rest of the world, you will be surprised how quickly the rest of the world might follow."
Liberal Democrat committee member David Howarth said heavy use of foreign carbon credits would delay the creation of a low carbon economy in the UK and would rely on other countries making changes.
Tougher targets
"The committee has rightly taken a tough line on foreign credits. I hope the government listens," he said.
Friends of the Earth campaigns director Mike Childs said the draft bill had to be strengthened.
"The government must listen, it must include international aviation in the emissions reductions targets and it must set a higher target to cut emissions based on the latest scientific evidence," he said.
Martin Harper, head of sustainable development at conservation charity the RSPB, said the target should be 80% not 60% to stop temperatures rising too quickly.
He said the "uncontrolled expansion of airports" had to stop and added: "Ministers must include aviation emissions in legally binding greenhouse gas targets."
A group of environmentally oriented entrepreneurs has landed in an unlikely spot: the coal business.
Their company, GreatPoint Energy, is commercializing a technology to convert coal to natural gas--turning one of the dirtiest fuels into one of the cleanest.
The Cambridge, Mass.-based start-up is in the process of raising a large round of funding to finance its expansion, which will include construction of a demonstration plant next year, company executives told CNET News.com.
It has already raised two rounds of funding totaling $37 million from venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Khosla Ventures, Advanced Technology Ventures and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
Like many recently formed clean tech companies, GreatPoint Energy is resurrecting a technology--in this case so-called catalytic gasification--that was never fully commercialized. Because of today's higher energy costs and concern over global warming, executives say that process is again worth pursuing.
The company recently completed a trial in a plant in Des Plaines, Ill. It now projects that it can create natural gas cheaper than current market prices--while minimizing the environmental impact of coal.
"Coal to a lot of environmentalists is a four-letter word," said company CEO and co-founder Andrew Perlman. "Our conclusion--and again, we came to this from an environmental perspective--is that coal is not going away. In fact, it's growing like crazy."
China and India are rapidly constructing coal-fired power plants to meet soaring energy demands. Coal is the fuel for more than half of the electricity production in the United States because it's abundant and relatively inexpensive.
Perlman, a high-tech entrepreneur, formed GreatPoint Energy with Aaron Mandell and childhood friend Avi Goldberg with the desire to break into the clean energy field. He assembled a team of engineers who originally worked on catalytic gasification in the late 1970s and 1980s to establish the company's core technology.
The company, having done its initial tests, says it can produce natural gas at about $4 per million BTUs (British thermal units), lower than the current market price of nearly $7 per million BTUs. The company calls its product "bluegas" and intends to brand it as a cleaner alternative.
"If you take the opinion that coal is not going away and there is very little you can do to change that, you have got to come up with an economic way to make it much, much cleaner," Perlman said.
Can coal be clean?
Coal creates the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide as well as other
pollutants mercury and sulfur when burned. Per unit of energy, it is
the most polluting fossil fuel and accounts for about one-third of
carbon dioxide emissions in the United States (petroleum produces more
carbon dioxide because more is burned), according to the United States
Energy Information Administration.
Worldwide, emissions of carbon dioxide from burning coal were 10.5 billion metric tons in 2004--nearly double the amount from natural gas, according to the USEIA, which forecasts a steady increase in coal consumption in the coming decades.
In general, environmentalists oppose construction of new coal-fired power plants in favor of renewable energies or gas-fired plants, which burn cleaner. Even so-called clean coal technologies, which seek to reduce pollutants or to sequester carbon dioxide underground during power generation, are controversial.
GreatPoint Energy's technology uses gasification, the process of applying heat and pressure in a reactor tank. That technique is used by other clean coal approaches now being tried. But unlike other efforts, GreatPoint uses a catalyst that aids in the creation of methane, or natural gas.
The company won't talk in detail about its catalyst or how it's used to treat coal, except to say that it's made of an earth metal and that it comes from the minerals industry.
The effect of using the catalyst is that a gasification process that typically takes four steps is reduced to one which lowers the cost of building and operating a plant, said GreatPoint Chief Financial Officer Daniel Goldman, who co-founded the advocacy group Environmental Entrepreneurs. The process is 65 percent efficient in converting coal to gas and the methane produced is 99.5 percent pure, the company says.
Energy consulting firm Nexant performed a feasibility study on behalf of GreatPoint to determine if its technology can produce gas cost-effectively. One of the primary advantages of doing catalyst-based gasification is that it can operate at lower temperatures, which makes it cheaper than other alternatives, and it produces more methane, said Tan-Ping Chen, senior vice president of energy technology at Nexant.
Chen said that GreatPoint Energy's technology is indeed different from other coal gasification processes and that it does work. The estimated cost of producing natural gas from coal hinges on a few assumptions, notably the ability to recover the catalyst after the gasification process, he added.
Gasification "is a very clean way to clean coal. That's universal
and
not unique (to GreatPoint Energy)," he said. "Most other gasification
processes create gas that may contain little methane. (With
GreatPoint's process), you already start with a significant amount."
Unlike hydrogen, which proponents argue is the optimal fuel, natural gas can be distributed through an existing infrastructure of pipelines and readily sold to power generators that use gas-fired turbines or natural gas distributors.
GreatPoint Energy's plans are to sequester the carbon dioxide that is produced during its process, either by capturing it underground or by selling it to oil drillers who can push the gas underground to aid extraction. It also expects to capture pollutants, including mercury and sulfur, and sell them to chemical companies.
"If we don't build more natural gas-fired combined cycle plants using natural gas, the only alternative is to burn coal," Goldman said. "So what we think we're displacing is coal-fired electricity. I don't care how many controls you put on it, we'll always be more environmentally benign."
The company is now designing a demonstration site set to go online next year, which will be larger than its test site. It intends to have a large-scale plant, which would cost more than $1 billion to construct, operating in 2011 or 2012.
It also will begin testing how effective its process is at converting petroleum coke, a byproduct of oil extraction, in the tar sands in Alberta, Canada.
Perlman said that the basic chemistry of the company's process has been proven. What remains is engineering a plant to produce bluegas economically. If successful, executives say, the company will be able to clean up coal and reduce imports of natural gas, which are poised to grow dramatically in the coming years.
The decision comes after executives said it was not the BBC's job to lead opinion on climate change.
This must have been a difficult decision as the BBC is independent and can do whatever it thinks is right in the way of information. However I think it was the right decision.
]By Ed Stoddard Reuters - Thu Sep 13, 1:35 PM ET
More wood was removed from forests in 2005 than ever before, one of many troubling environmental signs highlighted on Thursday in the Worldwatch Institute's annual check of the planet's health.
The Washington-based think tank's "Vital Signs 2007-2008" report points to global patterns ranging from rising meat consumption to Asian economic growth it says are linked to the broader problem of climate change.
"I think climate change is the most urgent challenge we have ever faced," said Erik Assadourian, director of the Vital Signs project.
"You see many trends in climate change, whether we are talking about grain production which is affected by droughts and flooding. Or meat production as livestock production makes up about 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions," he told Reuters in a telephone interview before the report's release.
Assadourian said the key message of the report was that unsustainable consumption patterns were responsible for climate change linked to carbon emissions and other ecological woes.
He said of the 44 trends tracked by the report, 28 were "pronouncedly bad" and only six were positive.
The trends range from the spread of avian flu to the rise of carbon emissions to the number of violent conflicts. The growing use of wind power is among the few trends seen as positive.
Some of the points highlighted in the report include:
- Meat production hit a record 276 million metric tons (43 kilograms or 95 pounds per person) in 2006.
- Meat consumption is one of several factors driving rising soybean demand. Rapid expansion of soybean plantations in South America could displace 22 million hectares (54 million acres) of tropical forest and savanna in the next 20 years.
- The rise in global seafood consumption comes as many fish species become scarcer. In 2004, people ate 156 million metric tons of seafood, the equivalent of three times as much seafood per person than in 1950.
- While U.S. carbon emissions continue to grow, the fastest rise is occurring in Asia, particularly China and India.
Other analysts and think tanks have focused on different trends they say mean less cause for alarm. For example, they point out that while wood is being removed from forests on a global scale, many parts of Europe and North America have experienced reforestation in recent decades.
Global Warming Unstoppable for 100 Years, Study Says |
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Tired of global warming? Get used to it.
Even if humans stop burning oil and coal tomorrow—not likely—we've already spewed enough greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to cause temperatures to warm and sea levels to rise for at least another century.
That's the message from two studies appearing in tomorrow's issue of the journal Science.
Rich and poor nations yesterday agreed, for the first time, to make big cuts in pollution in order to fight global warming. And the Bush administration, which has consistently sought to sabotage international action to combat climate change, helped to lead the way.
Governments and environmentalists are hoping this weekend that the apparently incredible breakthrough will set the stage for a new onslaught on the heating-up of the planet.
On Tuesday, the new UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, is hosting a meeting of 70 government heads to try to kick-start an international treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol when its present provisions expire in 2012. On Thursday and Friday President George Bush will hold his own international meeting on the issue.
Yesterday's little-expected breakthrough, which was foreshadowed in last week's Independent on Sunday, is expected to do more than the Kyoto agreement to slow down global warming. It came after negotiations – under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) – on strengthening another treaty, the Montreal Protocol on the ozone layer, first agreed exactly 20 years ago.
Negotiators from 190 countries agreed to accelerate the banning of hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), used in refrigeration and air-conditioning. These damage the Earth's ozone layer, which shields the planet from the sun's harmful ultra-violet rays. But HCFCs are even more dangerous as greenhouse gases, up to 1,700 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in warming up the planet.
Under the protocol's existing provisions, the HCFCs were due to be phased out by 2030 in rich countries, and by 2040 in poor ones, but at last week's meeting negotiators accepted a proposal – put forward by the Bush administration – to bring both deadlines forward by a decade.
Although the measure will help to heal the ozone layer faster, its main intention is to combat global warming.
The accelerated phase-out is estimated to be the equivalent of cutting carbon-dioxide emissions by up to 25 billion tonnes over the coming decades. This compares with the two million tonnes a year due to be saved by the Kyoto Protocol between 2008 and 2012 if, as seems unlikely, its targets are met.
It also involves both rich and poor countries agreeing targets to cut emissions, something that has not yet happened under any other climate-change agreement – and is one of the main bones of contention over Kyoto. China, which produces most HCFCs, has had to make particular sacrifices.
The breakthrough is a triumph for Achim Steiner, Unep's executive director, who did much to bring it about. He said yesterday: "Historic is an often over-used word, but not in the case of this agreement. Governments had a golden opportunity to deal with the twin challenges of climate change and protecting the ozone layer – and governments took it."
Even before yesterday's breakthrough, the Montreal Protocol was seen as the most effective environmental treaty. Agreed shortly after the discovery of the ozone hole above Antarctica, it has already phased out almost all of the chemicals primarily responsible – the chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs once used in aerosol sprays and refrigeration.
This is expected to prevent 6.3 million deaths from skin cancer in the United States alone. But the biggest benefit has been an unintended one, in combating global warming, since the CFCs are also powerful greenhouse gases.
Scientists in the Netherlands and in the US concluded earlier this year that, by the end of this decade, the Montreal treaty will have done more than five times more to counteract climate change than Kyoto.
Professor Mario Molina, one of the first scientists to discover the threat to the ozone layer, says this has delayed warming by 12 years, and may have kept the world from "passing the 'tipping point' for abrupt and irreversible climate change".
Yesterday's agreement on HCFCs, which replaced CFCs, will do even more – but governments and environmentalists caution that it will be no substitute for tough action over the next two years to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, primarily from the burning of oil, gas and coal. This remains the main cause of climate change, but Mr Bush is still resisting growing pressure for action both in the US and from overseas.
David Doniger, of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said yesterday that "the Bush administration deserves credit for working with other countries to push for faster cuts in HCFCs". But he added: "This is the tail. Cutting carbon dioxide emissions is the dog."
Further reading: 'Action on Ozone', published by the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep)
By Ben Hirschler Reuters
A series of giant pipes in the oceans to mix surface and deeper water could be an emergency fix for the Earth's damaged climate system, the scientist behind the Gaia theory said on Wednesday.
James Lovelock, whose Gaia hypothesis that planet Earth is a living entity has fuelled controversy for three decades, thinks the stakes are so high that radical solutions must be tried -- even if they ultimately fail.
In a letter to the journal Nature, he proposes vertical pipes 100 to 200 meters long and 10 meters wide be placed in the sea, so that wave motion pumps up water and fertilizes algae on the surface.
This algal bloom would push down carbon dioxide levels and also produce dimethyl sulphide, helping to seed sunlight-reflecting clouds.
"If we can't heal the planet directly, we may be able to help the planet heal itself," Lovelock, of the University of Oxford, and co-author Chris Rapley, from London's Science Museum, said.
The two scientists argued it was unlikely any of the well-intentioned technical or social schemes for limiting carbon would restore the planet's status quo.
International climate experts have warned that global warming, blamed mainly on greenhouse gases emitted by burning fossil fuels, will bring more droughts, heatwaves, floods and rising sea levels.
Commenting on Lovelock's idea, Brian Hoskins, professor of meteorology at the University of Reading, said it was scientifically sound but there were huge unknowns.
"This is the latest in a line of geo-engineering
solutions," he said. "In my opinion, our uncertainties over the likely regional impact of what our greenhouse gas emissions may do is high. The uncertainties over what these solutions may do is an order of magnitude higher."
by Richard Ingham AFP
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Thursday opened a conference of the world's 16 biggest emitters of greenhouse gas, pledging the United States took seriously the threat of global warming.
"What kind of world do we wish to inhabit? And what kind of world do we wish to hand on to future generations?" she asked at the start of two days of talks.
"The US takes climate change very seriously for we are both a major economy and a major emitter," she added.
The aim is to kick off a 15-month process during which the world's biggest emitters will sketch targets for reducing their emissions and look at ways of harnessing the power of business and new technology to tackle their pollution.
President George W. Bush, who proposed the initiative ahead of the Group of Eight (G8) summit in June, was to address the meeting on Friday.
The goals include outlining national measures for curbing emissions, setting long-term pollution objectives and seeing how smart technology, forestation and financing for developing countries can help the carbon cleanup.
The conference, chaired by Rice, gathers representatives from leading industrial and emerging economies, the United Nations and European Union.
Four more meetings will be held in 2008, culminating -- "tentatively" -- in a leaders' summit, according to a draft of the agenda seen by AFP.
The 16 nations taking part are Australia, Britain, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and the United States, which together account for more than 90 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions.
Other representatives are Portugal, as current EU president, and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The initiative has been clouded for months by suspicion, especially in Europe, amid fears are Bush is using it to drive forward an agenda for voluntary, technology-driven measures, thus subverting the UN global process.
But Rice pledged the aim of the Washington talks was to "accelerate the broader process under the UNFCCC."
"We want this year's climate change conference in Indonesia to succeed," she added.
Key talks under the UNFCCC take place in Bali, Indonesia, from December 3-14, aimed at setting out a roadmap for negotiations to tighten the clamp on carbon gas after 2012, when current commitments under Kyoto Protocol run out.
And the core of any UNFCCC deal will be a mandatory cap on emissions by rich countries, a principle that Bush has fiercely opposed since 2001.
UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer said on Wednesday he did not think the Bush initiative would be pushed as a rival to Kyoto, as US officials had repeatedly pledged it would feed back into the UN process.
And he welcomed a strengthening involvement by the US, the world's biggest economy but also its No. 1 polluter.
"The US has to be part of the agreement," said de Boer. "Developing a long-term climate-change policy that does not involve the US I don't think makes any sense."
But Phil Clapp, president of the Washington-based National Environmental Trust (NET), said none of the initiatives Bush was putting on the table was new.
"They're programs that were launched in the past. This (meeting) is 90 percent for domestic political consumption."
Scientists say political action is falling catastrophically behind what is needed to avert lasting damage to Earth's climate system.
At a UN summit on climate change on Monday, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri, warned the crisis was accelerating.
Glaciers and Arctic sea ice were retreating rapidly and "major precipitation changes" -- droughts and floods -- were occurring, according to the UN's top scientific panel on climate change.
On present trends, hundreds of millions of people faced worsening water scarcity as a result of glacier loss in the Himalayas, which fed key rivers in China and South Asia. Water scarcity would affect the growing of key crops.
By Deborah Zabarenko and Jeff Mason - Reuters
A U.S.-sponsored meeting of the world's biggest greenhouse gas polluters aims to support the U.N. process on climate change, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday, but some participants and environmentalists were skeptical.
In opening the two-day session, Rice expressed hopes of combating global warming without stifling growing economies.
"It is our hope that we can make progress toward that goal in this meeting ... and that in doing so we will support and accelerate the broader processes now under way in the U.N. framework convention," Rice said.
Rice stated the consistent U.S. position that individual nations should set their own goals to curb climate-warming emissions, especially carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants and petroleum-fueled vehicles.
Critics, including chanting protesters gathered outside the State Department conference, questioned whether such national, voluntary targets would work.
"We appreciate the sentiments expressed by Secretary Rice, but the devil is always in the detail," South African Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk told Reuters.
"That is still the crux of the difference between the approach of the U.S. and the approach of the rest of the world," he said, referring to the split over national versus global targets for greenhouse gas emissions. "For us this meeting is obviously to determine if the U.S. is willing to change (its) approach on that issue."
Phil Clapp of the U.S. National Environmental Trust was openly skeptical: "We have heard all this before from the (Bush) administration and they continue to embrace voluntary measures under treaties that failed 15 years ago."
"A DISTRACTION, A SIDESHOW"
The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, ratified by more than 180 countries in 1992, including the United States, called for voluntary measures to reduce global warming emissions. When these proved ineffective, international negotiators framed the Kyoto Protocol which mandated caps on carbon dioxide emissions and envisioned a world carbon market.
The United States signed but never ratified the protocol and President George W. Bush rejected it in 2001, saying it unfairly exempts fast-growing economies like China and India while penalizing rich countries like the United States.
This meeting in Washington and an earlier one at the United Nations on Monday are preludes to a negotiating session in December in Bali, Indonesia, aimed at formulating a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
The United Nations meeting Monday drew more than 80 heads of state and government to focus on the problem of global warming.
The Washington meeting drew ministers from the world's biggest greenhouse gas polluters -- including the United States and China.
By most counts, the United States is the No. 1 emitter of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide produced by coal-fired power plants and petroleum-fueled vehicles. But at least one study this year indicated that fast-developing China is now in the lead.
Other participants were the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, India, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Australia, Indonesia and South Africa.
About 60 protesters, many of them from Greenpeace and other environmental groups, chanted anti-Bush administration slogans and held up placards outside the State Department while diplomatic security formed a line preventing them from getting into the building.
Chanting "Bush is a criminal," "Stop Global Warming Now" and "No war, no warming" some protesters staged a sit-in at the main diplomatic to the building.
Greenpeace campaigner Chris Miller said the U.S. conference was a waste of time and Bush should focus his energies instead on joining U.N. efforts to tackle global warming.
"We think this meeting is a distraction, a sideshow," he said. "What he (Bush) is proposing is wholly insufficient."
(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan and Sue Pleming)
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer
Myth: The president refuses to admit that climate change is real and that humans are a factor. Myth: The U.S. is doing nothing to address climate change. Myth: The United States refuses to engage internationally.
So begins a hand-sized handout, easy for reporters to pocket, issued at the State Department where President Bush on Friday was to cap two days of talks at a White House-sponsored climate change conference that is as much about salesmanship as it is about diplomacy.
Unwilling to cut U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases, which make up a fourth of the world's total output, Bush is turning to China, India and the other biggest polluters to swap green technology and other voluntary ways of doing something about global warming.
His administration also has set about creating a process for more such talks and a possible long-term global goal for reducing emissions, with each nation permitted to draw up its own strategies and plans.
Representatives from among the gathering of 16 nations, along with the European Union and the United Nations, expressed skepticism that not much more than talking and political goals might be accomplished, but also optimism that at least the United States was willing to become part of such talks.
Until recently, said Emil Salim, an economist and member of the Indonesian president's council of advisers, Bush offered "no dialogue on the Kyoto Protocol whatsoever. This time, the members of the Kyoto Protocol are invited to discuss. So from that point of view, there is some improvement," he said in an interview. "But on the other hand, I think it has more to do with the domestic politics, because you have election."
Though Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N.-brokered international treaty intended to cut greenhouse gas emissions that is due to expire in 2012, he is seeking ideas for what should come next. Critics have said they fear he might use his talks to undermine the next round of negotiations in December in Bali, Indonesia.
But on Thursday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson countered that the United States is serious about global warming and making progress to slow its growth rate in carbon dioxide and other industrial warming gases.
"I want to stress that the United States takes climate change very seriously, for we are both a major economy and a major emitter," Rice said. "Climate change is a global problem and we are contributing to it, therefore we are prepared to expand our leadership to address the challenge. That is why President Bush has convened this meeting."
They also gave reassurances that the U.S. intent is to contribute to the U.N. negotiations on climate change, even though those emphasize mandatory controls on carbon dioxide that Bush opposes. Bush rejected the Kyoto accord because he said it unfairly harmed the economies of rich nations like the United States and excluded developing nations like China and India from having to cut greenhouse gases.
"We want this year's U.N. climate change conference in Indonesia to succeed," Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said.
Bush's two-day conference, ending Friday, followed a U.N. meeting Monday at which Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon tried to build support among 80 world leaders for reaching agreement at the planned December talks. Other participants at the State Department conference were from Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Australia and South Africa.
The meeting Thursday also drew about 70 demonstrators from Greenpeace and other environmental groups outside the State Department, where dozens were arrested for refusing to leave the premises after two hours of protest. The activists labeled the conference a fraud for not backing mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases.
The Bush administration proposes new "processes" and work teams for negotiating solutions. However, James Connaughton, who heads the White House Council on Environmental Quality, told the nations' representatives that their efforts must "be about more than presentations" and that "we need to take collective action to advance new technologies."
Yvo de Boer, the top U.N. climate official, told the 16 nations participating in the White House-led meeting that "this relatively small group of countries holds a key to tackling a big part of the problem" but that their response can succeed only by "going well beyond present efforts," especially among rich, industrialized nations.
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On the Net:
State Department: http://www.state.gov
Today many engineers and researchers - fearful of the rate at which our planet is warming - say geo-engineering projects are now mankind's only hope of saving itself from the impact of climate change. A major report and a new exhibition at the Science Museum starting next week will resurrect the debate.
Despite 10 years of international negotiations aimed at reducing carbon dioxide levels by between 60-80 per cent, global emissions are still rising. The only hope, say geo-engineers, is to change the planet, alter its oceans and reshape its cloud cover.
It is a point highlighted by Brian Launder, professor of mechanical engineering at Manchester University, who was once 'neutral' about these great geo-engineering projects but who has come to believethat current attempts to reduce CO2 emissions are doomed to failure.
'As time has gone on I have become increasingly concerned about the lack of progress on climate change and [although] they once seemed a last resort, I have to say we're going to need to do this.'
Launder is now editing a forthcoming issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society which will be devoted to the subject of geo-engineering schemes. 'We're moving, but I think we need to go a lot further.'
An exhibition - Can Algae Save The World? - opening at the Science Museum will also focus on hi-tech projects aimed at saving the planet.
The latest assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published earlier this year, considered three major techniques to reduce sunlight reaching the Earth: orbiting mirrors, sulphur particle schemes and projects for enhancing cloud cover.
The ideas 'could have beneficial consequences' by increasing agricultural productivity and forestry, the panel concluded. Carbon dioxide would be left in the atmosphere, stimulating plant growth, while reductions in sunlight would stop temperatures from rising even as CO2 levels continued to increase.
'Geo-engineering is one of the types of thing that are worth investigating,' says Ken Caldeira, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. 'If we can generate 100 ideas, and 97 are bad and we land up with three good ones, then the whole thing will have been worthwhile.'
Opponents to such schemes point out that it is technology that got mankind in its current fix. An even bigger dose of technology is therefore the last thing the planet needs. Schemes for fertilising the oceans with iron compounds pose immense risks to marine life, for example. Geo-engineers defend their schemes by pointing out that emissions of greenhouse gases are already bringing huge changes to natural ecosystems.
It is a point stressed by the distinguished ecologist James Lovelock: there are dangers in intervening but the risks posed by doing nothing are worse. 'There may be all sorts of ecological consequences,' he said. 'But then the stakes are terribly high.'
Ocean pumps
Two of Britain's leading environmental thinkers, Chris Rapley, head of the Science Museum, and James Lovelock, creator of the Gaia concept, suggest vertical pipes could pump deep cold water to the sea surface. Cold ocean water is considered to be more 'productive' than warmer water because it contains more lifeforms. And these lifeforms are vital for absorbing CO2.
Using special valves, cold water would be made to flow up floating pipes and out on to the ocean surface, bringing increased numbers of lifeforms into contact with the atmosphere and its carbon dioxide. These lifeforms would absorb CO2, die and then sink to the ocean floor, storing the carbon away for millennia.
Marine biologists point out that the scheme could pose major problems for sea life, in particular for creatures such as whales and porpoises.
Chance of success: 3/5 Impact on marine life could count against the scheme.
Sulphur blanket
During major volcanic eruptions, the Earth often undergoes significant cooling. For example, when Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted in 1991 the average temperature across the Earth decreased by 0.6C. Scientists pointed the finger of blame at the 10 million tonnes of sulphur that the volcano ejected into the stratosphere. So why not copy Pinatubo? That is the suggestion of Professor Paul Crutzen who won a Nobel prize in 1995 for his work on the ozone layer.
He has proposed creating a 'blanket' of sulphur that would block the Sun's rays from reaching Earth; to do this, he envisages hundreds of rockets filled with sulphur being blasted into the stratosphere. About one million tonnes of sulphur would be enough to create his cooling blanket, he says.
The idea alarms other scientists, who fear such a massive input of sulphur into the upper atmosphere could increase acid rain or damage the ozone layer. Crutzen believes his idea may still be necessary if Earth continues to warm up at its current rate. 'I am prepared to lose some bit of ozone if we can prevent major increases of temperature, say beyond two degrees or three degrees,' he says.
Chance of success: 1/5 Risks of acid rain and ozone depletion will provoke opposition.
Mirrors
Radiation from the Sun heats our planet and sustains life here. But as Earth warms up, scientists want to cut that radiation and one of the most ambitious ideas involves firing giant mirrors into its orbit.
Physicist Lowell Wood, at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, has put forward the idea of using a mesh of aluminium threads, a millionth of an inch in diameter. 'It would be like a window screen made of exceedingly fine metal wire,' he explains. The screen wouldn't completely block sunlight but would filter infra-red radiation.
However, such mirrors would be expensive to make and put into orbit. To produce a 1 per cent cut in solar radiation would require mirrors with surface areas of 600,000 square miles. But once in space such mirrors would be extremely cheap to operate.
'It's very hi-tech,' said John Shepherd, professor of marine science at the National Oceanographic Centre at Southampton University. 'Who knows whether they can really do it? And it's going to cost a lot of money to find out.'
Chance of success: 1/5 Incredibly expensive.
Cloud shield
John Latham, at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, and Stephen Salter, of Edinburgh University estimate that increasing cloud cover using a seawater spray 'seeding' process could increase cloud cover by 4 per cent - enough to counter a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by shielding Earth from solar radiation.
Their plan is one of the cheaper ideas for countering rising carbon dioxide levels and is relatively low-tech, leading to hopes that, if computer simulations give good results, a field trial could start in five years.
Latham acknowledges there are dangers in changing weather patterns. 'We certainly shouldn't implement [it] in any global sense until we've done our best to examine what implications it might have,' he says.
'But if one felt that there are unlikely to be any implications that are more severe than the damage global warming is causing, then I think we'd begin.'
Chance of success: 2/5 Will need major global commitment to succeed.
Synthetic trees
Planting trees that absorb carbon dioxide has become a major eco-industry. But now scientists are proposing a surprise technological variant: synthetic trees. These trees would not grow or flower or leaf - but they would absorb carbon dioxide.
This startling concept is the brainchild of Klaus Lackner of Columbia University who first outlined his proposal at an annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He describes his synthetic trees as looking like 'goal posts with Venetian blinds'.
Lackner has calculated that one of his synthetic trees could remove about 90,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide in a year - the output of more than 15,000 cars and a thousandfold improvement on the natural behaviour of a real, living tree.
Lackner's concept is a variant of carbon sequestration technology which involves the seizing of carbon and storing it underground. Already schemes exist for removing carbon dioxide produced by burning coal, gas or oil at power plants before it reaches the atmosphere. Other projects are investigating ways to liquefy this carbon dioxide and store it in old mines or oilfields.
However, the process does not work for all polluters, in particular cars and lorries - hence Lackner's synthetic trees which would act like filters, removing carbon dioxide from that atmosphere. An absorbent coating, such as limewater, on slats would capture carbon dioxide so that it could be removed and then buried. However, critics say the scheme suffers from the fact that engineers could end up expending more energy in capturing carbon dioxide than they would save.
Chance of success: 4/5 Carbon sequestration is likely to play a major role in the world's battle against climate change, though perhaps not in the form of synthetic trees.
Forests of the seas
Blooms of plankton and algae are the grasslands and prairies of the oceans. They absorb carbon dioxide, die and then sink to the seabed carrying the carbon dioxide they absorbed during their lifetimes. Increase such blooms and you could take out more and more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, scientists argue - an idea that formed the core of a recent meeting of experts at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US.
The favoured method for stimulating plankton growth is to use iron fertilisers. It is known that tiny amounts of iron are critical in stimulating phytoplankton growth in seas. However, in many parts of the world iron in seawater is virtually non-existent and plankton levels correspondingly low.
Several groups of US entrepreneurs have begun experiments aimed at correcting this problem by pumping tonnes of soluble iron compounds into sea areas. Several trial schemes are now under way. But some critics warn that very little carbon dioxide would be removed from the atmosphere this way, while there is a danger such schemes could cause dangerous pollution.
Chance of success: 2/5 Method already in trials, but faces considerable opposition over potential damage to marine life.
University of East Anglia researchers gauged CO2 absorption through more than 90,000 measurements from merchant ships equipped with automatic instruments.
Results of their 10-year study in the North Atlantic show CO2 uptake halved between the mid-90s and 2000 to 2005.
Scientists believe global warming might get worse if the oceans soak up less of the greenhouse gas.
Researchers said the findings, published in a paper for the Journal of Geophysical Research, were surprising and worrying because there were grounds for believing that, in time, the ocean might become saturated with our emissions.
'Saturated' ocean
BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin said: "The researchers don't know if the change is due to climate change or to natural variations.
"But they say it is a tremendous surprise and very worrying because there were grounds for believing that in time the ocean might become 'saturated' with our emissions - unable to soak up any more."
He said that would "leave all our emissions to warm the atmosphere".
Of all the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere, only half of it stays there; the rest goes into carbon sinks.
There are two major natural carbon sinks: the oceans and the land "biosphere". They are equivalent in size, each absorbing a quarter of all CO2 emissions.
| By Carolyn Fry in Stockholm |
Before the industrial revolution, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere was around 280 parts per million by volume (ppmv) but that has risen to around 380ppmv due to our burning of fossil fuels.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is focusing its efforts on emission scenarios that lead to concentrations of no less than 450ppmv while the UK government is working towards a concentration target of around double pre-industrial levels, at 550ppmv.
If concentrations stabilise at 550ppmv, the corresponding global average temperature rise brought about by the greenhouse effect could still be as high as 5.5C, sufficient to melt the Greenland Ice Sheet and prompt a rise in sea level of six metres.
Fair targets
Scientists speaking here at EuroScience Open Forum 2004 said governments should be exploring the potential of Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs) which could actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere and stabilise atmospheric concentrations of the gas at much lower levels.
"The current stabilisation targets are a social construction," said Professor Christian Azar, of Goteborg University's Department of Physical Resource Theory.
"Governments are not looking at NETs because part of the cost of doing so will fall on certain industry sectors and they are powerful enough to protest."
Current CO2 emissions vary greatly between countries of the developed and developing world.
In 1998, the US released 5.4 tonnes of carbon per capita, European countries averaged around 1.9 tonnes and Africa emitted 0.3 tonnes.
To meet a global concentration target of about 350-400ppmv would require a cross-the-board emission level of no more than 0.4 tonnes of carbon per person per year.
In the developed world this would require per capita emissions to be cut to the level of Africa or Asia, while the people of the developing world would never be able to use the same amount of fossil fuels that the industrialised countries have to achieve the equivalent standard of living.
The proposal closely resembles an idea developed by the UK-based Global Commons Institute, which has gained wide support among scientists and policymakers, called contraction and convergence.
"Contraction" means cutting the world's output of greenhouse gases, and "convergence" means sharing out between countries the amount of climate pollution which scientists say the Earth can tolerate, so that by perhaps 2050 everyone in the world is entitled to emit the same amount of pollution.
Leakage rules
NETs offer a means of cutting emissions without the need for immediate extreme lifestyle changes.
They ideally involve using biomass from planted forests to produce energy and then capturing the CO2 produced, or alternatively extracting CO2 directly from the atmosphere.
Recovered CO2 would then be injected into deep underground or sub-sea stores to remove it from circulation.
Opponents of the technologies suggest such methods would be costly and that CO2 could still leak back into the environment, with unknown consequences.
However, modelling the various options for achieving emissions targets of between 350ppmv and 450ppmv between 1990 and 2200 at the least cost, Professor Azar found not only that it was feasible but that in certain cases the cost barely exceeded that of running large fossil fuel plants.
"The capture and storage of CO2 offers a great opportunity to get lower stabilisation targets at lower cost," he said.
"We need a regulatory framework on how to deal with carbon capture and storage. It should include rules for leakage and how to deal with capture from biomass.
"We also need to support technological development so that solar and other renewables can come to the marketplace and become viable options."
A landmark assessment by the UN of the state of the world's environment paints the bleakest picture yet of our planet's well-being. The warning is stark: humanity's future is at risk unless urgent action is taken. Over the past 20 years, almost every index of the planet's health has worsened. At the same time, personal wealth in the richest countries has grown by a third.
The report, by the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep), warns that the vital natural resources which support life on Earth have suffered significantly since the first such report, published in 1987. However, this gradual depletion of the world's natural "capital" has coincided with unprecedented economic gains for developed nations, which, for many people, have masked the growing crisis.
Nearly 400 experts from around the world contributed to the report, which warns that humanity itself could be at risk if nothing is done to address the three major environmental problems of a growing human population, climate change and the mass extinction of animals and plants.
The report is the fruit of five years' work by leading scientists and is the fourth in a series since the publication in 1987 of Our Common Future by an international commission into the state of the global environment chaired by the former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland.
Achim Steiner, the executive director of Unep, said that the objective of the latest report was not to present a "dark and gloomy scenario" but to make the case for an urgent call to action. However, the dire state of almost every aspect of the planet's wellbeing points to 20 years of missed opportunities.
Mr Steiner said yesterday at the launch of the report that it was illuminating how over the past 20 years the financial wealth of the planet has soared by around a third. "But at the same time it is sobering: much of the 'natural' capital upon which so much of human well-being and economic activity depends – water, land, the air and atmosphere, biodiversity and marine resources – continue their seemingly inexorable decline," he said.
Meanwhile, the political response to the growing emergency has been limited. "Without an accelerated effort to reform the way we collectively do business on planet Earth, we will shortly be in trouble if indeed we are not already," Mr Steiner said.
"There have been enough wake-up calls. I sincerely hope this is the final one. The systematic destruction of the Earth's natural and nature-based resources has reached a point where the economic viability of economies is being challenged – and the bill we hand on to our children may prove impossible to pay," he said.
The fourth Unep report since the seminal 1987 report of the Brundtland Commission reveals a stark continuation in the environment's decline. The environmental "footprint" of humanity has increased dramatically in 20 years, with a rising population and increased use of energy, land and other natural resources.
Unep's Global Environment Outlook (GEO-4) states that the human demand on the planet now means we are living beyond our means. The present footprint is equivalent to 22 hectares per person, whereas the natural carrying capacity of the Earth is less than 16 hectares per person, the report says.
The world economy has at the same time boomed, with the global GDP per capita rising from about $6,000 (£2,920) to just over $8,000. But this increased wealth has been geared towards the developed world and has come at an enormous cost to the environment. Available freshwater stocks have declined dramatically since the 1980s, in west Asia, for instance, from 1,700 cubic metres per person per year, to 907 cubic metres today. By the middle of the century, this is likely to fall still further to 420 cubic metres per person per year. Over the past 20 years, the proportion of fish stocks in the world that have collapsed has doubled from 15 per cent to 30 per cent. At the same time the proportion of fish stocks that are deemed to be overexploited has risen from 20 per cent to 40 per cent.
The intensity with which agricultural land is farmed has also increased, and with it the burden of soil erosion, water scarcity, nutrient depletion and pollution. In 1987, a hectare of cropland yielded 1.8 tons of produce, but due to intensification this has now risen to 2.5 tons.
Energy consumption in developed nations has risen significantly. In Canada and the US, for instance, the demand for energy has grown by 19 per cent since 1987. Concentrations of carbon dioxide, a principal greenhouse gas, are about a third higher than they were 20 years ago.
Species of animals and plants are estimated to be going extinct at a rate that is about 100 times faster than the historical record, largely as a result of human activities. Biologists have now classified 30 per cent of amphibians, 23 per cent of mammals and 12 per cent of birds as threatened.
A growing human population, which is expected to reach nine billion by the mid-century, will place increasing pressure on land, water and biodiversity. Land will have to be more intensively farmed, or more land will have be cultivated. "Either way, biodiversity suffers," the report says.
Against a background of continued degradation of the land and oceans, of population increases and of species extinctions, lies the spectre of climate change – one the biggest threats facing humanity in the 21st century. There is now "visible and unequivocal" evidence that global warming is causing further impacts on the global environment, the GEO-4 report says.
Mike Childs, the campaigns director at Friends of the Earth, said the report made it clear we need concerted international political action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and halt the loss of wildlife and ecosystems. "This report clearly demonstrates that we also need a step change in understanding that the steady degradation of the world's environment threatens the well-being of everybody on the planet," he said.
"Our response to this planetary emergency must be to harness humankind's amazing ingenuity to make the next two decades a time of innovation and determination to create a fairer and greener world."
Twenty years of environmental failure
Since 1987, when the landmark UN report Our Common Future (overseen by Gro Harlem Brundtland, right) warned of the need for concerted action to secure humanity's future, the state of the global environment has declined in numerous ways.
* The availability of fresh water had declined dramatically. In west Asia, for instance, available fresh water has fallen from 1,700 cubic metres per person per year to 907 cubic metres, largely due to pollution and demand.
* Levels of carbon dioxide have risen by a third and energy demands of countries such as the United States and Canada are nearly a fifth higher than in 1987.
* In 1987, about 15 per cent of global fish stocks were classified as collapsed, and 20 per cent were overexploited. Now 30 per cent have collapsed and a further 40 per cent are overexploited.
* The number of species which is threatened with extinction has increased. Since 1987, there has been a 50 per cent decline in the populations of some freshwater animals and a 30 per cent fall among terrestrial and marine species.
* The agricultural intensification of cultivated land has risen, with greater impact on pollution, nutrient depletion and water use. A hectare of farmland in 1987 produced an average yield of 1.8 tons, but now it produces 2.5 tons.
* Human population has increased by a third since 1987. At the same time there has been a threefold increase in global trade and average income per head has increased by a third, with global GDP per capita rising from $6,000 in 1987 to a total of $8,000 today.
The sprawling forests of the northern hemisphere which extend from China and Siberia to Canada and Alaska are in danger of becoming a gigantic source of carbon dioxide rather than being a major "sink" that helps to offset man-made emissions of the greenhouse gas.
Studies show the risk of fires in the boreal forests of the north has increased in recent years because of climate change. It shows that the world's temperate woodlands are beginning to lose their ability to be an overall absorber of carbon dioxide.
Scientists fear there may soon come a point when the amount of carbon dioxide released from the northern forests as a result of forest fires and the drying out of the soil will exceed the amount that is absorbed during the annual growth of the trees. Such a prospect would make it more difficult to control global warming because northern forests are seen as a key element in the overall equations to mitigate the effect of man-made CO2 emissions.
Two studies published today show that the increase in forest fires in the boreal forests – the second largest forests after tropical rainforests – have weakened one of the earth's greatest terrestrial sinks of carbon dioxide.
One of the studies showed that in some years, forest fires in the US result in more carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere over the space of a couple of months than the entire annual emissions coming from cars and energy production of a typical US state.
A second study found that, over a 60-year period, the risk of forest fires in 1 million sq kms of Canadian wilderness had increased significantly, largely as a result of drier conditions caused by global warming and climate change. Tom Gower, professor of forest ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said his study showed that fires had a greater impact on overall carbon emissions from boreal forests during the 60-year period than other factors such as rainfall, yet climate was at the heart of the issue.
The intensity and frequency of forest fires are influenced by climate change because heatwaves and drier undergrowth trigger the fires. "Climate change is what's causing the fire changes. They're very tightly coupled systems," Professor Gower said.
"All it takes is a low snowpack year and a dry summer. With a few lightning strikes, it's a tinderbox," he said.
Historically, the boreal forests have been a powerful carbon sink, with more carbon dioxide being absorbed by the forests than being released. However, the latest study, published in the journal Nature, suggests the sink has become smaller in recent decades, and it may actually be shifting towards becoming a carbon source, Professor Gower said.
"The soil is the major source, the plants are the major sink, and how those two interplay over the life of a stand [of trees] really determines whether the boreal forest is a sink or a source of carbon," he said.
"Based on our current understanding, fire was a more important driver of the carbon balance than climate was in the past 50 years. But if carbon dioxide concentration really doubles in the next 50 years and the temperature increases 4C to 8C, all bets may be off."
The second study, published in Carbon Balance and Management, found carbon dioxide emissions from some forest fires exceeded the annual car and energy emissions from individual US states.
Christine Wiedinmyer of the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, used satellite imaging datato estimate CO2 output based on the degree of forest cover in a particular area.
In some years, the amount of CO2 released from forest fires was equivalent to about 5 per cent of the man-made total. But in other years, more widespread and intense forest fires resulted in massively increased emissions.
"There is a significant potential for additional net release of carbon from forests of the United States due to changing fire dynamics in the coming decades," Dr Wiedinmyer said.
| By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website, Valencia |
Launching the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he said real and affordable ways to deal with the problem existed.
The IPCC states that climate change is "unequivocal" and may bring "abrupt and irreversible" impacts.
Mr Ban urged politicians to respond at a UN climate change conference in Bali.
"Today the world's scientists have spoken clearly and with one voice," he said. "In Bali I expect the world's policymakers to do the same."
Mr Ban arrived at the IPCC meeting in Valencia from a fact-finding trip to Antarctic and South America.
| |
We are all in this together - we
must work together Ban Ki-moon Ban Ki-moon |
"I come to you humbled after seeing some of the most precious treasures of our planet threatened by humanity's own hand," he said.
"All humanity must assume responsibility for these treasures."
Unavoidable effects
The IPCC report synthesises the three aspects of climate change that it has already pronounced on earlier in the year, on the science, the likely impacts, and options for dealing with the problem.
Among the top-line conclusions are that climate change is "unequivocal", that humankind's emissions of greenhouse gases are more than 90% likely to be the main cause, and that impacts can be reduced at reasonable cost.
| |
READ THE
FINDINGS
The full PDF file is accessible from here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7098902.stm |
One declaration that reportedly caused heated discussion during the week-long talks here states that climate change may bring "abrupt and irreversible" impacts.
Such impacts could include the fast melting of glaciers and species extinctions.
"Approximately 20-30% of species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average temperature exceed 1.5-2.5C (relative to the 1980-1999 average)," the summary concludes.
Other potential impacts highlighted in the text include:
The panel's chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, highlighted the need to deal with impacts which are coming whether or not global emissions are curbed.
Even if levels of CO2 in the atmosphere stayed where they are now, he said, research showed sea levels would rise by between 0.4 and 1.4 metres simply because sea water would continue warming up, which makes it expand.
"This is a very important finding, likely to bring major changes to coastlines and inundating low-lying areas, with a great effect in river deltas and low-lying islands," he said.
"If you add to this the melting of some of the ice bodies on Earth, this gives a picture of the kinds of issue we are likely to face."
Worse case
| |
IPCC
PROJECTIONS
Probable
temperature rise between 1.8C and 4C
Possible
temperature rise between 1.1C and 6.4C
Sea level
most likely to rise by 28-43cm
Arctic
summer sea ice disappears in second half of century
Increase in
heat waves very likely
Increase
in
tropical
storm
intensity
likely
|
This is the IPCC's fourth major assessment of global climate change since its formation nearly 20 years ago.
During the course of its existence, it has become more certain that modern-day climate change is real and principally due to human activities; it has also become firmer about the scale of the impacts.
"If you look at the overall picture of impacts, both those occurring now and those projected for the future, they appear to be both larger and appearing earlier than we thought [in our 2001 report]," Martin Parry, co-chair of the impacts working group, told BBC News.
"Some of the changes that we previously projected for around 2020 or 2030 are occurring now, such as the Arctic melt and shifts in the locations of various species."
There are indications that projected increases in droughts are also happening earlier than expected, he said, though that was less certain.
The IPCC considered about 29,000 pieces of real-world evidence in compiling this report, as well as the projections of computer models.
These include observations showing that dry areas of the world such as the Sahel and southern Africa are receiving less rainfall, while it has increased in northern Europe and parts of the Americas.
The panel suggests societies need to adapt to future impacts, as well as curbing emissions.
Without extra measures, carbon dioxide emissions will continue to rise; they are already growing faster than a decade ago, partly because of increasing use of coal.
The IPCC's economic analyses say that trend can be reversed at reasonable cost. Indeed, it says, there is "much evidence that mitigation actions can result in near-term co-benefits (e.g. improved health due to reduced air pollution)" that may offset costs.
The panel's scientists say the reversal needs to come within a decade or so if the worst effects of global warming are to be avoided.
The findings will feed into the Bali talks on the UN climate convention and the Kyoto Protocol which open on 3 December.
Mr Brown, who said the UK's emission target of a 60% cut by 2050 could be increased to 80%, said he would also seek the end of one-use plastic bags.
He committed Britain to meeting EU targets on boosting renewable energy.
There would be "hard choices and tough decisions" but he said a new low carbon economy could bring thousands of jobs.
The new Green Homes Service - a telephone line, website and advice centres - aims to provide a single point of contact for people who want a "home energy audit".
Home energy
It will also give advice on saving water, reducing waste and other ways to be more environmentally friendly.
Mr Brown said that in 50 of Britain's poorest areas homes would be offered energy efficiency deals, and for those selling or buying energy wasting homes it would offer discounted help.
| |
While the richest countries have
caused climate change it is the poorest who are already suffering its
effects Gordon Brown |
He said it represented "the biggest improvement in home energy efficiency in our history", with a third of households offered help over the next three years to reduce their emissions.
In his wide-ranging speech, the prime minister said climate change had been the product of many generations, but "overcoming it must be the great project of this generation".
Emissions cap
Mr Brown said: "I believe it will require no less than a fourth technological revolution. In the past the steam engine, the internal combustion engine, the microprocessor transformed not just technology but the way our society has been organised and the way people live.
"Now we're about to embark on a comparable technological transformation to low carbon energy and energy efficiency and this represents an immense challenge to Britain, but it is also an opportunity."
Mr Brown said he wanted Britain to become a "world leader" in building a low carbon economy, which could lead to thousands of new British businesses, hundreds of thousands of new jobs and a "vast export market".
And the prime minister also said he wanted to work with countries like the US and Japan to establish a new "funding framework", to help developing countries adjust to low carbon growth, adapt to climate change and tackle deforestation.
"While the richest countries have caused climate change it is the poorest who are already suffering its effects," Mr Brown said.
Renewable targets
Britain was "absolutely committed to meeting our share" of the EU's 2020 renewable energy target, he said.
It could mean the UK will have to produce between 40 and 50% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020 - the current figure is about 5%.
BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin said this would be "staggering", but he said that the government was seeking to negotiate down the EU target.
| |
Until Gordon Brown learns that
tough action is needed to back up his warm words, he cannot be the
change the country needs Peter Ainsworth Conservative Party |
Mr Brown said the Climate Change Bill put a "statutory cap" on Britain's carbon emissions - with five year "carbon budgets" to give certainty for businesses and investors.
And he said he wanted the post-2012 agreement, to be discussed at a climate change summit in Bali in December, to include "binding emissions caps" for all developed countries.
The Climate Change Bill would ensure Britain met its target of a 60% reduction in emissions by 2050.
Plastic bags
But he said new evidence suggested developed countries may have to reduce emissions by up to 80% - and he would ask the committee on climate change "to advise us, as it begins to consider the first three five-year budgets, on whether our own domestic target should be tightened up to 80%".
Mr Brown also said the government would convene a forum of supermarkets, the British Retail Consortium and others to look at how to reduce plastic bags to cut landfill waste.
"I am convinced that we can eliminate single-use disposable bags altogether, in favour of long-lasting and more sustainable alternatives," he said.
| |
The government blithely talks of
the opportunities created by green
industries yet refuses to promote fledgling initiatives properly Chris Huhne Liberal Democrats |
Shadow environment secretary Peter Ainsworth said Mr Brown's record on the environment consisted of "missing targets, then scrapping them, then cutting the budgets that deal with them".
"Just this weekend, we learnt of a further £300m of crippling cuts to key environmental services.
"Until Gordon Brown learns that tough action is needed to back up his warm words, he cannot be the change the country needs," he said.
Global deal
Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Chris Huhne said he wanted to see whether Mr Brown was prepared to meet promises on renewable energy without counting nuclear power.
And he added: "The government blithely talks of the opportunities created by green industries yet refuses to promote fledgling initiatives properly.
"Boasts of a new green home service seem shallow when recent cuts to the New Millennium Grants will dissuade many homeowners from installing energy saving measures in their homes."
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has challenged governments to act on the findings of a major new report on climate change, saying real and affordable ways to deal with the problem existed.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says climate change is "unequivocal" and may bring "abrupt and irreversible" impacts.
Climate change will be discussed at a forthcoming summit of Commonwealth leaders, just ahead of a UN meeting in Indonesia where a new global deal on emissions will be considered.
A
£5bn solar power plan, backed by a Jordanian prince, could
provide the
EU with a sixth of its electricity needs - and cut carbon emissions
SEE http://revelstoke.org.uk/energy.htm
Tuesday 4 December 2007 11:00-11:30 (Radio 4 FM)
Delegates from nearly 190 countries are meeting for two weeks in Bali to discuss climate change.
A principal objective is to agree a "Bali roadmap", a process leading to a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, whose targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions expire in 2012.
Where do the talks fit into wider moves to curb global warming? What are the main issues on the table?
What are the talks officially about?
The two-week meeting is officially described as the Thirteenth Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Third Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.
In plain language, that makes it the thirteenth summit of countries signed up to the UN convention, which dates from the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit of 1992, and the third meeting of countries inside the Kyoto Protocol since that came into force in February 2005.
The UN convention commits the global community to "avoiding dangerous climate change", while the protocol sets binding targets on greenhouse gas emissions for industrialised nations.
Why is a Kyoto successor needed?
The protocol was only ever envisaged as a first step towards bigger emission cuts. Its current targets expire in 2012, and without a successor there will be nothing committing any country to reduce emissions beyond that date.
The protocol asked developed countries to cut carbon emissions by an average of about 5% from 1990 levels by the period 2008-2012.
For a variety of reasons, the actual cuts produced by 2012 will be much smaller. Many Kyoto countries are set to miss their targets by a long way.
The latest scientific assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have added urgency to the quest for deeper cuts.
Its scientists recommend that globally, emissions should peak and start to fall within 10-15 years, sooner if possible.
Who is asking for what in Bali?
The European Union is heading efforts to secure a new set of targets that would reduce emissions from developed nations by 25-40% by 2020.
It would also like the more advanced developing nations to take on firmer commitments than they have at present, possibly also including concrete targets, though smaller than those facing richer countries.
Many countries, richer and poorer, including the US, Canada and India, are not prepared to accept binding numerical emissions targets at this stage.
How urgent is the need for an agreement in Bali?
A widespread consensus holds that a new set of targets should be in place by the end of 2009 - just two years away.
That would give governments and businesses enough time to put the necessary measures in place before 2012.
New targets would translate into a new set of parameters for the global carbon market, which businesses would need in order to plan for a carbon-constrained future.
What else has been on the table?
Three other big issues have been adaptation, forests and technology.
Poorer nations want money to protect themselves against the impacts of climate change, such as rising seas, drought, and reduced crop yields.
They say western countries' prosperity has developed on the back of high-emission economies, and should pay for the effects of the pollution they have produced.
They want the west to provide clean technologies in areas such as renewable energy.
Countries with abundant forests, including the meeting host Indonesia, want developed nations to pay for protecting their trees.
In principle, many western governments agree with all three ideas.
But differences remain on how best to provide the money, how much is needed, and how to oversee spending.
Some western delegates believe the developing world should sign on to the principle of reducing its emissions in exchange for more adaptation money.
What is happening outside the UN process?
There is a plethora of other climate initiatives - the US-led "big emitters" process, the G8, and the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate, to name but three.
Many environmental campaigners regard these as distracting side-shows that cannot promise real emission cuts.
The recent Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) forum in Sydney saw more than 20 nations agree to voluntary targets on improving "energy intensity" - the ratio of GDP to energy use - but these targets, even if implemented, could lead to a rise in carbon emissions.
None of these other initatives contain measures comparable to those in the Kyoto Protocol for adaptation, reforestation, and technology transfer.
Most developing countries, and the EU, are adamant that the UN process should remain paramount; and it is the only process that includes virtually of the world's nations.
What happens next?
The UN climate roadshow moves on, with or without its roadmap, to Poland in December 2008 and Denmark in 2009.
If Bali is succesful, the second of those meetings should see the finalising of a Kyoto successor treaty.
We, the human species, face a planetary emergency. That phrase still sounds shrill to some ears but it is deadly accurate as a description of the situation that we now confront.
The accumulation of greenhouse gases continues to trap more and more heat from the sun in our atmosphere threatening the stable climate balance that has been an unappreciated but crucial assumption for the development of human civilisation.
Just this week new evidence has been presented. I remember years ago listening to the scientists who specialise in the study of ice and snow express concern that some time towards the end of the 21st century we might even face the possibility of losing the entire north polar ice cap. I remember only three years ago when they revised their estimates to say it could happen halfway through the 21st century, by 2050.
I remember at the beginning of this year when I was shocked to hear them say it could happen in as little as 34 years and now, this week, they tell us it could completely disappear in as little as five to seven years.
A sense of urgency that is appropriate for this challenge is itself a challenge to our own moral imagination. It is up to us in this generation to see clearly and vividly exactly what is going on. Twenty of the 21 hottest years ever measured in atmospheric record have come in the last 25 years – the hottest of all in 2005, this year on track to be the second hottest of all. This is not natural variation. It is far beyond the bounds of natural variation and the scientists have told us so over and over again with increasing alarm.
But because our new relationship to the earth is unprecedented we have been slow to act. And because CO2 is invisible, it is easy for us to put the climate crisis out of sight and out of mind until we see the consequences beginning to unfold.
Despite a growing number of honourable exceptions, too many of the world's leaders are still best described in the words Winston Churchill used in 1938 when he described those who were ignoring the threat posed by Adolf Hitler. He said, and I quote: "They go on in strange paradox, decided only be undecided, resolved only to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent."
I am not an official of the United States and I am not bound by the diplomatic niceties. So I am going to speak an inconvenient truth. My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali. We all know that. But my country is not the only one that can take steps to ensure that we move forward from Bali with progress and with hope.
Over the next two years the United States is going to be somewhere it is not now. You must anticipate that. Just in the last few days, on the eve of this meeting, I have received more than 350,000 emails from Americans asking me to say to you: "We're going to change in the United States of America."
During this upcoming two-year period there will be a national election in the United States. One year and 40 days from today there will be a new inauguration in the United States.
If you decide to continue the progress that has already been made here on all of the items other than the targets and timetables for mandatory reductions; on the hope (and with the expectation) that, before this process is concluded in Copenhagen, you will be able to fill in that blank (with the help of a different position from the United States) then you can make great progress here.
For starters that means a plan that fully funds an ambitious adaptation fund, to build an adaptive capacity in the most vulnerable countries to confront the climate crisis. It means creating truly innovative means for technology transfer, to allow for mobilising technology and capital throughout the world.
We need a deforestation prevention plan. Deforestation accounts for 20 percent of global carbon emissions – the equivalent to the total emissions of the US or China. It is difficult to forge such an agreement here.
Believe me if I could snap my fingers and change the position of the United States of America, and change the position of some other countries, and make it instantly much easier to move forward with targets and timetables, I would do so in an instant. But if we look realistically at the situation that confronts us, then wisdom would call for moving forward in spite of that obstacle.
I can tell you that there is a growing realisation all over the world – including in my country – beyond these actions that have already been taken that I've described to you. Mothers and fathers, grandparents, community leaders, business leaders, all around the world, are beginning to look much more clearly at what is involved here.
Not too long from now, when our children assess what you did here in Bali, what we and our generation did here in this world, as they look backward at 2007, they will ask one of two questions.
They'll look back, and either they will ask "What were you thinking? Didn't you hear the IPCC four times unanimously warning the world to act? Didn't you see the glaciers melting? Didn't you see the deserts growing, and the droughts deepening, and the crops drying up? Didn't you pay attention to what was going on? Didn't you care? What were you thinking?"
Or they'll ask a second question, one that I'd much prefer them to ask. I want them to look back on this time, and ask: "How did you find the moral courage to successfully address a crisis that so many said was impossible? How were you able to start the process that unleashed the moral imagination of humankind to see ourselves as a single, global civilisation?" And when they ask that question, I want you to tell them that you saw it as a privilege to be alive at a moment when a relatively small group of people could control the destiny of all generations to come.
Instead of shaking our heads at the difficulty of this task, and
saying "Woe is us, this is impossible, how can we do this?", we ought
to feel a sense of joy that we have work that is worth doing that is so
important to the future of all humankind. We ought to feel a sense of
exhilaration that we are the people alive at a moment in history when
we can make all the difference.
The above is an edited extract from Al Gore's speech at the Bali
climate change conference, published by The Independent.
The UN climate change convention has concluded in the Indonesian island of Bali.
The agreement launches a two-year negotiating process - the "Bali roadmap" - aiming to secure a binding deal at the 2009 UN summit in Denmark.
Here are some key elements of the roadmap and other issues agreed in Bali.
CUTTING EMISSIONS
Acknowledges that evidence for the planet warming is "unequivocal", and that delays in reducing emissions increase the risks of "severe climate change impacts".
Decides to look at "a long-term global goal for emission reductions".
Developed nations to take on commitments that are "measurable, reportable and verifiable", and "nationally appropriate". May or may not include quantified, binding targets for all or some.
For developing nations, "measurable, reportable and verifiable" actions "in the context of sustainable development, supported by technology and enabled by financing and capacity-building" - ie only with Western support.
FORESTS
Pledges to consider "policy approaches and positive incentives" to reduce deforestation and conserve forest cover.
Funds pledged to World Bank to initiate pilot projects under the banner of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing countries (Redd).
ADAPTATION
Enhanced co-operation to "support urgent implementation" of measures to protect poorer countries against climate change impacts.
Acknowledges that economic diversification can "build resilience".
Resolves to consider ways of reducing the occurrence or damage from natural disasters.
TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER
Will consider how to "remove obstacles to, and the provision of financial and other incentives for, scaling up" the transfer of clean energy technologies from industrialised nations to the developing world.
Decides to re-instate an expert group on technology transfer to advise developing countries.
TIMESCALES
A subsidiary body will begin work on the Bali roadmap as soon as possible. Views of parties to be sought by late February, and the first meeting in March or April.
Further review meetings scheduled; process to complete at 2009 UN summit in Copenhagen.
BAN KI-MOON, UN SECRETARY GENERAL
I am deeply grateful to many member states for their spirit of flexibility and compromise.
HUMBERTO ROSA, CHIEF EU NEGOTIATOR
It was exactly what we wanted, we are indeed very pleased. We will have now two tremendously demanding years, starting right in January.
PAULA DOBRIANSKY, CHIEF US NEGOTIATOR
The United States is very committed to this effort and just wants to really ensure we all act together. We will go forward and join consensus.
JOHN BAIRD, CANADIAN ENVIRONMENT MINISTER
One-hundred-and-ninety countries are represented here. Thirty-eight of them agreed to take on national binding targets today, we've just got to work on some of the other 150.
YVO DE BOER, UN CLIMATE CHIEF
Parties have recognised the urgency of action on climate change and have now provided the political response to what scientists have been telling us is needed.
GORDON BROWN, UK PRIME MINISTER
This agreement is a vital step forward for the whole world... The Bali roadmap agreed today is just the first step. Now begins the hardest work, as all nations work towards a deal in Copenhagen in 2009 to address the defining challenge of our time.
HASSAN WIRAJUDA, INDONESIAN FOREIGN MINISTER
No single country was excluded, in a very inclusive process.
KAPIL SIBAL, INDIAN SCIENCE MINISTER
The world community realises that unless the US comes on board we cannot achieve our goal.
JACQUELINE CRAMER, DUTCH ENVIRONMENT MINISTER
The United States was willing to give in. The G77 was willing to give in, everybody was willing to give in. We could not leave here without a Bali roadmap.
HANS VEROLME, CONSERVATION GROUP WWF
The [US] administration was out on a wrecking mission.
TONY JUNIPER, FRIENDS OF THE EARTH
This deal is very disappointing. We said we needed a roadmap, but this conference has failed to give us a clear destination. We urgently need to find a way forward for an international agreement. This is a journey we have to make together.
CHRISTIAN AID
International development agency Christian Aid welcomes the last minute agreement... It is dismayed, however, that crucial target figures for cutting carbon emissions in rich countries were removed from the final agreement.
ELIOT DIRIGER, PEW CENTER ON GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE
We need the US at the table ready to do that in order to get other countries to come on, but "Yes" it [the conference] does provide the opening for the next person in the White House, and I'm confident that whoever that person is there'll be a greater willingness to engage constructively in this process.
| By Roger Harrabin Environment analyst, BBC News |
Jose Manuel Barroso wants to protect energy-intensive sectors such as aluminium, steel and cement.
He says there is no point these industries cutting emissions in Europe if they lose business to countries with more lax rules on carbon emissions.
Mr Barroso made the comments in a speech to business leaders in London.
Level playing field
He said foreign firms should be forced to purchase the same EU carbon allowances European firms would have to buy, thereby levelling the industrial playing field.
| |
I think we should be ready to
continue to give the energy-intensive
industries their (carbon) allowances free of charge - or to require
importers to obtain allowances alongside European competitors Jose Manuel Barroso European Commission President |
He said his preferred option was for a comprehensive global treaty on emissions.
His fall-back was a global sectoral agreement imposing uniform standards on energy-intensive export industries.
If these failed, he would either protect Europe's industries by giving them all their carbon allowances in the European Trading System (ETS) free of charge, or charge importers at the same rate for the allowances.
"I think we should be ready to continue to give the energy-intensive industries their ETS allowances free of charge - or to require importers to obtain allowances alongside European competitors, as long as this system is compatible with WTO (World Trade Organization) requirements."
French idea
The idea of climate trade sanctions against nations such as the United States has long been promoted by the French.
They say it is unfair for Europe's firms to bear a financial risk because of the EU's leadership on a global issue.
They believe the right measures would be acceptable to the WTO, which in some cases allows countries to impose charges on environmental grounds.
But US trade representative Susan Schwab said on Monday that climate change should not be used as an excuse for protectionism. And EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson agreed that restrictions were not "the way forward".
He has been overruled by Mr Barroso, who will be aware of the effects of his words not just in Washington but also in Beijing and Delhi.
Last night's speech at Lehman Brothers Bank in Canary Wharf was quite warmly received by an audience mainly of investors.
John Llewellyn of Lehman Brothers said Mr Barroso was right to make the threat of trade sanctions, and right to insist that they would be very much the last resort.
He said: "I have heard quite prominent Americans say they would recommend to the Europeans that they did it (impose trade measures). But it's not the way to go if you can possibly avoid it."
Tom Burke of environment consultancy E3G said the soft threat would focus minds among other major polluters in future climate negotiations.
"What was really important in the way Barroso raised the issue of compensatory adjustments is that it sends a very strong signal about how serious Europe is about this," he said.
"People need to understand that Europe sees climate change as in its national interest. And Europe's going to fight pretty aggressively to protect the interest of 450 million Europeans."
Tuesday, 5 February 2008
Nine ways in which the Earth could be tipped into a potentially dangerous state that could last for many centuries have been identified by scientists investigating how quickly global warming could run out of control.
A major international investigation by dozens of leading climate scientists has found that the "tipping points" for all nine scenarios – such as the melting of the Arctic sea ice or the disappearance of the Amazon rainforest – could occur within the next 100 years.
The scientists warn that climate change is likely to result in sudden and dramatic changes to some of the major geophysical elements of the Earth if global average temperatures continue to rise as a result of the predicted increase in emissions of man-made greenhouse gases.
Most and probably all of the nine scenarios are likely to be irreversible on a human timescale once they pass a certain threshold of change, and the widespread effects of the transition to the new state will be felt for generations to come, the scientists said.
"Society may be lulled into a false sense of security by smooth projections of global change. Our synthesis of present knowledge suggests that a variety of tipping elements could reach their critical point within this century under anthropogenic [man-made] climate change," they report in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study came out of a 2005 meeting of 36 leading climate scientists who drew on the expertise of a further 52 specialists. It is believed to be the first time that scientists have attempted to assess the risks of what they have termed "tipping elements" in the Earth's climate system.
The nine elements range from the melting of polar ice sheets to the collapse of the Indian and West African monsoons. The effects of the changes could be equally varied, from a dramatic rise in sea levels that flood coastal regions to widespread crop failures and famine. Some of the tipping points may be close at hand, such as the point at which the disappearance of the summer sea ice in the Arctic becomes inevitable, whereas others, such as the tipping point for the destruction of northern boreal forests, may take several more decades to be reached.
While scenarios such as the collapse of the Indian monsoon could occur within a few years, others, such as the melting of the Greenland ice cap or the West Antarctic ice sheet, may take several centuries to complete. "Our findings suggest that a variety of tipping elements could reach their critical point in this century under human-induced climate change," said Professor Timothy Lenton, of the University of East Anglia, who led the study.
A tipping point is defined as the point where a small increase in temperature or other change in the climate could trigger a disproportionately larger change in the future. Although there are many potential tipping points that could occur this century, it is still possible to avoid them with cuts in greenhouse gases, said Professor Lenton.
He added: "But we should be prepared to adapt ... and to design an early-warning system that alerts us to them in time."
Irreversible changes
* Arctic sea ice: some scientists believe that the tipping point for the total loss of summer sea ice is imminent.
* Greenland ice sheet: total melting could take 300 years or more but the tipping point that could see irreversible change might occur within 50 years.
* West Antarctic ice sheet: scientists believe it could unexpectedly collapse if it slips into the sea at its warming edges.
* Gulf Stream: few scientists believe it could be switched off completely this century but its collapse is a possibility.
* El Niño: the southern Pacific current may be affected by warmer seas, resulting in far-reaching climate change.
* Indian monsoon: relies on temperature difference between land and sea, which could be tipped off-balance by pollutants that cause localised cooling.
* West African monsoon: in the past it has changed, causing the greening of the Sahara, but in the future it could cause droughts.
* Amazon rainforest: a warmer world and further deforestation may cause a collapse of the rain supporting this ecosystem.
* Boreal forests: cold-adapted trees of Siberia and Canada are dying as temperatures rise.
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Friday, 8 February 2008
Scientists have produced damning evidence to suggest that biofuels could be one of the biggest environmental con-tricks because they actually make global warming worse by adding to the man-made emissions of carbon dioxide that they are supposed to curb. Two separate studies published in the journal Science show that a range of biofuel crops now being grown to produce "green" alternatives to oil-based fossil fuels release far more carbon dioxide into the air than can be absorbed by the growing plants.
The scientists found that, in the case of some crops, it would take several centuries of growing them to pay off the "carbon debt" caused by their initial cultivation. Those environmental costs do not take into account any extra destruction to the environment, for instance the loss of biodiversity caused by clearing tracts of pristine rainforest.
"All the biofuels we use now cause habitat destruction, either directly or indirectly. Global agriculture is already producing food for six billion people. Producing food-based biofuel, too, will require that still more land be converted to agriculture," said Joe Fargioine of the US Nature Conservancy who was the lead scientist in one of the studies.
The scientists carried out the sort of analysis that has been missing in the rush to grow biofuels, encouraged by policies in the United States and Europe where proponents have been keen to extol biofuels' virtues as a green alternative to the fossil fuels used for transport.
Both studies looked at how much carbon dioxide is released when a piece of land is converted into a biofuel crop. They found that when peat lands in Indonesia are converted into palm-oil plantations, for instance, it would take 423 years to pay off the carbon debt.
The next worse case was when forested land in the Amazon is cut down to convert into soybean fields. The scientists found that it would take 319 years of making biodiesel from the soybeans to pay of the carbon debt caused by chopping down the trees in the first place.
Such conversions of land to grow corn (maize) and sugarcane for biodiesel, or palm oil and soybean for bioethanol, release between 17 and 420 times more carbon than the annual savings from replacing fossil fuels, the scientists calculated.
"This research examines the conversion of land for biofuels and asks the question 'is it worth it?' Does the carbon you lose by converting forests, grasslands and peat lands outweigh the carbon you 'save' by using biofuels instead of fossil fuels?" Dr Fargione said.
"And surprisingly the answer is 'no'. These natural areas store a lot of carbon, so converting them to croplands results in tons of carbon emitted into the atmosphere," he said.
The demand for biofuels is destroying the environment in other ways. American farmers for instance used to rotate between soybean and corn crops but the demand for biofuel has meant that they are growing corn only. As a result, Brazilian farmers are cutting down forests to grow soybean to meet the shortfall in production.
"In finding solutions to climate change, we must ensure that the cure is not worse than the disease," said Jimmie Powell, a member of the scientific team at the Nature Conservancy.
"We cannot afford to ignore the consequences of converting land for biofuels. Doing so means we might unintentionally promote fuel alternatives that are worse than the fossil fuels they are designed to replace. These findings should be incorporated into carbon emission policy going forward," Dr Powell said yesterday.
The European Union is already having second thoughts about its policy aimed at stimulating the production of biofuel. Stavros Dimas, the EU environment commissioner, admitted last month that the EU did not foresee the scale of the environmental problems raised by Europe's target of deriving 10 per cent of its transport fuel from plant material.
Professor John Pickett, chair of the recent study on biofuels commissioned by the Royal Society, said that although biofuels may play an important role in cutting greenhouse gases from transport, it is important to remember that one biofuel is not the same as another.
"The greenhouse gas savings that a biofuel can provide are dependent on how crops are grown and converted and how the fuel is used," Professor Pickett said. "Given that biofuels are already entering global markets, it will be vital to apply carbon certification and sustainability criteria to the assessment of biofuels to promote those that are good for people and the environment. This must happen at an international level so that we do not just transfer any potentially negative effects of these fuels from one place to another."
Professor Stephen Polasky of the University of Minnesota, an author of one of the studies published in Science, said that the incentives currently employed to encourage farmers to grow crops for biofuels do not take into account the carbon budget of the crop.
"We don't have the proper incentives in place because landowners are rewarded for producing palm oil and other products but not rewarded for carbon management. This creates incentives for excessive land clearing and can result in large increases in carbon emissions," Professor Polasky said.
By Alister Doyle, Reuters Environment CorrespondentThu Apr 17, 2:26 PM ET
A U.S. plan to cap rising greenhouse gases by 2025 drew criticisms as too little, too late from delegates at 17-nation climate talks in Paris on Thursday but some welcomed it as a first firm U.S. ceiling.
On Wednesday, President George W. Bush unveiled a plan to halt the growth of U.S. emissions by 2025, toughening a previous goal of braking the growth of emissions by 2012. The United States and China are the top emitters.
"The president gave a disappointing speech," German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said in a statement issued in Berlin headlined "Gabriel criticizes Bush's Neanderthal speech. Losership, not Leadership."
Many delegates at the U.S.-led climate talks, on Thursday and Friday in Paris, said far faster action was needed to avert the worst effects of global warming. Most other developed nations are trying to cut emissions below 1990 levels.
"President Bush recognized the need for mandatory federal legislation to tackle climate change but what he proposed ... will not contribute to the effective tackling of climate change," European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas told Reuters. He said Washington should be more ambitious.
"The American administration is starting to awaken," French climate change ambassador Brice Lalonde said. "It's a bit late."
Bush will step down in January and Republican presidential candidate John McCain and Democratic hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have all urged tougher caps on emissions than those he proposed.
"We are looking forward to whoever succeeds the present (U.S.) administration, because we believe we can probably only do better," South African Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk told reporters.
RISING SEAS
Projections by the U.N. Climate Panel indicate emissions by rich nations will have to fall by 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to avert the worst effects of more droughts, heatwaves, floods and rising seas.
"That's the most extreme curve," said James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. He said there were other, less demanding scientific scenarios for addressing global warming.
"We try to steer away from rhetorical commitments that have no prayer of being met," he told a news conference. Previous U.S. data have suggested U.S. emissions could rise to about 30 percent above 1990 levels by 2025.
The Paris talks involve the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Britain, Japan, China, Canada, India, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Australia, Indonesia and South Africa. The European Commission, current European Union president Slovenia and the United Nations are also attending.
The big economies account for 80 percent of world greenhouse gas emissions and Paris is the third meeting of a series begun in September to work out ways to contribute to a new U.N. treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.
Delegates are also examining the idea of a long-term aspirational goal of cutting world emissions by perhaps 50 percent by 2050. Connaughton said Washington had not given up on a 2007 promise to seriously consider such a target.
French Secretary of State for European Affairs Jean-Pierre Jouyet said it would be "a big step" just to get accord on key principles -- rather than numbers -- for combating climate change by the time of a Group of Eight summit in Japan in July.
The United Nations noted the U.N. Climate Panel reckoned world emissions will have to peak before Bush's ceiling to avert the worst of climate change.
"It's good to have something on the table," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said of Bush's plan.
"The science tells us we need to peak emissions in the next 10 to 15 years and then reduce them by half by the middle of the century. ... So this needs to be considered in that context," he told Reuters.
BRASILIA, Brazil: Germany's environment minister is convinced Brazil's biofuel production does not harm the environment or cause high food prices as some critics maintain.
Sigmar Gabriel made his remarks after meeting with his Brazilian counterpart in the capital of Brasilia.
Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva says that only 1 percent of Brazil's 300 million hectares (741 million acres) of arable land is used to plant sugarcane for the production of ethanol.
Silva told a news conference attended by the two officials Monday that Brazil will not allow sugarcane to be grown in the Amazon.
Gabriel says if Brazil continues to demonstrate no harm is being done, the European Union will have "no problem" continuing to import its ethanol.
The government has ruled out a nationwide carbon trading scheme to reduce emissions, describing the idea as "ahead of its time".
Under a 2006 plan, every adult would receive an annual carbon "allowance", with those not using their allocation selling surpluses to those using more.
But a government report said the scheme would cost up to £2 billion to set up and seemed like a "big brother" idea.
It could, however, be "potentially important" in future, it added.
The proposal was put forward by two years ago by the then environment secretary, David Miliband.
Adults would have a card swiped when paying for items such as travel, energy or food.
This would set a cap on national CO2 emissions, which are meant to be reduced by 60% from 1990 levels by 2050.
| |
Just straight away it reminds me
of going back to the war and rationing Government survey respondent |
In its report, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the carbon trading scheme had an "inherent fairness", as everyone would get the same allowance.
However, some households, such as a single-parent family living in an old detached home in the country, would emit more CO2 than others, for instance a single person in a newly built city apartment.
Defra, which carried out interviews with 92 people, also found a "strong lack of trust in the government in doing this and a reluctance for individuals to have to contribute financially".
One respondent said: "Just straight away it reminds me of going back to the war and rationing."
'Interesting idea'
Setting up the technology to cope with individual carbon trading would cost between £700 million and £2 billion with annual running expenses of £1 billion to £2 billion, the report said.
All "relevant retail points", such as petrol stations, energy suppliers and travel firms, would have to install machines to deal with the allowances of up to 50 million people.
However, the report said "there may be circumstances in the future where personal carbon trading is a cost-effective and desirable policy option".
It added: "The government maintains its view that personal carbon trading is an interesting idea, but considers the concept is currently ahead of its time."
On Thursday Mr Miliband, who is now foreign secretary, said Europe should lead the world in moving to a low-carbon economy.
This would help counter the "resource crunch" which has seen fuel and food prices surge in the past year, he argued.
The halting of logging in the world's rainforests is the single greatest solution to climate change, Prince Charles has said.
He called for a mechanism to be devised to pay poor countries to prevent them felling their rainforests.
The prince told the BBC's Today programme that the forests provided the earth's "air conditioning system".
He said it was "crazy" the rainforests were worth more "dead than alive" to some of the world's poorest people.
The world's forests store carbon in their wood and in their soils.
But they are being felled for timber products, food and now bio fuels. Experts say this carbon is being released into the atmosphere and contributes to global warming.
The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, published in 2006, suggested that the destruction adds about 18% to the CO2 from human sources.
Prince Charles said of the rainforests: "When you think they release 20 billion tonnes of water vapour into the air every day, and also absorb carbon on a gigantic scale, they are incredibly valuable, and they provide the rainfall we all depend on."
He said a way had to be found to ensure people living in the rainforest were adequately rewarded for the "eco-system services that their forest provides the rest of the world".
| |
We're asking for something pretty
dreadful unless we really understand the issues now Prince Charles |
He said: "The trouble is the rainforests are home to something like 1.4 billion of the poorest people in the world.
"In order to survive there has to be an effort to produce things which tends to be at the expense of the rainforest.
"What we've got to do is try to ensure that those forests are more valuable alive than dead.
"At the moment there's more value in them being dead. This is the crazy thing."
Drought and starvation
The prince called on governments, big business and consumers to demand an end to logging in the rainforest.
He said the time was right to persuade business to play its part because there was increasing concern about global warming.
"Halting deforestation would be the easiest and cheapest way in helping in the battle against climate change," he said.
"Waiting for all the new technologies to come on stream is not going to be soon enough."
Charles said if deforestation did not slow down soon there would be "far more drought and starvation on a grand scale".
Urgency
He said: "We're asking for something pretty dreadful unless we really understand the issues now, and urgency of those issues.
"It is the easiest way to create a win on the climate change front while all sorts of other things come along later."
The BBC's environment analyst, Roger Harrabin, says that Prince Charles' observation that saving the forests is the cheapest and most effective way of cutting CO2 emissions is "widely acknowledged".
At the recent Bali climate conference, developing countries asked for compensation from rich nations if they agreed to avoid future deforestation.
Talks are continuing, but there are issues over sovereignty – and genuine difficulties over who pays, who collects, and how much money should be offered.
Mike Childs, of Friends of the Earth, said: "The Prince is absolutely right to highlight deforestation as the single greatest cause of climate change, but putting a stop to it much more complex.
"Forests are cut down for many different reasons, such as the growing of food, animal fodder and bio fuels."
Some of the most powerful corporate leaders in America have been meeting regularly with leading environmental groups in a conference room in downtown Washington for over two years to work on proposals for a national policy to limit carbon emissions.
The discussions have often been tense. Pinned on a wall, a large handmade poster with Rolling Stones lyrics reminds everyone, "You can't always get what you want."
What unites these two groups — business executives from Duke Energy, the Ford Motor Company and ConocoPhillips, as well as heads of environmental organizations like the Natural Resources Defense Council — is a desire to deal with climate change. They have broken with much of corporate America to declare that it is time for the federal government to act and set mandatory limits on emissions.
What divides them is that dealing with climate change will almost certainly hurt some industries and enrich others. Billions of dollars are at stake. Depending on how the nation decides to tackle the problem, electricity bills in some states could rise 50 percent, and gasoline prices could go up 50 cents a gallon.
"It's really now a battle over the economics," said James Rogers, chief executive of Duke Energy, who has long advocated curbing carbon emissions. "The debate is not about the climate problem. Everybody could agree on the principles and still get the economics wrong."
The Senate is to vote Monday to kick off a weeklong discussion on carbon limits. But the intense debates under way already illustrate just how hard it will be for Congress to satisfy conflicting business interests while coming up with a global-warming plan that works.
Opposition from corporate interests, including oil, gas and power companies, prompted the Bush administration to opt out of the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that called on developed countries to limit their emissions.
But the political winds have shifted. All three presidential candidates have said they favor mandatory curbs on emissions, and the Democratic majority in Congress wants a strong climate policy. The Senate debate could help set parameters of future legislation, which many experts expect to see within two years.
Congress is considering a complicated approach that would set a limit, or cap, on emissions that would be reduced each year. It would also create emissions permits that large industrial companies, like oil refineries or power plants, would be required to use.
By putting a value on carbon dioxide, this cap-and-trade system would provide incentives for companies to reduce emissions. Experts say it could turn into one of the biggest markets in the world, estimated to be worth over $200 billion a year.
Thus far, climate policy has been slowly shaped by states like California and Massachusetts, with others following. The resulting patchwork of policies has created uncertainty for companies, some of which have recognized that federal system to limit carbon is ultimately unavoidable.
"If they are not at the table, they will not have a hand in the making of the regulation," said Robert Stavins, director of the environmental economics program at Harvard University.
That recognition led to the Climate Action Partnership, the Washington group, in which corporate behemoths and environmental groups have been debating climate policy for over two years, sometimes meeting every week, in order to force the issue.
In January 2007, the eclectic group endorsed a bold national policy that called for reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of 60 percent to 80 percent by 2050, an aggressive target that is in line with recommendations from an international panel of scientists. But the group, which now has 33 members, has failed to reach consensus on a variety of issues, including how to allocate carbon permits and whether to include a price cap for carbon credits.
"They helped crystallize the concerns about climate," said David Victor, the director of the energy and sustainable development program at Stanford University and an expert on climate policy who has been closely following the debates. "But the moment the coalition starts to focus on the details, it starts breaking apart. It's a litmus test for the debate in the country."
The sharpest battle lines have been drawn over the structure of a cap-and-trade system. This mostly centers on whether carbon allocations — or pollution permits, as some see them — should be granted to companies or auctioned off.
Under one proposal, Congress would give away about half the allowances to businesses like power plants and oil companies, but also to states and farmers, in order to give time for them to adapt to lower-carbon technologies. Over time, it would gradually sell the rest to the highest bidder, raising money for developing alternative energy sources.
By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer
Senate Republicans appeared ready to turn back an ambitious plan to reduce the risks of global warming after a week in which bipartisan bickering and political posturing seemed to drown out the environmental debate.
Supporters of a bill that would require greenhouse gases to be cut markedly and nudge the nation's energy priorities away from fossil fuels acknowledged privately Thursday that they don't have the votes to overcome strong opposition to the measure.
Even some Democrats shied away from supporting the legislation when it became clear that because of maneuvering by both sides they would not be able to get changes in the bill that they viewed as critical to their support.
President Bush has said he viewed the bill as a tax on Americans and he would veto it should it ever reach his desk.
In fact, it became increasingly clear as the week wore on that the climate bill — viewed by many environmentalists as historic and essential — was unlikely to survive the Senate, much less make it to the White House.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid scheduled an early morning Friday vote to try to overcome a GOP filibuster, accommodating senators eager to depart Washington for the weekend. Some of the bill's supporters privately worried they might not get 50 votes, much less the 60 needed to keep the measure alive.
Leading sponsors of the bill already began looking toward next year with a new Congress and, more importantly, a new president, either Democrat Barrack Obama or Republican John McCain, both of whom favor mandatory steps to counter climate change.
"It's a road map for them," Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., one of the bill's three primary sponsors, told reporters, acknowledging Thursday that the needed 60 votes to move the bill forward had not materialized.
The 492-page bill marked the Senate's first attempt to address global warming head on since widespread consensus has emerged in recent years among lawmakers — both Democratic and Republican — that man-made pollution is adversely changing the Earth's climate and must be addressed.
But critics of the bill said it threatened economic growth and would raise people's energy bills.
Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky argued that the bill's "cap and trade" approach to cutting carbon dioxide emissions would unleash "the largest restructuring of the American economy since the New Deal."
"It's a huge tax increase," he proclaimed even as the bill's supporters argued it actually would provide tax breaks for people who faced higher energy costs, and financial assistance to carbon intensive industries through a pollution allowance trading system.
One GOP senator after the other argued that people would be paying more for gasoline, words meant to hit home to motorists angry over having to pay $60 to $100 to fill their gas tanks.
"There is no increase in gas prices," Boxer insisted.
The measure would require power plants, refineries and factories to reduce their carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 19 percent by 2020 and by 71 percent by 2050. Along with capping emissions, it would allow companies to buy pollution allowances to meet the cap and ease the transition from fossil fuel.
But the legislation was in trouble from the start.
A GOP filibuster threat prevented Democrats from moving quickly at the beginning of the week to consider amendments. At midweek, McConnell stunned Democrats by forcing the reading of all 492 pages of the bill into the record — an almost unheard of move that took 8 1/2 hours.
McConnell said he did so because of a dispute over judicial nominations, but Reid saw it as obstruction aimed at stonewalling the bill. Reid responded by essentially blocking any Republican amendments and set an end-of-the-week deadline for a vote.
McConnell accused Reid of refusing to give the issue a full airing. "If this is the most important issue facing the planet, it is ludicrous to think we're going to do this in four days with no amendments," he complained.
Democrats countered that Republicans all along had sought to undermine the bill with filibusters, while politically posturing that they wanted a full debate.
"You can't have a more important issue to be dealing with on the floor of the Senate," Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., told reporters. Instead, he said, the deliberations had been "reduced to trickery and gimmicks and parliamentary games."
BRUSSELS: In one of the strongest warnings so far about the world's thirst for energy, the International Energy Agency said Friday that investment totaling $45 trillion might be needed over the next half-century to prevent energy shortages and greenhouse gas emissions from undermining global economic growth.
The executive director of the agency, Nobuo Tanaka, called for "immediate policy action and technological transition on an unprecedented scale." Tanaka said the world needed to "completely transform the way we produce and use energy."
The IEA report said that the combination of growing demand for energy, especially in countries like China and India, the dangers of climate change and the scarcity of resources was going to require huge shifts in the way the global economy was organized. To meet those challenges, it said, nations would have to overcome objections to building nuclear power plants and storing large amounts of carbon dioxide underground or beneath the ocean floor.
"I am very pleased the International Energy Agency has put such a high figure on the cost of making this transition," said Pierre Noël, an energy expert and senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. "It is high time we got rid of the myth that we can decarbonize our economies on the cheap," he said.
In its report, the IEA, which gives advice on energy policy to its 27 member nations, which include the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and most of Europe, described emissions-cutting measures that broadly match the advice of some leading scientists, who have recommended cutting emissions in half by 2050 as a way of avoiding devastating climate change. Environment ministers from the Group of 8 have backed this target, and they have said governments should officially endorse the goal at a G-8 summit meeting in July in Japan.
The report did not say how such large sums of money should be raised. The IEA said member nations of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or Unfccc, the parent treaty of the Kyoto Protocol, must negotiate ways of encouraging governments and businesses to lower emissions.
John Hay, a spokesman for the convention, said markets operating under the Kyoto treaty that put a price on carbon pollution, like Europe's Emissions Trading System, were already playing an important role in driving investment, but could not be solely relied on to raise the sums described by the IEA. Two years ago, Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the Unfccc, estimated that carbon trading could generate investments in climate-friendly technology in the developing world worth about $100 billion annually - a fraction of the amounts the IEA said was required.
The IEA report foresees "a dramatic transformation of the energy industry, and how that level of investment can be achieved is a major question," said Robert LaCount, head of climate change and clean energy research at Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "Governments at all levels will need to help and support the emergence of new technologies so that they can reach commercialization," he said.
Among the energy agency's chief messages is that current energy policies are unsustainable, with emissions of carbon dioxide expected to climb 130 percent and demand for oil to rise by 70 percent by 2050. Tanaka warned that oil demand could be five times the current production of Saudi Arabia by that time, and that carbon emissions of such a magnitude could raise global average temperatures by 6 degrees Celsius (10.8 degrees Fahrenheit), changing all aspects of life and creating irreversible changes in the natural environment.
A major problem for the planet is that the rising cost of oil and natural gas is prompting a switch to coal, particularly in India and China. Coal is inexpensive and plentiful but highly polluting, and its increasing use is contributing to the accelerating growth in emissions of carbon dioxide. But Noël, of the foreign relations council, said the rising cost of fossil fuels should be a cause for optimism, because they would be the main factor driving large-scale investments.
"It's not primarily a global agreement between heads of state that will make technologies like nuclear power or like carbon capture reach take off," Noël said. "It's primarily expectations about energy prices," he said.
The IEA recommended taking measures now that would ensure that
carbon emissions were down to at least present-day levels by
mid-century by using technologies that already exist, including steps
for improving energy efficiency and reducing emissions from power
generation. Such measures would cost $17 trillion between now and 2050,
or 0.4 percent of global output, costing about $400 billion a year.
The agency also mapped out a second, more ambitious plan aimed at reducing emissions to half their current levels by mid-century by emphasizing technologies and strategies for "weaning the world off oil." The agency estimated the cost of that process at $45 trillion, or 1.1 percent of annual global output, over the period to 2050. Investments of $100 billion to $200 billion would be needed each year over the next 10 years, rising to $1 trillion to $2 trillion each year in the coming decades.
To reach the goal of halving emissions, the agency said, among the most important measures would be equipping more than 50 natural gas and coal power plants each year with equipment to capture and sequester carbon dioxide. Such measures would double the generating costs of a coal power station not equipped with capture and storage, and many plants that could not be converted to the new technology would have to close before the end of their useful lives.
"It is recognized that this will be a large step for countries heavily reliant on coal, but a necessary step requiring careful management," the report said.
There would also be a need for 32 new nuclear plants each year, while the number of wind turbines would need to increase by 17,500 annually. Other strategies included accelerating the development of solar electricity and so-called second-generation biofuels, made from sources that do not compete with food for farmland.
The report acknowledged that numerous objections to these technologies would need to be overcome, in particular local opposition to building new nuclear power stations and to long-term nuclear waste repositories. Geologically stable sites also would need to be found for storing carbon dioxide.
But the most difficult and costly step, it said, would be reducing carbon emissions from transportation at a time when the use of cars, airplanes and ships would still be growing rapidly but few technologies would exist to limit emissions from those sources.
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
The dwindling march of the penguins is signaling that the world's oceans are in trouble, scientists now say. Penguins may be the tuxedo-clad version of a canary in the coal mine, with generally ailing populations from a combination of global warming, ocean oil pollution, depleted fisheries, and tourism and development, according to a new scientific review paper.
A University of Washington biologist detailed specific problems around the world with remote penguin populations, linking their decline to the overall health of southern oceans.
"Now we're seeing effects (of human caused warming and pollution) in the most faraway places in the world," said conservation biologist P. Dee Boersma, author of the paper published in the July edition of the journal Bioscience. "Many penguins we thought would be safe because they are not that close to people. And that's not true."
Scientists figure there are between 16 to 19 species of penguins. About a dozen are in some form of trouble, Boersma wrote. A few, such as the king penguin found in islands north of Antarctica, are improving in numbers, she said.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature lists three penguin species as endangered, seven as vulnerable, which means they are "facing a high risk of extinction in the wild," and two more as "near threatened." About 15 years ago only five to seven penguin species were considered vulnerable, experts said.
And the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has already listed one penguin species on its endangered list, is studying whether it needs to add 10 more.
The largest Patagonian penguin colony in the world is at Punta Tumbo, Argentina, but the number of breeding pairs there dropped in half from about 400,000 in the late 1960s to about 200,000 in October 2006, Boersma reported. Over a century, African penguins have decreased from 1.5 million breeding pairs to 63,000.
The decline overall isn't caused by one factor, but several.
For the ice-loving Adelie penguins, global warming in the western Antarctica peninsula is a problem, making it harder for them to find food, said Phil Trathan, head of conservation biology at the British Antarctic Survey, a top penguin scientist who had no role in the new report.
For penguins that live on the Galapagos island, El Nino weather patterns are a problem because the warmer water makes penguins travel farther for food, at times abandoning their chicks, Boersma said. At the end of the 1998 record El Nino, female penguins were only 80 percent of their normal body weight. Scientists have tied climate change to stronger El Ninos.
Oil spills regularly taint the water where penguins live off Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil and have contributed to the Punta Tumbo declines, Boersma said.
The problems may be different from place to place, but looking at the numbers for the species overall, "they do give you a clear message," Trathan said.
And this isn't just about the fate of penguins.
"What happens to penguins, a few years down the road can happen to a
lot of other species and possibly humans," said longtime penguin expert
Susie Ellis, now executive director of the International Rhino
Foundation.
END OF REPORT
AS
A REMINDER OF THE TROUBLE CO2 is causing the oceans here is the Royal
Society Policy Statement or 30th June 3 years ago...
30 Jun 2005
Ref: 12/05
Carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted to the atmosphere by human activities is being absorbed by the oceans, making them more acidic (lowering the pH the measure of acidity).
Evidence indicates that emissions of carbon dioxide from human activities over the past 200 years have already led to a reduction in the average pH of surface seawater of 0.1 units and could fall by 0.5 units by the year 2100. This pH is probably lower than has been experienced for hundreds of millennia and, critically, at a rate of change probably 100 times greater than at any time over this period.
The report outlines our best understanding of the impacts of these chemical changes on the oceans. The impacts will be greater for some regions and ecosystems, and will be most severe for coral reefs and the Southern Ocean. The impacts of ocean acidification on other marine organisms and ecosystems are much less certain. We recommend a major international research effort be launched into this relatively new area of research.
We recommend that action needs to be taken now to reduce global
emissions of CO2 from human activities to the atmosphere to
avoid the risk of irreversible damage from ocean acidification.
see http://royalsociety.org/document.asp?id=3249
Julie Cole and Jean-Pierre Gattuso will co-chair session 2 on “Climate change and ocean acidification” at the 11th Pacific Science Inter-Congress, Tahiti, 2-6 March 2009.
Silently and steadily, a tragedy is unfolding beneath the ocean’s waves: Coral reefs around the world are disappearing. According to some projections, there could be few, if any, left by the end of the century.
This dire and credible prediction has shocked many marine scientists, who had not realized how close to the tipping point coral reefs are. The news is especially disheartening because 2008 is the International Year of the Reef.
The culprit here is carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that is responsible for global warming and that also is turning our oceans into an acid bath.
Ocean acidification is rapidly changing the carbonate system of the world oceans. Past mass extinction events have been linked to ocean acidification, and the current rate of change in seawater chemistry is unprecedented. Evidence suggests that these changes will have significant consequences for marine taxa, particularly those that build skeletons, shells, and tests of biogenic calcium carbonate. Potential changes in species distributions and abundances could propagate through multiple trophic levels of marine food webs, though research into the long-term ecosystem impacts of ocean acidification is in its infancy. This review attempts to provide a general synthesis of known and/or hypothesized biological and ecosystem responses to increasing ocean acidification. Marine taxa covered in this review include tropical reef-building corals, cold-water corals, crustose coralline algae, Halimeda, benthic mollusks, echinoderms, coccolithophores, foraminifera, pteropods, seagrasses, jellyfishes, and fishes. The risk of irreversible ecosystem changes due to ocean acidification should enlighten the ongoing CO2 emissions debate and make it clear that the human dependence on fossil fuels must end quickly. Political will and significant large-scale investment in clean-energy technologies are essential if we are to avoid the most damaging effects of human-induced climate change, including ocean acidification.
A round-up of reaction to the announcement by G8 world leaders
at a
summit in Japan that they will aim to set a global target of cutting
carbon emissions by at least 50% by 2050 in an effort to tackle global
warming.
Dan Price, President Bush's assistant for
international economic affairs
In our view, and in the view of the leaders in the room, this represents substantial progress from last year.
Jose Manuel Barroso, European Commission president This is a strong signal to citizens around the world.
Marthinus van Schalkwyk, South African environment minister
While the statement may appear as a movement forward, we are concerned that it may, in effect, be a regression from what is required to make a meaningful contribution to meeting the challenges of climate change. As it is expressed in the G8 statement, the long-term goal is an empty slogan without substance.
WWF, environmental group
If after a year's work all you have is a "shared vision" instead of "seriously considering", it's pretty pathetic.
Tearfund, charity
The G8 are crawling forward on emissions cuts at a time when giant leaps and bounds are needed. To do little more than restate last year's G8 commitment to halve emissions by 2050 is a very disappointing outcome, demonstrating a lack of leadership and vision.
Daniel Mittler, Greenpeace international
Instead of action, the world got flowery words. The Texas oilman has once again prevented the G8 from undergoing the energy revolution it needs. Bush is a lame duck, so who cares what he thinks about 2050?
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Al Gore sets his oil challenge to Americans
The Nobel laureate and former US vice- president, Al Gore, has urged Americans to abandon electricity generated by fossil fuels within a decade.
Mr Gore compared the scale of the challenge to that of putting a man on the moon in the 1960s.
He said it did not make sense that the US was borrowing money from China to burn oil from the Middle East which then contributed to climate change.
Critics say weaning the US off fossil fuels is not possible within a decade.
Mr Gore, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for his work on climate change, insists his goal is achievable and affordable.
| |
We
have
a
hundred
years
of
infrastructure
with
trillions
of
dollars
of
investment
that
is
not
simply
going
to
be
made
obsolete
Robby Diamond, Securing America's Future Energy |
"The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels," he said in a speech in Washington.
"When you connect the dots, it turns out that the real solutions to the climate crisis are the very same measures needed to renew our economy and escape the trap of ever-rising energy prices."
To secure this green revolution, Mr Gore said the single most important policy change would be to "tax what we burn - not what we earn".
Green campaign?
Mr Gore's speech elicited huge cheers from a packed conference hall near the White House, but whether his message is taken up in the presidential election campaign depends on how much the electorate warms to his vision, says the BBC's Warren Bull.
Mr Gore said US presidential contenders Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain were way ahead of most politicians in the fight against global climate change.
They appear to agree on the need for progress on green issues, says our correspondent.
President George W Bush has often been criticised for not doing enough to tackle climate change.
At the recent G8 summit of developed nations in Japan, he did move the US closer to a consensus on climate change, by agreeing to language which makes achieving 50% cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 a G8 "vision".
Cold turkey
Electricity generated from non-fossil sources amounted to almost 28% of the total in 2007, according to US government figures, with most of that coming from nuclear power.
Hydro-electric stations generated nearly 6% of US electricity needs and other renewable sources such as wind, solar and wood accounted for 2.5%.
Burning coal provided almost half of US electricity last year.
Mr Gore's ambitious plan would still rely on nuclear energy for a fifth of America's energy needs. Many see the goal as unachievable.
Robby Diamond, president of a bipartisan think tank called Securing America's Future Energy, said weaning the nation off fossil fuels could not be done in a decade.
"The country is not going to be able to go cold turkey," he told the Associated Press.
"We have a hundred years of infrastructure with trillions of dollars of investment that is not simply going to be made obsolete."
| By Roger Harrabin BBC environment analyst |
The UK has been living under a delusion over its claim to be cutting greenhouse gases, according to two reports that will shake the climate change debate.
They show that instead of falling since the 1990s, UK greenhouse emissions have being growing in line with the economy.
This is dependent on emissions from aviation, shipping and imported goods being counted.
At the moment they are excluded under the internationally-agreed system for carbon accounts.
Both reports are from the respected Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) based at the University of York.
They are a massive blow to the British government which claimed to have grasped the Holy Grail of climate policy - de-coupling economic growth from emissions growth.
| |
The government has known about
this for a very long time but has just refused to face up to it Stuart Bond, WWF |
An SEI report to be published shortly by the campaign group WWF will suggest that the UK's total greenhouse gas emissions are 49% higher than reported emissions.
And a recent little-publicised report for the government department Defra showed that rather than going down 5% as ministers claimed, CO2 emissions have gone up 18% between 1992 and 2004 when all emissions are counted.
The government sat on the Defra SEI report since February, tested its calculations, then published it in an obscure press release on 2 July.
This confirms, as BBC News pointed out last year, that the UK's apparently virtuous carbon cuts have only been achieved because we are getting countries like China to do our dirty work.
Consumer boom
Some would say this allows them to be blamed for increasing their CO2 emissions on our behalf.
The Defra-SEI report shows that as manufacturing in the UK has closed down, some of the production has shifted to countries where manufacturing is more carbon intensive than it would be here - in other words, more CO2 is emitted per unit of production.
At the same time, the long consumer boom has led to an increase in the volume and diversity of products being imported. This in turn leads to increased emissions from cargo shipping. Meanwhile, the cheap flights bonanza has pushed up emissions still higher.
Under internationally agreed methodology, emissions from international aviation, shipping and imports are not included in a country's greenhouse gas statistics, so this has allowed the UK government to calculate that its greenhouse gases have been falling.
WWF says the new figures are "breathtaking" and make a mockery of the UK's claims of global leadership.
Stuart Bond, WWF's head of research, said: "This shows our claims on emissions are simply a big lie.
"The government has known about this for a very long time but has just refused to face up to it.
"There is no way the government can hope to achieve any of its emissions targets without cheating unless it changes its policies on encouraging flying and hoping to satisfy people's insatiable demands for buying more and more stuff."
Computer modelling
A Defra source said of its SEI report: "It can't be absolutely precise but it is a best estimate of where we are. It is very much in line with other studies on the subject so we are fairly confident of it. It is very interesting background information."
The source said that it would be impossible to include the catch-all SEI figure alongside the UK's annual official emissions statistics because it was based on import/export figures from the Office of National Statistics which would not be updated until 2010.
It would also be undesirable to publish the figure annually, he said, because the "real" number relevant to the UK was the standard CO2 measure calculated according to UN principles.
The SEI report involved a lot of computer modelling, so the UK government "would not want to be held to an international target on it".
WWF said this was a very "convenient" position for the UK to take.
John Barrett, author of the SEI reports to both Defra and WWF, said they could have implications for any post-Kyoto global climate deal.
"Holding China and India responsible for emissions from manufactured goods they sell to us is going to prove very hard to negotiate.
"It would be much easier to base any future deal on emissions at the point of consumption. That feeds into the equity debate in which poor countries will be allowed to increase their CO2.
"It's at the very least misleading for the UK government to claim reductions while we export our emissions. This is a problem no government wants to face.
"In emissions terms, we are constantly battling against increases of wealth. Every year, we don't even manage to improve our energy efficiency to keep up with wealth increases, let alone to cut emissions.
"There's a very fundamental problem here that no-one really wants to talk about."
New deal
The Defra source said it would be almost impossible to negotiate a new climate deal based on consumer nations taking responsibility for the emissions created from manufacturing the goods they import.
The government's new Climate Change Committee under Adair Turner may advise by the end of the year whether the government should include imported emissions in its CO2 inventory.
Aviation emissions are relatively simple to calculate, although there are disagreements about how the sums are done.
Shipping emissions are more complicated. And accurately tracking embedded carbon in imported goods may prove impossible as supply chains for many manufactured items are diverse and ever-changing.
The SEI says this is not as complicated as some believe. It claims a 5% error potential in their calculations.
SEI says:
"This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years," said MIT's Daniel Nocera, senior author of a paper describing the simple, inexpensive, and efficient process for storing solar energy in the July 31 issue of the journal "Science."
"Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon," Nocera said.
By Duncan Geere Tech Digest - Wednesday, September 3 11:13 am
This is quite nifty. A team of scientists from San Jose University have worked out a way to make ice with zero carbon footprint and no moving parts. There's no electricity involved either. All you've got to do is keep the machine clean.
Here's the science: A big mirror focuses the sun's rays on a tube of coolant. The coolant evaporates and travels through pipes into a chamber where it's absorbed by an unnamed material. When the sun goes down, this material slowly cools until it hits 40°C. At that point, the coolant turns to a liquid and due to pressure differences, it rapidly cools to below 0°C. You then put some water next to it, and voila, it'll freeze. The next day, you just do exactly the same thing all over again.
This could be incredibly useful in tropical countries, or in places where the electricity supply is iffy, like war zones. The ice produced could be crucial for medical uses, or even for food storage and refrigeration. The whole system is completely sealed too, so if it doesn't leak then you'll never need to top it up.
The scientists reckon it can make 14 pounds of ice each day - but obviously, the bigger you make the machine, the more ice you'll be able to get out. I'm sure that time will also produce more efficient models. You can't get it yet because it's just a prototype, but based on the brief science description above and a bit of knowledge of coolants, you might be able to put your own version together. If you do give it a shot, then be sure to let us know.
University of San Jose (via DVice)
Related posts: IFA 2008: Portable Solar Panels from Onlink | Turning roads into solar collectors - why has no-one thought of this before?
British scientists find more evidence of climate threat
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Thursday, 25 September 2008
British scientists have discovered hundreds more methane "plumes" bubbling up from the Arctic seabed, in an area to the west of the Norwegian island of Svalbard. It is the second time in a week that scientists have reported methane emissions from the Arctic.
Methane is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas and the latest findings from two separate teams of scientists suggest it is being released in significant amounts from within the Arctic Circle.
On Tuesday, The Independent revealed that scientists on board a Russian research ship had detected vast quantities of methane breaking through the melting permafrost under the seabed of the shallow continental shelf off the Siberian coast.
Yesterday, researchers on board the British research ship the James Clark Ross said they had counted about 250 methane plumes bubbling from the seabed in an area of about 30 square miles in water less than 400 metres (1,300 feet) deep off the west coast of Svalbard. They have also discovered a set of deeper plumes at depths of about 1,200 metres at a second site near by. Analysis of sediments and seawater has confirmed the rising gas is methane, said Professor Graham Westbrook of Birmingham University, the study's principal investigator.
"The discovery of this system is important as its presence provides evidence that methane, which is a greenhouse gas, has been released in this climactically sensitive region since the last ice age," Professor Westbrook said. An analysis of sediments taken from the seabed show that the gas is coming from methane hydrates – ice-like crystals where molecules of the gas are captured in "cages" made of water molecules, which become unstable as water pressures fall or temperatures rise.
Professor Westbrook said the area surveyed off the west coast of Svalbard was very different to the area being studied by the Russian vessel because the water was much deeper and does not have a layer of permafrost sealing the methane under the seabed.
It is likely that methane emissions off Svalbard have been continuous for about 15,000 years – since the last ice age – but as yet no one knows whether recent climactic shifts in the Arctic have begun to accelerate them to a point where they could in themselves exacerbate climate change, he said.
"We were very excited when we found these plumes because it was the first evidence there was an active gas system in this part of the world," Professor Westbrook said after disembarking from the ship, which arrived back in Britain yesterday. "Now we know it's there we know we have to very seriously consider its effect."
| By Roger Harrabin Environment analyst, BBC News |
The UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has launched a plan to save the world's threatened rainforests - but already it is running into opposition.
The review by Swedish businessman Johan Eliasch proposes paying poor nations not to cut down their trees.
The money would come from carbon trading schemes in rich countries where firms have to buy permits to pollute.
However, some development groups have deep reservations about the plan, believing it could fuel corruption.
It is possible that the ambitious and detailed scheme from Mr Eliasch will form the basis of international negotiations to bring forestry into a global climate change agreement. The current deal, the Kyoto Protocol, must soon be updated.
'Reducing poverty'
Some of the most important forested areas in the world are being felled to exploit their resources, or to make way for cattle and other agri-businesses. The clearance and burning of trees and the change in land use is putting into the atmosphere yet more carbon dioxide (CO2), the main gas blamed for human-induced climate change.
Forest loses are thought at present to account for about 20% of our extra CO2 emissions.
''Saving forests is critical for tackling climate change," Mr Eliasch said on releasing his report.
"Without action on deforestation, avoiding the worst impacts of climate change will be next to impossible, and could lead to additional climate change damages of one trillion a year by 2100.
''Including the forest sector in a new global deal could reduce the costs of tackling climate change by up to 50% and therefore achieve deeper cuts in emissions, as well as reducing poverty in some of the world's poorest areas and protecting biodiversity."
Mr Eliasch's report, Climate Change: Financing Global Forests, makes the case that the forest sector should be included in global carbon markets.
This would see industrialised countries paying tropical nations billions of dollars to conserve their forests through the exchange of traded credits. The idea is that the monies flowing into tropical nations would compensate them for stopping destructive felling and, ultimately, encourage them on to a path sustainable stewardship.
'Market concern'
But a number of development groups are warning that the Eliasch plan could horribly backfire by creating the illusion of carbon savings whilst fuelling corruption in forests nations who do not have the means to protect their forests, and often do not know who legally owns the trees.
Simon Counsell of the Rainforest Foundation says: "We welcome a lot of the ideas in the review - but there is a nightmare scenario here in which we actually make things worse whilst patting ourselves on the back thinking we are making them better.
"We should not underestimate the scale of the challenge faced in some forest nations where governance is virtually non-existent."
A government source told BBC News that rampant forest felling was so serious that it was unlikely that any such plan could fail to help. He said Mr Eliasch had foreseen criticisms over governance. His plan would ensure that good governance was a pre-requisite of obtaining funds for forests.
But Patrick Alley director of Global Witness, a human rights group, warned: "Most of the most critical forest regions, such as the Congo Basin, Indonesia, Latin America, and Papua New Guinea etc, will be shunned by the market because of instability, contested or uncertain tenure, corruption, poor governance, poor or non-existent enforcement systems and in some cases even conflict.
"This means the market can at most only scratch the surface of the problem by focusing on the few remaining forest regions.
"The notable exception, Brazil, home to the world's largest forest block, does not support the carbon market, opting instead for a fund based approach."
Both organisations say for forest conservation to work, the funding required must be dependable and long-term, and they warn that funding based on carbon markets is inherently volatile and unreliable.
Greenpeace, too, had reservations. Head of biodiversity Andy Tait warned that the proposals would "give a green light to companies to use forest protection abroad as a cheap alternative to making the dramatic cuts in the industrial and energy sectors that we need here in the UK".
WWF-UK welcomed the focus of the review, but its climate change lead, Keith Allott, added: "Greatly reducing emissions from deforestation must be a crucial part of any effective new international agreement to tackle climate change. Initiatives to stop forest loss must go hand in hand with, not at the expense of, ambitious action to reduce industrial emissions."
The government has committed the UK to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by middle of this century.
Climate Change and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the current 60% target would be replaced by a higher goal.
He told MPs the government would not "row back" on green issues in the light of the current economic crisis.
He also warned the big energy companies they face a crackdown on "unfair" pricing policies in his first statement as head of the new department.
Mr Miliband told MPs the government accepted all the recommendations of the report from Lord Turner's Committee on Climate Change.
The target does not include aviation or shipping emissions - but Mr Miliband said they will "play a part" in the government's overall strategy, something he said was in line with Lord Turner's recommendations.
'Unjustified charges'
He said: "In tough economic times, some people ask whether we should retreat from our climate change objectives.
| |
It's like telling everyone you're
going on a calorie-controlled diet but not counting cream cakes Steve Webb Liberal Democrat |
"In our view it would be quite wrong to row back and those who say we should, misunderstand the relationship between the economic and environmental tasks we face."
He said he wanted to achieve a cross-party consensus on climate change, but added: "We all know that signing up to an 80% cut in 2050, when most of us will not be around, is the easy part.
"The hard part is meeting it - and meeting the milestones that will show we're on track."
Mr Miliband also announced that the government was ready to legislate to force energy companies to introduce fairer pricing for customers with pre-payment meters if they would not do so voluntarily.
Energy regulator Ofgem has warned that many households with pre-payment meters are being "overcharged", he told MPs.
And the regulator has also highlighted "unjustified" higher charges being paid by four million electricity customers in areas which are not linked up to the gas mains.
Wind turbines
Mr Miliband said: "Unfair pricing which hits the most vulnerable hardest is completely unacceptable.
"I made that clear to the representatives of the big six energy companies when I met them yesterday (Wednesday).
"I also told them that the government expects rapid action or explanation to remedy any abuses and I will meet them again in a month to hear what they have done ...
"If the companies don't act in a satisfactory way, then we will consult on legislation to prevent unfair pricing differentials ... There is more to do to protect consumers, and we will not hesitate to act."
Mr Miliband also signalled new help to encourage small-scale electricity generation though technology such as home-based solar panels and wind turbines.
'Challenging'
He told the Commons the Energy Bill would be amended to introduce a "feed-in tariff" to guarantee prices for micro-generation projects which are able to supply electricity to the national grid.
In a letter to Mr Miliband, Lord Turner said the tougher target would be "challenging but feasible", and could be achieved at a cost of 1% to 2% of GDP in 2050.
He also said a cut of 80% on 1990 levels by 2050 should cover all the major greenhouse gases - not just carbon dioxide - and all sectors of the UK economy, including shipping and aviation.
But because of practical problems in allocating emissions of international transport to the UK, they should not be included in the Climate Change Bill's five yearly carbon budgets, he said.
Instead the overall target should be "at least 80%", with greater reductions in sectors covered by the Bill if aviation and shipping did not make sufficient cuts by mid century, he said.
But Lib Dem climate change and energy spokesman Steve Webb said Mr Miliband's decision not to include aviation and shipping in the 80% target made a mockery of his commitments.
"It's like telling everyone you're going on a calorie-controlled diet but not counting cream cakes.
"As we saw when the government gave the green light for Stansted expansion, there is a huge gap between what ministers say on climate change and what they actually do."
Shadow climate change secretary Greg Clark, for the Conservatives, welcomed Mr Miliband's announcements.
He said: "The choice between aggressive and ambitious action on carbon reduction and a successful, powerful economy is, in fact, not a choice at all - they are one and the same."
The planet is headed for an ecological "credit crunch", according to a report issued by conservation groups.
The document contends that our demands on natural resources overreach what the Earth can sustain by almost a third.
The Living Planet Report is the work of WWF, the Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network.
It says that more than three quarters of the world's population lives in countries where consumption levels are outstripping environmental renewal.
This makes them
"ecological debtors", meaning that they are drawing - and often
overdrawing - on the agricultural land, forests, seas and resources of
other countries to sustain them.
WWF's David Norman says the world will need two planets by 2030
The report concludes that the reckless consumption of "natural capital" is endangering the world's future prosperity, with clear economic impacts including high costs for food, water and energy.
Dr Dan Barlow, head of policy at the conservation group's Scotland arm, added: "While the media headlines continue to be dominated by the economic turmoil, the world is hurtling further into an ecological credit crunch."
The countries with the biggest impact on the planet are the US and China, together accounting for some 40% of the global footprint.
The report shows the US and United Arab Emirates have the largest ecological footprint per person, while Malawi and Afghanistan have the smallest.
|
The
map shows hectares' worth consumed in goods and services - see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7696197.stm
|
"If our demands on the planet continue to increase at the same rate, by the mid-2030s we would need the equivalent of two planets to maintain our lifestyles," said WWF International director-general James Leape.
In the UK, the "ecological footprint" - the amount of the Earth's land and sea needed to provide the resources we use and absorb our waste - is 5.3 hectares per person.
This is more than twice the 2.1 hectares per person actually available for the global population.
The UK's national ecological footprint is the 15th biggest in the world, and is the same size as that of 33 African countries put together, WWF said.
"The events in the last few months have served to show us how it's foolish in the extreme to live beyond our means," said WWF's international president, Chief Emeka Anyaoku.
"Devastating though the financial credit crunch has been, it's nothing as compared to the ecological recession that we are facing."
He said the more than $2 trillion (£1.2 trillion) lost
on stocks and shares was dwarfed by the up to $4.5 trillion worth of
resources destroyed forever each year.
| |
The index
tracks population trends in 1,161 populations of 355 mammal species
It
shows an average 19% decrease, with the most serious declines in the
tropics - see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7696197.stm
|
The report's Living Planet Index, which is an attempt to measure the health of worldwide biodiversity, showed an average decline of about 30% from 1970 to 2005 in 3,309 populations of 1,235 species.
An index for the tropics shows an average 51% decline over the same period in 1,333 populations of 585 species.
A new index for water consumption showed that for countries such as the UK, the average "water footprint" was far greater than people realised, with thousands of litres used to produce goods such as beef, sugar and cotton shirts.
"In Britain, almost two thirds [62%] of the average water footprint comes from use abroad to produce goods we consume," said Mr Leape.
In a special One Planet debate, Richard Hollingham discusses this idea with the Green MEP, Caroline Lucas; the economist, Peter Morici; and the psychologist, Oliver James.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Global institutional investors holding more than $6 trillion in assets pushed policymakers Tuesday to quickly hash out a binding agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions and promote clean technology.
More than 130 big investors, including London Pensions Fund Authority, want countries to agree to reduce the climate- warming emissions by 50 percent to 80 percent by 2050.
Those numbers are in line with global warming policy favored by U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, who supports an 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions by mid-century.
The investors also want policymakers to set long and medium term emission reduction targets for developed countries and to provide for an expanded and more liquid global carbon market.
Already big U.S. investors, such as the California Public Employees' Retirement System, with $185.6 billion of assets under management, have been calling for legislation to promote new and existing clean technologies.
They have also called on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to force publicly traded companies to disclose climate-related risks along with other factors that affect their business.
"As institutional investors, we are concerned with the risks presented by climate change to the global economy and to our diversified portfolios," said Mike Taylor, chief executive of London Pensions Fund Authority. "We are ... urging world leaders to implement strong and effective policies to support us in allocating capital toward low carbon investments."
The group of global investors want countries to sign on to a new binding agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol climate pact, which set binding targets for industrialized countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The European Union is aiming to cut greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent by 2020 and increase the share of wind, solar, hydro, wave power and biofuels in their energy mix by the same date.
The United States is alone among major industrialized countries in rejecting the Kyoto Protocol, but is participating in discussions to craft a follow-up global agreement.
"It is time to put an agreement in place where the United States is involved," said Mindy Lubber, the president of Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmental groups working on climate change issues.
The global group of investors is hoping its voice is heard ahead of a December climate change convention in Poland.
(Reporting by Rachelle Younglai; Editing by Andre Grenon)
Wednesday, November 12 06:42 pm
They cautioned, though, that this news is not an argument in favour of global warming, which is driving imminent and potentially far-reaching damage to the climate system.
Earth has experienced long periods of extreme cold over the billions of years of its history.
The big freezes are interspersed with "interglacial" periods of relative warmth, of the kind we have experienced since the end of the last Ice Age, around 11,000 years ago.
These climate swings have natural causes, believed to be rooted particularly in changes in Earth's orbit and axis that, while minute, have a powerful effect on how much solar heat falls on the planet.
Two researchers built a high-powered computer model to take a closer look at these intriguing phases of cooling and warmth.
In addition to the planetary shifts, they also factored in levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), found in tiny bubbles in ice cores, that provide an indicator of temperature spanning hundreds of thousands of years.
They found dramatic swings in climate, including changes when Earth flipped from one state to the other in a relatively short time, said one of the authors, geoscientist Thomas Crowley of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
These shifts, called "bifurcations," appear to happen in abrupt series, which is counter-intuitive to the idea that the planet cools or warms gradually.
"You had a big change about a million years ago, then a second change around 650,000 years ago, when you had bigger glaciations, then 450,000 years ago, when you started to get more repeated glaciations," Thomas told AFP.
"What's also interesting is that the inter-glaciations also became warmer."
According to the model, published in the British journal Nature by Crowley and physicist William Hyde of Toronto University, Canada, the next "bifurcation" would normally be due between 10,000 and 100,000 years from now.
The chill would induce a long, stable period of glaciation in the mid-latitudes, smothering Europe, Asia and North America to about 45-50 degrees latitude with a thick sheet of ice.
However, there is now so much CO2 in the air, as a result of fossil-fuel burning and deforestation, that this adds a heat-trapping greenhouse effect that will offset the cooling impacts of orbital shift, said Crowley.
"Even the level that we have there now is more than sufficient to reach that critical state seen in the model," he said. "If we cut back [on CO2] some, that would probably still be enough."
In September, a scientific research consortium called the Global Carbon Project (GCP) said that atmospheric concentrations of CO2 reached 383 parts per million (ppm) in 2007, or 37 percent above pre-industrial levels.
Present concentrations are "the highest during the last 650,000 years and probably during the last 20 million years," the report said.
Crowley cautioned those who would seize on the new study to say "'carbon dioxide is now good, it prevents us from walking the plank into this deep glaciation'."
"We don't want to give people that impression," he said. "(...) You can't use this argument to justify [man-made] global warming."
Last year, the UN's Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that greenhouse-gas emissions were already inflicting visible changes to the climate system, especially on ice and snow.
Left unchecked, climate change could inflict widespread drought and flooding by the end of the century, translating into hunger, homelessness and other stresses for millions of people.
Saturday, November 8 08:43 am
Glenn ChapmanThe one-time presidential contender turned environmental champion told Web 2.0 Summit goers in San Francisco Friday that technology has provided tools to save the planet while creating jobs and stimulating the crippled economy.
"The young people who have been inspired by Barack Obama's campaign and the movement that powered Barack Obama's campaign want a purpose," Gore said.
"One of the reasons we were all thrilled Tuesday night is it was pretty obvious this was a collectively intelligent decision."
The Internet's critical role in Democrat Obama's victory in the presidential race against Republican John McCain was a "great blow for victory" in addressing a "democracy crisis" stifling action against climate change, Gore said.
The Web has "revolutionized" nearly every aspect of running for US president and delivered an "electrifying redemption" of the founding national principle that all people are created equal, according to Gore.
"Some week," Gore said in greeting to an audience that leapt to its feet cheering. "It really was overwhelming. It couldn't have happened without the Internet."
Obama's victory, seen by many as a repudiation of policies of president George W. Bush, was validation of sorts for Gore, who lost to Bush in a controversial election outcome in 2000.
"Belated redemption is part of what we are celebrating this week," Gore said.
Since leaving politics Gore has been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his relentless efforts to combat climate change and starred in an Academy Award-winning global warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."
He also founded Current TV, a cable television operation that taps into user-generated videos and news coverage fed to its website.
The one-time newspaper reporter said his reasons for creating Current included a belief in the need to "democratize television media."
"One of the main reasons why our political system has not been operating well until this election is the unhealthy influence of the television medium as it has operated," Gore said.
"The Internet comes in and democratizes information again and it is so exciting. All the vibrant forms of information are living on the Internet but TVs are still dampening it."
Current TV teamed with Twitter and Digg on election night to weave feeds from the popular Internet websites into its coverage of the vote.
The Web has the potential to "revolutionize almost every aspect" of running for US president, according to Gore. He believes that social activism made possible by people connecting and sharing information online is in its infancy.
"What happened in the election opens a full new range of possibilities and now is the time to really move swiftly to exploit these new possibilities," Gore said of turning the power of the Internet to cooling global warming.
Gore said Obama should announce a national goal of getting all US electric power from renewable and non-carbon energy within the next decade and spend the billions necessary to build an "electrinet" smart power grid.
"Web 2.0 has to have a purpose" Gore said.
"The purpose I would urge is to bring about a higher level of consciousness about our relationship to this planet and the imminent danger we face. We have everything we need to save it."
WASHINGTON – Calling climate change an urgent challenge, President-elect Barack Obama promised Tuesday that Washington would take a leading role in combating it in the United States and throughout the world. "My presidency will mark a new chapter in America's leadership on climate change," Obama said in a video message to governors and others attending a Los Angeles summit on the issue.
In the roughly four-minute message, Obama reiterated his support for a cap-and-trade system approach to cutting green house gases. He would establish annual targets to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them another 80 percent by 2050. Obama also promoted anew his proposal to invest $15 billion each year to support private sector efforts toward clean energy.
President Bush has been criticized for failing to do enough to combat climate change and Obama has promised quick action to address the issue. He may have to start tackling the issue through administrative actions, given that leaders in the Democratic-controlled Congress have indicated that they aren't likely to act until 2010 on a bill to limit the heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming.
At a news conference Tuesday, a coalition called the U.S. Climate Action Partnership — made up of 32 leading corporations, including electric utilities and oil companies, and environmental groups — urged Obama to press Congress to approve legislation next year for a mandatory cap-and-trade system to limit the release of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and other greenhouse gases. Opponents of such action argue controls on carbon dioxide emissions will increase energy costs.
Under a cap-and-trade program, the government would establish a ceiling on the amount of carbon dioxide that can be released into the air from burning fossil fuels. A utility or industrial plant would have to purchase emission allowances for every ton of pollution released. Anyone who exceeds the cap must either make pollution reductions or buy additional allowances, while those who cut emissions below the cap would be able to sell allowances. Initially the cap would be relatively high and then be lowered gradually to achieve the targeted pollution reductions.
Obama favors auctioning off all of the allowances and using the proceeds to invest in energy efficiency and alternative, non-fossil energy that does not add to global warming. Others argue the allowances should be provided for free to reduce the economic costs and then be freely bought and sold in the market place.
Several environmental groups praised Obama's focus on global warming, including Environmental Defense president Fred Krupp. He said Obama is "clearly rejecting the timid, business-as-usual approach" to dealing with climate and energy problems. "His plan to reduce emissions ...will jump-start job creation in new energy industries, and take a huge step toward solving climate change."
In his remarks to the summit, Obama criticized Washington for failing to lead on the issue in the past.
Said Obama: "I promise you this: When I am president, any governor who's willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House. Any company that's willing to invest in clean energy will have an ally in Washington. And any nation that's willing to join the cause of combating climate change will have an ally in the United States of America."
Scientists, environmentalists and government and industry officials were attending the two-day Governors' Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles, held ahead of a U.N. gathering in Poland next month.
Obama said he won't attend that conference but that he has asked Congress members who will to report back to him. "Once I take office, you can be sure that the United States will once again engage vigorously in these negotiations, and help lead the world toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change," Obama said.
___
Associated Press Writer H. Josef Hebert contributed to this report.
Sunday, November 23 01:29 am
The Environment Agency will this week announce plans to produce enough green energy on its sites to power a city the size of York.
The plans include building up to 80 wind turbines on land belonging to the Government agency, which would generate around 200MW of renewable energy and save some 200,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.
Other schemes, including small-scale hydropower projects which would use river water to drive turbines that generate electricity, are also being examined.
The Environment Agency is looking at ways to produce renewable energy to power installations such as major pumping stations, which are among the main contributors to the organisation's carbon footprint.
It is also looking at using the land it owns in England and Wales to develop opportunities to generate electricity for the grid. The wind turbines could generate up to £2.4 million of revenue every year, which the agency said would be ploughed back into protecting the environment.
Speaking ahead of the Environment Agency's annual conference, chief executive Paul Leinster said: "The development of renewable energy will play a major part in the UK's response to climate change and a key role in meeting our future energy needs.
"By developing these renewable energy projects we are helping to limit and adapt to the effects of climate change, reduce our dependency on fossil fuels and help develop a low-carbon economy."
The announcement was welcomed by Climate Change and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who said it would help secure more home grown energy, cut carbon emissions and make financial sense for the Environment Agency.
The agency is working with Partnership for Renewables, a company set up by the Carbon Trust to develop and run green energy projects for the Public Sector.
Robin Oakley, head of Greenpeace UK's climate change campaign said: "In this economic downturn it's increasingly clear that green technology can be a key driver of economic renewal in the UK. The Environment Agency and Partnership for Renewables are demonstrating that green energy makes financial as well as environmental sense."
WARSAW, Poland: United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says investment in green technologies could help remedy the global financial crisis.
Ban is quoted in an interview published Saturday in Poland's daily Gazeta Wyborcza as saying that, "Clean industry and investment have already shown that they generate high revenue and long-term benefits."
He went on to say, "For that reason the means that we will use to fight global warming may help in fighting the financial crisis."
Ban was interviewed by the paper before a two-week U.N. conference on climate change begins Monday in Poznan, Poland.
Delegates from more than 190 nations are expected to work toward a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012.
POZNAN, Poland: The global financial crisis will pass, but global warming will be permanent unless nations can unite to contain emissions of greenhouse gases, political leaders and top scientists warned Monday at a United Nations climate conference.
Speaking to 10,000 delegates and environmental advocates, the UN climate chief said time was running out to meet the deadline on a new climate treaty.
"The clock is ticking. Work needs to shift into a higher gear," said Yvo de Boer, head of the UN climate change secretariat.
Delegates from about 190 countries opened a two-week conference aimed at nailing down the details of a climate change treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required 37 countries to slash carbon emissions by an average 5 percent from 1990 levels by 2012.
Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of a Nobel Peace Prize-winning panel of UN climate scientists, reminded the conference of the consequences of failure. That included the possible extinction of nearly one-third of the earth's species, a threatened meltdown of the Greenland or western Antarctic ice sheets that could raise sea levels by several meters and a growing lack of water for millions of people within a few decades.
To avert those disasters, he said, emissions of greenhouse gases must level off by 2015 and then drop sharply.
Developed and Western countries have been haggling for the last year on new carbon emissions limits for industrial countries, on channeling financial and technical aid to poorer countries and on setting up the rules and institutions to govern a new international climate regime.
The credit crisis that struck financial markets full force this year has further complicated the process. As investment cash dries up and oil prices drop, fewer funds are available for green energy projects.
"All of us are today concerned with the financial crisis," Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland said. "But we must understand that financial crises happened in the past and will happen in the future, but our work for the environment should be timeless."
Poland, which is taking over chairmanship of the climate negotiations for the next year, was also trying to safeguard its coal-dependent economy as the European Union decides how it will meet its goal of cutting emissions by at least 20 percent by 2020.
The EU was holding a critical meeting next week to discuss what obligations each of its 27 members will face.
"We want to protect each weak country," Tusk said later. "But we are willing to create and adapt the package, not to reject it." He told the conference that Poland, which relies on coal for 93 percent of its power generation, is doing all it can to rein in its carbon emissions but cannot switch to other energy sources quickly.
"All of us must show understanding to each other, we must be patient with each other," Tusk said.
The history of climate talks has been burdened by a conflict pitting the United States, which denounced the Kyoto pact as imbalanced and harmful to its economy, against rapidly developing countries like China, India and Brazil, which objected to measures that could limit development and their ability to ease poverty for millions of their citizens.
The negotiations achieved a breakthrough last year when the developing countries agreed to help lower global emissions as long as they received the technology and finances to move toward lower carbon economies.
| By Jonathan Amos Science reporter, BBC News, San Francisco |
The US space agency is set to launch a satellite that can map in detail where carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere.
Nasa's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) will pinpoint the key locations on the Earth's surface where CO2 is being emitted and absorbed.
CO2 from human activities is thought to be driving climate changes, but important facts about its movement through the atmosphere remain elusive.
The agency believes the technology on OCO can end some of the mysteries.
"This is Nasa's first spacecraft specifically dedicated to mapping carbon dioxide," principal investigator David Crisp told BBC News.
"The objective of the OCO mission is to make measurements that are so precise that they can be used to look for surface 'sources' and 'sinks' of CO2."
Dr Crisp has been presenting details of the mission here at the American Geophysical Union's (AGU) Fall Meeting.
As he did so, OCO's launch on a Taurus XL rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California was booked for 23 February.
Nasa already has a CO2 detection instrument on its Aqua satellite but this looks at the greenhouse gas some five to 10km above the surface.
OCO, on the other hand, will detail the concentration of carbon dioxide close to the ground where its warming effect is most keenly felt.
The observatory will be engaged in what amounts to carbon accountancy. Its fortnightly global maps of CO2 concentration will help the mission team work out where the gas is entering the atmosphere and where it is being absorbed by land plants and the oceans.
Scientists have calculated that nature cycles about 330 billion tonnes of carbon every year.
Human activities put about 7.5 billion tonnes into the atmosphere - a tiny sum in comparison but enough, say researchers, to imbalance the system and raise the global mean surface temperature of Earth.
"We know where most of the fossil fuel emissions are coming from; we also know where things like cement manufacturing are producing large CO2 emissions," explained Dr Crisp, who works at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
"But there are other things such as biomass (forest) burning and clearing; and we don't have a good quantification of the CO2 released by those processes.
"If you take out the fossil fuels - for which we understand the CO2 source to within 10% - and look at the rest of the carbon dioxide that's introduced into the atmosphere by our activities, it's uncertain by 100%.
"The idea is that OCO will help us to constrain that a whole lot better."
Location, location
The sinks for CO2 - the places where it is absorbed - also have many mysteries associated with them.
The Earth is thought to be absorbing about 50% of the carbon dioxide we put out - the majority of it going into the oceans. But science's description of the other major absorbers is poor, commented UK Earth-observation scientist Shaun Quegan.
"There's a bunch of atmospheric collection flasks dotted around the planet and when we apply the models to their data, the models all show there is a carbon sink in northern mid-latitudes," he said.
"But whether that's in North America, in Siberia, or wherever and what's causing it is a big debate."
Since science does not have a good handle on where the CO2 is being absorbed, researchers can have only limited understanding of how CO2 sinks are likely to evolve as the climate changes.
"Let's say we found that the boreal forests in Canada and Siberia were the primary sinks of CO2 because of their incredibly rapid growth during summer months when the Sun is up," speculated Dr Crisp.
"Well those environments are changing dramatically right now.
"Will they still be the primary absorbers of CO2 as time goes on? We don't really know how big an impact they're having right now.
"This is why OCO is so essential."
Reflected glory
The observatory carries a single instrument - a spectrometer that breaks the sunlight reflected off the Earth's surface into its constituent colours, and then analyses the spectrum to determine how much carbon dioxide and molecular oxygen is present.
The data can be used to work out atmospheric concentrations.
OCO will map carbon dioxide over 1,600-sq-km (620 sq miles) regions of the Earth's surface to an accuracy of just fractions of 1%.
However, to locate the sources and sinks, scientists will need to combine the information with models that estimate how CO2 is being moved and mixed through the air.
The spacecraft cross the equator in the early afternoon on a path that takes them over broadly the same observation point in quick succession.
OCO will be followed into orbit next year by a Japanese carbon mission known as the Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT).
Europe is considering two carbon observatories - A-SCOPE (Advanced Space Carbon and Climate Observation of Planet Earth) and a mission called BIOMASS - which could fly in 2016.
Professor Quegan, from the UK's University of Sheffield, is working on the BIOMASS proposal.
"The spacecraft would measure global forest biomass at scales of about one hectare," he said.
"It's a crucial natural resource and ecosystem service - for materials, for energy, for biodiversity - there's a good correlation between how much biomass you've got and how much biodiversity you've got - and for climate and water protection."
"So from a carbon cycle science aspect, forests have some critical parameters that need to be pinned down."
| By Jonathan Amos Science reporter, BBC News, San Francisco |
If growth in carbon dioxide emissions is to be constrained and even reversed then the world cannot afford a coal renaissance, scientists have said.
Some commentators have argued that falling reserves of oil and gas will automatically limit CO2's rise.
But at an American Geophysical Union meeting, researchers said reserves of coal dwarfed those of other fuels.
It was even possible oil's demise could trigger an acceleration in emissions through more coal use, they added.
"We can replace oil with liquid fuels derived from coal," said Ken Caldeira from the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University in California.
"But these liquid fuels emit even more carbon dioxide than oil, so the end of oil can mean an increase in coal and even more carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere, and even more rapid onset of dangerous climate change."
Professor Caldeira's group has used climate and carbon cycle models to look at how future emissions and temperature projections would be altered by different fuel strategies.
The team tried to work out the maximum effects that would arise from replacing oil either entirely with coal-based liquid substitutes or entirely with renewable energy sources.
The assessment found that if coal-derived liquids are adopted, the Earth would achieve a 2C rise in temperature from pre-industrial times (a figure sometimes quoted as being a desirable ceiling to stay beneath in order to avoid "dangerous climate change") by 2042. This is three years faster than a business as usual future with oil.
If the renewables strategy is adopted, the 2C figure is not reached until 2056.
"Clearly, to address the climate issue we have to address the coal issue," Professor Caldeira told BBC News.
His assessment was shared by Pushker Kharecha from Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss).
"We cannot move into things like coal-to-liquids and unconventional fossil fuels such as methane hydrates, tar sands, oil shale and so forth," he said.
"If they become large-scale substitutes for oil and gas, that would worsen things because they are much dirtier than oil and gas because they produce more emissions per unit energy delivered."
Reserve judgement
Dr Kharecha presented details of recent research from the US, UK and France looking at the feasibility of not only constraining the growth of CO2 emissions but actually reducing its concentration in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million by volume (it is currently up at about 385ppmv).
The group found it was possible, but only with a prompt moratorium on new coal use that does not capture CO2, and a phase out of existing coal emissions by 2030.
Reforestation together with improved agricultural practices could help draw down CO2.
"Efficiency and conservation have huge potential to offset emissions in the near term," Dr Kharecha told BBC News.
"And then in the mid-term and long-term we can focus on moving to alternatives such as renewable energies, and possibly a balanced look at nuclear because it does provide many benefits in addition to the numerous problems that it poses."
A new analysis presented here puts the total available global coal reserves at 662 billion tonnes.
The figure is substantially lower than the ones used in assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to gauge possible future emissions scenarios.
"This is a radically different number from what is conventionally assumed," said Professor David Rutledge from the California Institute of Technology, who led the analysis.
"The IPCC assumes that about five times as much coal is available for burning."
But the scientists at this meeting said that if burnt, even this smaller amount of coal would radically alter the climate unless all the emissions were captured and stored.
"There is far more than enough currently useable coal and other fossil fuels to push us past the threshold beyond which we would not want to go with the climate," Dr Kharecha said.
WASHINGTON – Plunging into energy policy, President Barack Obama is poised to give states a freer hand in curbing emissions from cars, and to get his government moving on fuel-efficiency standards that could remake the auto industry.
Obama will announce his plans
Monday at the White House, according to officials familiar with the
details who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting the
president.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090126/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_greenhouse_gases
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090126/ts_nm/us_obama_climate
A third of the Amazonian 'carbon sink' is doomed whether or not emissions are cut, Copenhagen conference is told
Thursday, 12 March 2009
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/fate-of-the-rainforest-is-irreversible-1643083.htmlWASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency has taken the first step on the long road to regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
Politicians and the public, business and industry will have to weigh in along the way, but for now a proposed finding by the EPA that global warming is a threat to public health and welfare is under White House review.
The threat declaration would be the first step to regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act and could have broad economic and environmental ramifications. It also would probably spur action by Congress to address climate change more broadly.
The White House acknowledged Monday that the EPA had transmitted its proposed finding on global warming to the Office of Management and Budget, but provided no details. It also cautioned that the Obama administration, which sees responding to climate change a top priority, nevertheless is ready to move cautiously when it comes to actually regulating greenhouse gases, preferring to have Congress act on the matter.
The Supreme Court two years ago directed the EPA to decide whether greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, pose a threat to public health and welfare because they are warming the earth. If such a finding is made, these emissions are required to be regulated under the Clean Air Act, the court said.
"I think this is just the step in that process," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, noting the Supreme Court ruling. Another White House official, speaking anonymously in deference to Gibbs, predicted "a long process" before any rules would be expected to be issued on heat-trapping emissions.
But several congressional officials, also speaking on condition of anonymity because the draft declaration had not been made public — said the transmission makes clear the EPA is moving to declare carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases a danger to public health and welfare and views them as ripe for regulation under the Clean Air Act.
Such a finding "will officially end the era of denial on global warming," said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., whose Energy and Commerce subcommittee is crafting global warming legislation. He said such an endangerment finding is long overdue because of the Bush administration's refusal to address the issue.
The EPA action "signals that the days of ignoring this pressing issue are over," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., whose Senate committee is working on a climate bill.
Many business leaders argue — as did President George W. Bush — that the Clean Air Act is ill-suited to deal with climate change and that regulating carbon dioxide would hamstring economic growth.
"It will require a huge cascade of (new clean air) permits" and halt a wide array of projects, from building coal plants to highway construction, including many at the heart of President Barack Obama's economic recovery plan, said Bill Kovacs, a vice president for environmental and technology issues at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Abigail Dillen, an attorney for the environmental advocacy group Earthjustice, which is involved in a number of lawsuits challenging permits for new coal plants, dismissed the dire economic warnings from business groups about carbon dioxide regulation.
"It's to their interest to say the sky is falling, but it's not," she said. "The truth is we've never had to sacrifice air quality to maintain a healthy economy. The EPA has discretion to do this in a reasonable way."
An internal EPA planning document that surfaced recently suggests the agency would like to have a final endangerment finding by mid-April. But officials have made clear actual regulations are unlikely to come immediately and would involve a lengthy process with public comment.
Gibbs, when asked about the EPA document Monday, emphasized that "the president has made quite clear" that he prefers to have the climate issue addressed by Congress as part of a broad, mandatory limit on heat-trapping emissions.
But environmentalists said the significance of moving forward with the long-delayed endangerment issue should not be understated.
"This is historic news," said Frank O'Donnell, who heads Clean Air Watch, an advocacy group. "It will set the stage for the first-ever national limits on global warming pollution and is likely to help light a fire under Congress to get moving."
___
Associated Press writer Ben Feller contributed to this report.
The global economic crisis and climate change are probably the two signature challenges of our time. Luckily, there are ways to make our responses to these challenges mutually reinforcing.
One approach is to green the expenditures of the fiscal stimulus packages, as called for by the final communiqué of the G-20 summit. But the room for maneuver here is limited. An estimated 15 percent of the stimulus packages are already green. And because it is the primary objective of the fiscal stimulus to support the economy in the short run, it is not possible to devote a much larger proportion to the longer term objective of fighting climate change.
However, there is another way to green the stimulus: greening the enormous additional debt due to deficit spending. In 2009 alone, E.U. countries will pile up a stimulus debt of around €115 billion, or 0.9 percent of GDP, with the United States adding twice as much — an estimated €220 billon, or 2 percent of GDP. These debts could be “greened” by a firm international commitment to repay them exclusively with additional revenues from CO2 taxes and emissions cap-and-trade schemes.
This is what I propose should be done.
The additional green revenues would be raised as soon as economies recover enough to repay the stimulus debts. The time-path of debt repayment could be explicitly linked to the timing of the economic recovery. And once the stimulus debt has been repaid, the green revenues would be used to reduce the fiscal burden on labor. Such a shift from taxation that reduces desirable employment to taxation that reduces undesirable pollution will lead to welfare gains.
The envisaged increase in green revenues is ambitious, but not utopian. In the E.U., green taxes already make up 2.6 percent of GDP — substantially more than the annual size of the stimulus packages to date. Green tax revenues in the United States are far lower, but the Obama administration is already working on a cap-and-trade scheme that could generate the required revenues.
Repaying stimulus debt through green taxes has a number of advantages:
First, there are efficiency reasons to complement the carrot of green subsidies with the stick of green taxes. The latter clearly addresses the underlying problem, namely that private agents do not fully take into account the negative climate externality of CO2 emissions. By contrast, the carrot of green subsidies is better suited to dealing with a narrower and positive externality — the spill-over effects of technological innovation aimed at reducing CO2 emission.
Second, green revenues not only improve environmental but also fiscal sustainability. A credible commitment by countries under fiscal pressure on how they will repay their debts could serve to reassure financial markets. Even countries like Ireland without the fiscal room for maneuver for discretionary fiscal measures might be tempted to participate in the greening of part of its debt.
Third, green debt makes the case for coordination of fiscal stimuli even more compelling. Such coordination could address fiscal and environmental free-riding at the same time: All countries that commit to a fiscal stimulus would thereby automatically commit to increase their CO2 taxes at a later stage to service their green debt.
Only a couple of years ago, this proposal would have been completely unrealistic. Ironically, the threat to fiscal sustainability during this economic crisis may be decisive in helping our economies to move toward environmental sustainability.
Jakob von Weizsäcker is a resident scholar with Bruegel, a think tank in Brussels partly funded by 16 E.U. member governments.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration opened the way to regulating U.S. greenhouse gas emissions on Friday by declaring climate-warming pollution a danger to human health and welfare, in a sharp policy shift from the Bush administration.
Environmental activists and their supporters in Congress were jubilant and industry groups were wary at the news of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's move. The White House said President Barack Obama would prefer legislation over administrative action to curb greenhouse emissions.
Congress is already considering a bill to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, which is emitted by cars, coal-fired power plants and oil refineries, among other sources.
EPA's declaration was seen as a strong signal to the international community that the United States intends to seriously combat climate change.
In its announcement, the EPA said, "greenhouse gases in the atmosphere endanger the public health and welfare of current and future generations" and human activities spur global warming.
"This finding confirms that greenhouse gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations," said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. "Fortunately, it follows President Obama's call for a low carbon economy and strong leadership in Congress on clean energy and climate legislation,"
"The president has made clear his strong preference that Congress act to pass comprehensive legislation rather than address the climate challenge through administrative action," a White House official said, noting that Obama has repeatedly called for "a bill to provide for market-based solutions to reduce carbon pollution."
The EPA's endangerment finding said high atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases "are the unambiguous result of human emissions, and are very likely the cause of the observed increase in average temperatures and other climatic changes." The document is available online at www.epa.gov.
The EPA's finding is essential for the U.S. government to regulate climate-warming emissions like carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act. Regulation is not automatically triggered by the finding -- there will be a 60-day comment period.
But as that period proceeds, legislation is moving through Congress aimed at cutting carbon dioxide emissions with a cap-and-trade system, which would let those companies that emit more than the limit buy credits from those that emit less.
MAJOR SHIFT FROM BUSH
EPA scientists last year offered evidence of the health hazards of greenhouse emissions, but the Bush administration took no action. It opposed across-the-board mandatory regulation of climate-warming pollution, saying this would hurt the U.S. economy.
Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who shepherded climate legislation to the Senate floor last year, called the EPA's finding "long overdue."
"We have lost eight years in this fight," Boxer said in a statement. "... The best and most flexible way to deal with this serious problem is to enact a market-based cap-and-trade system which will help us make the transition to clean energy and will bring us innovation and strong economic growth."
"At long last, EPA is officially recognizing that carbon pollution is leading to killer heat waves, stronger hurricanes, higher smog levels and many other threats to human health," said David Doniger at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
But the National Association of Manufacturers said trying to regulate greenhouse emissions with the Clean Air Act would "further burden an ailing economy while doing little or nothing to improve the environment."
"This proposal will cost jobs. It is the worst possible time to be proposing rules that will drive up the cost of energy to no valid purpose," NAM President John Engler said.
Steve Seidel of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change said the EPA announcement is an important message to the international community, which is set to meet in Copenhagen in December to craft a follow-up agreement to the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol.
"This decision sends a strong signal to the international community that the United States is moving forward to regulate greenhouse gas emissions," Seidel said by telephone.
However, he said this move alone is no guarantee of success in Copenhagen. Participants in that meeting will also look for progress in the U.S. Congress, and for movement from other developed and developing countries.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled two years ago that the EPA has the authority to make these regulations if human health is threatened by global warming pollution, but no regulations went forward during the Bush administration.
Carbon dioxide, one of several greenhouse gases that spur global warming, is emitted by natural and industrial sources, including fossil-fueled vehicles, coal-fired power plants and oil refineries.
(Additional reporting by Tim Gardner and Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Eric Walsh)
DETROIT – Some soccer moms will have to give up hulking SUVs. Carpenters will still haul materials around in pickup trucks, but they will cost more. Nearly everybody else will drive smaller cars, and more of them will run on electricity.
The higher mileage and emissions standards set by the Obama administration on Tuesday, which begin to take effect in 2012 and are to be achieved by 2016, will transform the American car and truck fleet.
The new rules would bring new cars and trucks sold in the United States to an average of 35.5 miles per gallon, about 10 mpg more than today's standards. Passenger cars will be required to get 39 mpg, light trucks 30 mpg.
That means cars and trucks on American roads will have to become smaller, lighter and more efficient.
Eric Fedewa, vice president of global powertrain forecasting for the auto consulting firm CSM Worldwide in Northville, Mich., said the changes will make pickup trucks so much more expensive that they will be used almost exclusively for work.
And instead of a minivan or SUV, more parents will haul their families in much smaller vehicles with three rows of seats — something more like the Mazda 5 small van, he said. The Mazda 5 gets about 28 mpg on the highway.
"I think what you'll see is a lot more creativity in interior packaging," Fedewa said. "You'll get more rows of seats where you traditionally had cargo space."
Already on Tuesday, some drivers were skeptical. Dixie Bishop, who runs a plumbing business in San Antonio that uses vans, worries the new requirements will drive up her costs at a time when customers are cutting back on repairs.
"Are they going to take my horsepower down?" she asked. "I have to be able to carry old water heaters and toilets. It's not beneficial for me to haul one water heater at a time. We need the power to pull these heavy items."
The changes will start with smaller cars and trucks, and improvements to the internal combustion engine, Fedewa said. Automakers also already working on new technology, including direct fuel injection and high compression of the air-fuel mixture, that will make cars and trucks more efficient.
Car companies are rewiring vehicles so components such as air conditioners and power steering pumps are powered by electricity rather than by the engine, saving fuel.
And they're developing computer-controlled transmissions with six or more gears, adding efficiency, and rolling out more gas-electric hybrids — among the few cars sold today that meet the 2016 standards.
Of course, developing the technology will cost money — billions of dollars — and automakers will pass that on to their customers.
The Obama administration says the changes mean the average vehicle would cost about $1,300 more, although some private analysts say the increase will be much heftier. The administration says gas savings will make up the difference in about three years.
Automakers have said they need stable, relatively high gasoline prices to create a market for electric vehicles. General Motors fears rolling out its rechargeable Chevrolet Volt next year with gas at $2 per gallon.
American consumers have already shown their car-buying habits can change rapidly depending on gas prices. When fuel cost $4 a gallon last summer, people flocked to smaller cars. Gas is much cheaper now, and sales of hybrids have plummeted.
"The U.S. consumer has consistently chosen performance over fuel economy given the relatively low cost of fuel," David Leiker, senior automotive analyst for Robert W. Baird & Co. in Milwaukee, wrote in a note to investors.
The Volt is designed to run 40 miles on battery power when it is fully charged. After that, a small internal combustion engine kicks in to generate electricity and keep the car going. Other automakers are working on similar systems.
But the Volt is expected to sell for $35,000 to $40,000, and buyers may be unwilling to pay that much for a sedan, even if tax credits help ease the burden, unless gas prices soar.
Rechargeable electric vehicles, which under government calculations could get 100 mpg or more, will help automakers meet the standards and offset sales of larger, less-efficient models.
Under Obama's plan, the sale of of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids could also generate "super credits" that would count as more than one vehicle when an automaker determines its average fuel economy and emissions figures.
The new rules cause manufacturers "to accelerate their technology plans, probably a little more aggressively than they originally thought," said Tony Posawatz, who heads development of the Volt's technology. "For us, we feel comfortable that we've got choices."
Just a few years ago, GM and other auto executives were doubtful they could meet even less stringent standards, but Posawatz said the technology has changed since then, especially with new lithium-ion batteries.
GM also is looking at electric trucks, which may bring them even closer to the goals, he said.
Earlier this year, Toyota said it planned to launch as many as 10 new hybrid models worldwide by early 2010, and it plans to bring a new version of the Prius to the U.S. in the coming weeks. Honda's new Insight hybrid is already on sale in the U.S. Mazda, meanwhile, has said it plans to focus less on hybrid vehicles and more on improvements to its basic internal combustion engine.
___
AP Auto Writers Kimberly S. Johnson and Dan Strumpf in New York, AP Energy Writer John Porretto in Houston, and Associated Press Writer Ken Thomas in Washington contributed to this report.
PARIS (Reuters) – France and Germany suggested on Monday that rich nations should collectively guarantee deep cuts in greenhouse gases by 2020 while giving flexibility to laggards such as the United States to catch up later.
France said the idea, floated at talks among 17 top greenhouse gas emitters including China, United States, Russia and India, could help toward a new U.N. climate treaty due to be agreed at a meeting in Copenhagen in December.
"There can be more flexibility among us," French Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo told a news conference on the first day of the two-day talks among ministers, called by U.S. President Barack Obama to help work out a new climate treaty.
He said France and Germany reckoned that developed nations could collectively sign up to cut their overall emissions by 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 -- the level outlined by a panel of U.N. scientists to avoid the worst of global warming.
"There may be some who act faster and others who do more later," he said. A collective goal would undercut criticisms by developing nations, led by China and India, that the rich are not serious in fighting climate change.
Countries which have said they cannot reach such deep 2020 goals, led by the United States, could contribute to a new pact in other ways, for instance via a bigger share of financing or green technologies for developing nations, Borloo said.
"There may be constraints on such and such a developed nation -- but we must reach this 2020 objective of 25 to 40 percent," he said. Nations meeting in Paris emit 80 percent of world greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels.
HEATWAVES
"We have to find a compromise," he said, noting scientists' forecasts that global warming would bring more heatwaves, rising sea levels, extinctions, floods and droughts. Rich nations might need a meeting to discuss the idea, he said.
Obama has promised to cut U.S. emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020, a cut of 14 percent from 2007 levels. A bill approved by a key congressional panel last week would cut U.S. emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.
By contrast, the European Union has promised deeper cuts, of 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and by 30 percent if other rich nations follow suit
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Sunday that he wanted Washington to do more, saying it was lagging the European Union in promises to fight global warming. Obama's plan are for far tougher curbs than by his predecessor, George W. Bush.
"I don't think it's correct to say that Europe is proposing a lot and the United States little," Todd Stern, U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change, told Tuesday's edition of the French daily Le Monde.
"If you look at things from the point of view of the progress that each nation will have to make to reach its objectives, the U.S. level of effort is probably equal, or superior, to that of Europe," Stern said.
Analysts say the Major Economies Forum (MEF) talks at the French Foreign Ministry, the second of three preparatory meetings before a summit in Italy in July, are a chance to air differences away from the public gaze.
"The U.N. negotiations have somewhat fallen back to North-South finger-pointing," said Jake Schmidt of the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington. "The MEF is a crucial place where you can make progress on some of the difficult issues out of the limelight."
(Editing by Charles Dick)
There is much in the House cap-and-trade energy bill that just passed that I absolutely hate. It is too weak in key areas and way too complicated in others. A simple, straightforward carbon tax would have made much more sense than this Rube Goldberg contraption. It is pathetic that we couldn’t do better. It is appalling that so much had to be given away to polluters. It stinks. It’s a mess. I detest it.
Now let’s get it passed in the Senate and make it law.
Why? Because, for all its flaws, this bill is the first comprehensive attempt by America to mitigate climate change by putting a price on carbon emissions. Rejecting this bill would have been read in the world as America voting against the reality and urgency of climate change and would have undermined clean energy initiatives everywhere.
More important, my gut tells me that if the U.S. government puts a price on carbon, even a weak one, it will usher in a new mind-set among consumers, investors, farmers, innovators and entrepreneurs that in time will make a big difference — much like the first warnings that cigarettes could cause cancer. The morning after that warning no one ever looked at smoking the same again.
Ditto if this bill passes. Henceforth, every investment decision made in America — about how homes are built, products manufactured or electricity generated — will look for the least-cost low-carbon option. And weaving carbon emissions into every business decision will drive innovation and deployment of clean technologies to a whole new level and make energy efficiency much more affordable. That ain’t beanbag.
Now that the bill is heading for the Senate, though, we must, ideally, try to improve it, but, at a minimum, guard against diluting it any further. To do that we need the help of the three parties most responsible for how weak the bill already is: the Republican Party, President Barack Obama and We the People.
This bill is not weak because its framers, Representatives Henry Waxman and Ed Markey, wanted it this way. “They had to make the compromises they did,” said Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign, “because almost every House Republican voted against the bill and did nothing to try to improve it. So to get it passed, they needed every coal-state Democrat, and that meant they had to water it down to bring them on board.”
What are Republicans thinking? It is not as if they put forward a different strategy, like a carbon tax. Does the G.O.P. want to be the party of sex scandals and polluters or does it want to be a partner in helping America dominate the next great global industry: E.T. — energy technology? How could Republicans become so anti-environment, just when the country is going green?
Historically speaking, “Republicans can claim as much credit for America’s environmental leadership as Democrats,” noted Glenn Prickett, senior vice president at Conservation International. “The two greatest environmental presidents in American history were Teddy Roosevelt, who created our national park system, and Richard Nixon, whose administration gave us the Clean Air Act and the Environmental Protection Agency.” George Bush Sr. signed the 1993 Rio Treaty, to preserve biodiversity.
Yes, this bill’s goal of reducing U.S. carbon emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 is nowhere near what science tells us we need to mitigate climate change. But it also contains significant provisions to prevent new buildings from becoming energy hogs, to make our appliances the most energy efficient in the world and to help preserve forests in places like the Amazon.
We need Republicans who believe in fiscal conservatism and conservation joining this legislation in the Senate. We want a bill that transforms the whole country not one that just threads a political needle. I hope they start listening to green Republicans like Dick Lugar, George Shultz and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I also hope we will hear more from President Obama. Something feels very calculating in how he has approached this bill, as if he doesn’t quite want to get his hands dirty, as if he is ready to twist arms in private, but not so much that if the bill goes down he will get tarnished. That is no way to fight this war. He is going to have to mobilize the whole country to pressure the Senate — by educating Americans, with speech after speech, about the opportunities and necessities of a serious climate/energy bill. If he is not ready to risk failure by going all out, failure will be the most likely result.
And then there is We the People. Attention all young Americans: your climate future is being decided right now in the cloakrooms of the Capitol, where the coal lobby holds huge sway. You want to make a difference? Then get out of Facebook and into somebody’s face. Get a million people on the Washington Mall calling for a price on carbon. That will get the Senate’s attention. Play hardball or don’t play at all.Developed and developing nations have agreed that global temperatures should not rise more than 2C above 1900 levels, a G8 summit declaration says.
That is the level above which, the UN says, the Earth's climate system would become dangerously unstable.
US President Barack Obama said the countries had made important strides in dealing with climate change.
But the G8 failed to persuade developing countries to accept targets of cutting emissions by 50% by 2050.
On Wednesday, the G8 agreed its own members would work towards 80% cuts by the same date.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the G8 had not done enough and should also set 2020 targets.
He said that while the G8's Wednesday agreement was welcome, its leaders also needed to establish a strong and ambitious mid-term target for emissions cuts.
The second day of the summit, in the Italian city of L'Aquila, opened its discussions to take in the so-called G5 nations - Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa. Egypt is a special invitee.
In other developments:
Significant step
The latest declaration was issued by the Major Economies Forum, of 16 developed and developing nations - the G8, G5, Australia, South Korea and Indonesia - plus the European Union.
The group accounts for about 80% of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions.
"We recognise the scientific view that the increase in global average temperature above pre-industrial levels ought not to exceed 2C," it said.
It added that the economies would work towards a global goal for substantially reducing emissions by 2050 between now and December, when the UN holds talks in Copenhagen on a successor to the Kyoto treaty.
President Obama, who chaired the meeting, said the countries had had a candid and open discussion about the growing threat of climate change and what must be done both individually and collectively to address it.
"I believe we've made some important strides forward as we move towards Copenhagen," he said.
"I don't think I have to emphasise that climate change is one of the defining challenges of our time. The science is clear and conclusive and the impacts can no longer be ignored."
Early agreement 'unlikely'
RK Pachauri, who chairs the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, praised the declaration's mention of the 2C limit but said more details were needed.
"It certainly doesn't give you a roadmap on how you should get there but at least they've defined the destination," he told the BBC World Service Newshour programme.
Mr Obama added that the United States, as a major polluter, had not met its responsibilities in the past, but those days were over.
But his scientific adviser, John Holdren, told the BBC it was unlikely that the US could come to any early agreement on tough reductions in emissions by 2020 proposed by the EU.
"If we had not wasted the last eight years, we could probably achieve that target," he said.
"But we did waste the last eight years and in consequence, it doesn't make a lot of sense for us to officially embrace a target that is not realistically within reach."
BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin says the declaration is a significant step, with all big countries rich and poor agreeing there is a scientific limit on the amount we should warm the climate.
But there is still a huge way to go, he says, as developing nations like India will not sign up to any 2050 targets unless rich nations show more determination and offer more cash.
The G8 summit began in L'Aquila on Wednesday, with the first day largely taken up with discussion of the fragile state of the global economy.
The leaders also issued a statement reaffirming that they were "deeply concerned" by Iran's nuclear programme and condemning North Korea's recent nuclear test and missile launches.
African leaders will join the summit on Friday to push for a new initiative to fund farming in the developing world and tackle global hunger.
Mobile’s Role in Tackling Climate Change
23rd July , 2009
UK
: A new report issued by Vodafone, in collaboration with Accenture,
concludes that mobile technology could cut Europe’s annual energy bill
by at least €43 billion.
It would also effect a reduction in annual greenhouse gas emissions by at least 113Mt CO2e by 2020. This represents 18% of the UK’s annual CO2e output in 2008 and approximately 2.4% of expected EU emissions in 2020.
However, this opportunity can only be realised if industry and governments collaborate.
The report, titled “Carbon Connections: quantifying mobile’s role in tackling climate change,” demonstrates that mobile technology has the potential to be a major catalyst in driving carbon reductions across a range of industry sectors. It identifies 13 opportunities that could enable carbon abatement across 25 EU countries.*
Mark Foster, group chief executive of Management Consulting & Integrated Markets at Accenture, said, “There is a clear and immediate imperative to take further steps to reduce global emissions, and the communications industry will yet again play a pivotal role by enabling the transition to a low-carbon economy. For example being able to access high-definition video conferencing from a mobile device can cut down the need to travel.”
“Every business, large or small, will need to deliver its products and services in a way that minimises both cost and the impact on the environment. This report demonstrates the important role that mobile technology, in particular smart solutions such as machine-to-machine services, can play in carbon abatement while at the same time offering a financial saving for our customers,” said Vittorio Colao, CEO of Vodafone Group. “The challenge is for governments and industry to work together to create the necessary policy framework and investment conditions to stimulate their prompt deployment.”
The UK faces a "catastrophe" of floods, droughts and killer heatwaves if world leaders fail to agree a deal on climate change, the prime minister has warned.
Gordon Brown said negotiators had 50 days to save the world from global warming and break the "impasse".
He told the Major Economies Forum in London, which brings together 17 of the world's biggest greenhouse gas-emitting countries, there was "no plan B".
World delegations meet in Copenhagen in December for talks on a new treaty.
'Rising wave'
The United Nations (UN) summit will aim to establish a deal to replace the 1997 Kyoto treaty as its targets for reducing emissions only apply to a small number of countries and expire in 2012.
Mr Brown warned that negotiators were not reaching agreement quickly enough and said it was a "profound moment" for the world involving "momentous choice".
"In Britain we face the prospect of more frequent droughts and a rising wave of floods," he told delegates.
"The extraordinary summer heatwave of 2003 in Europe resulted in over 35,000 extra deaths.
Grim warning
"On current trends, such an event could become quite routine in Britain in just a few decades' time. And within the lifetime of our children and grandchildren the intense temperatures of 2003 could become the average temperature experienced throughout much of Europe."
During his term as chancellor, environmental groups often accused Gordon Brown of not paying enough attention to climate change, and the Treasury of blocking "green" policies. He was sometimes compared unfavourably to Tony Blair.
However, Mr Brown promoted the inclusion of developing countries in climate finance during the UK's term as G7 president in 2005. And this year, his involvement has become much more overt.
He was the first head of government to commit to attending December's UN summit in Copenhagen; and his recent call to establish a $100bn (£61bn) per year fund for climate adaptation is widely seen as giving impetus to those negotiations.
Whether current scientific understanding warrants his warning of "catastrophe" for the UK if greenhouse gas levels rise unchecked is perhaps open to question. A recent report by Kofi Annan's Global Humanitarian Forum found the UK was one of 12 nations least likely to be affected by climate impacts.
The costs of failing to tackle the issue would be greater than the impact of both world wars and the Great Depression combined, the prime minister said.
The world would face more conflict fuelled by climate-induced migration if a deal was not agreed, he added.
He told the forum, on the second day of talks in the capital, that by 2080 an extra 1.8 billion people - a quarter of the world's current population - could lack sufficient water.
Mr Brown said: "If we do not reach a deal at this time, let us be in no doubt: once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement, in some future period, can undo that choice.
"So we should never allow ourselves to lose sight of the catastrophe we face if present warming trends continue."
Agreement at Copenhagen "is possible", he concluded.
"But we must frankly face the plain fact that our negotiators are not getting to agreement quickly enough. So I believe that leaders must engage directly to break the impasse."
In recent days there have been a number of warnings that progress is stalling.
Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told Newsweek magazine "the prospects that states will actually agree to anything in Copenhagen are starting to look worse and worse".
The Major Economies Forum is not part of the formal UN process and so firm commitments are unlikely to come from the meeting.
It is seen instead as a gathering where countries can explore options and positions in a less pressured environment.
Friday, 20 November 2009
http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/climate-change-survey-says-83-willing-to-make-sacrifices-1824663.html
More than 80 per cent of people believe climate change is a serious threat and are willing to make sacrifices to combat it, a survey by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) showed today.
UN and EU officials have welcomed the US declaration that greenhouse gases are threatening to human health.
An EU spokesman said the announcement showed "a degree of resolve" on the part of President Barack Obama to address climate change.
The US move came as delegates from 192 countries got down to work at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen.
Danish PM Lars Loekke Rasmussen has said the summit is an "opportunity the world cannot afford to miss".
The US declaration could mean the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can order cuts in emissions without the approval of Congress.
Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN scientific network on climate change, said the Obama administration was "showing what it can do, even while legislation is pending".
"It also sends a powerful signal to Congress. It shows a degree of resolve on the part of the president," he told the Associated Press news agency.
The environment minister for Sweden - which currently holds the EU presidency - said the outcome of the summit depended mostly "on what will be delivered by the United States and China".
Andreas Carlgren said he would be "astonished" if US President Barack Obama did not offer further concessions when he arrives at the summit next week.
The BBC's Mark Mardell in Washington said the US announcement had been expected for some time, but still sends an important signal to leaders attending the summit that Mr Obama is intent on passing legislation to curb emissions.
'Our chance'
As the Copenhagen summit opened, Mr Rasmussen told delegates the world was looking to them to safeguard humanity.
He said a "strong and ambitious climate change agreement" was needed.
"By the end, we must be able to deliver back to the world what was granted us here today: hope for a better future," he said.
Connie Hedegaard, conference president, said political will to address climate change has never been - and never will be - stronger.
"This is our chance. If we miss it, it could take years before we got a new and better one. If ever," she said.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has praised France for taking political leadership in the climate change debate.
He said President Nicolas Sarkozy had been "instrumental in bringing the current stage of the negotiation to where we are now".
Meanwhile British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he wants European leaders to commit to deeper cuts in carbon emissions than previously agreed.
The EU has so far only been willing to increase its emissions target if an international deal is reached at the Copenhagen climate summit.
Mr Brown's comments come as the UK's official climate watchdog said a new aviation policy was needed to limit an increase in flights.
The report by the independent Committee on Climate Change said it had discussed ideas like levying extra taxes and issuing flying allowances to reduce air travel.
The main areas for discussion at the Copenhagen summit include:
Any agreement made at Copenhagen is intended to supplant the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which expires in 2012.
What are the rare earth elements and how are they used?
First discovered in the 18th century, the rare earth metals were long considered chemical curiosities rather than the vital building blocks for technology.
After their discovery by a Swedish scientist in 1787, a total of 17 of the soft metals were identified. Despite their name, they are relatively abundant in the Earth's crust but the high cost of extraction means only areas with rich deposits, in particular China, are worth exploiting.
The arrival of new technology means that global production has risen from less than 5,000 tonnes in 1955 to the current level of about 120,000 tonnes a year.
*Cerium (Ce) – catalytic converters for diesel engines
*Praseodymium (Pr) – an alloying agent for aircraft engines
*Neodymium (Nd) – a key component of high-efficiency magnets and hard disc drives
*Lanthanum (La) – a major ingredient for hybrid car batteries
*Samarium (Sm) – lasers and nuclear reactor safety
*Promethium (Pm) – portable X-rays and a nuclear battery
*Gadolinium (Gd) – shielding for nuclear reactors, compact discs
*Dysprosium (Dy) – improves the efficiency of hybrid vehicle motors
*Terbium (Tb) – a component in low-energy light bulbs
*Erbium (Er) – fibre optics
*Europium (Eu) – used in flat screen displays and lasers
*Holmium (Ho) – nuclear control rods, ultra-powerful magnets
*Thulium (Tm) – lasers, portable X-rays
*Ytterbium (Yb) – monitoring equipment for earthquakes
*Lutetium (Lu) – oil refining
Two more elements, Scandium and Yttrium, are considered rare earths as they tend to occur in the same ore deposits and have similar chemical properties.
Continuing global economic growth "is not possible" if nations are to tackle climate change, a report by an environmental think-thank has warned.
The New Economics Foundation (Nef) said "unprecedented and probably impossible" carbon reductions would be needed to hold temperature rises below 2C (3.6F).
Scientists say exceeding this limit could lead to dangerous global warming.
"We urgently need to change our economy to live within its environmental budget," said Nef's policy director.
Andrew Simms added: "There is no global, environmental central bank to bail us out if we become ecologically bankrupt."
None of the existing models or policies could "square the circle" of economic growth with climate safety, Nef added.
'No magic bullets'
In the report, Growth Isn't Possible, the authors looked at the main models for climate change and energy use in the global economy.
They then considered whether economic growth could be maintained while "retaining a good likelihood" of limiting the global average temperature to within 2C of pre-industrial levels.
The report concluded that a growth rate of just 3%, the "carbon intensity" of the global economy would need to fall by 95% by 2050 from 2002 levels. This would require an average annual reduction of 6.5%.
However, the authors said that the world's carbon intensity had "flatlined" between 2000 and 2007.
"For each year the target was missed, the necessary improvements would grow higher still," they observed.
The findings also suggested that there was no proven technological advance that would allow "business as usual" to continue.
"Magic bullets - such as carbon capture and storage, nuclear or even geo-engineering - are potentially dangerous distractions from more human-scale solutions," said co-author Victoria Johnson, Nef's lead researcher for the climate change and energy programme.
She added that there was growing support for community-scale projects, such as decentralised energy systems, but support from governments was needed.
"At the moment, magic bullets... are getting much of the funding and political attention, but are missing the targets," Dr Johnson said.
"Our research shows that to prevent runaway climate change, this needs to change."
The report concluded that an economy that respected environmental thresholds, which include biodiversity and the finite availability of natural resources, would be better placed to deliver human well-being in the long run.
Wednesday, 31 March 2010
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/coal-fuels-much-of-internet-data-cloud-warns-greenpeace-1931581.htmlMonday, July 5 02:36 pm
A review into a key global assessment of
climate change prompted by the exposure of a high-profile mistake found
the study's conclusions on the regional impacts of global warming were
well-founded and did not contain significant errors.
The review of part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's key 2007 report was launched by the Dutch government after it emerged the study claimed 55% of the country was below sea level - an inaccurate figure which had been supplied by the Dutch environmental assessment agency.
The review, by the Dutch environmental assessment agency, found the summary conclusions for the regional impacts of global warming contained a minor "inaccuracy" about the number of people in Africa who will be more at risk of a lack of water - a mistake the report's authors dispute.
But it said the error, and a lack of transparency as to where the conclusions had come from, did not undermine the findings that the negative impacts of climate change posed "substantial risks" to most parts of the world.
A series of other minor mistakes were found in the 500 page document which fed into the summary, but most of these were references or typographical errors, with just one "significant" error about the decline in anchovy fisheries in the African west coast which has been corrected.
The report also raised concerns that the report summary highlighted more of the negative effects of climate change than the positive - but the IPCC authors said they focused on the greatest impacts to human well being and the environment when preparing the conclusions for governments.
Prof Martin Parry, co-chairman of one of the main areas of the IPCC's assessment, said the Dutch assessment showed the conclusions on regional impacts of climate change in the report were "safe, sound and reliable." But he said that the science of climate change was now "a battlefield" because some people saw the costs of taking action to tackle the problem of global warming as a threat.
And he admitted another high profile mistake in the report which has prompted criticism of the IPCC - that the Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035 - had done "huge damage" and it would take a long time "for the wounds to heal" from it.
He said his fellow authors of the fourth assessment study published in 2007 were dismayed such a mistake could have been included in the report.
The mistakes in the IPCC's study emerged as climate science was still reeling from the leak of 13 years of emails from a world-leading climate research centre at the University of East Anglia (UEA), which "sceptics" seized on as evidence scientists were trying to manipulate data to support a theory of man-made global warming.
British scientific experts have made a major breakthrough in the fight to save the natural world from destruction, leading to an international effort to safeguard a global system worth at least $5 trillion a year to mankind.
Groundbreaking new research by a former banker, Pavan Sukhdev, to place a price tag on the worldwide network of environmental assets has triggered an international race to halt the destruction of rainforests, wetlands and coral reefs.
With experts warning that the battle to stem the loss of biodiversity is two decades behind the climate change agenda, the United Nations, the World Bank and ministers from almost every government insist no country can afford to believe it will be unaffected by the alarming rate at which species are disappearing
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/5000000000000-the-cost-each-year-of-vanishing-rainforest-2096367.htmlThursday, 2 December 2010
Breakthrough at Cancun:
Independent Environment Editor Michael McCarthy witnesses the successful conclusion of the UN talks on global warming – and explains why the deal is good news
Sunday, 12 December 2010
Tuesday, 17 May 2011
At first reading, the Committee on Climate Change's Renewable Energy Review appears complimentary to the engineering community. It identifies the key barriers to rebuilding our energy supply infrastructure as finance and planning, not whether the technology will work or whether industry has the capacity to deliver, install and maintain the equipment in sufficient quantities.
However, a more thorough reading suggests that the committee has glossed over these vital questions. Experts at the Institution of Engineering and Technology have identified that the report lacks rigorous analysis of many technical issues that are essential to meeting renewable energy targets.
The 4th Carbon Budget said that 60 per cent of new cars should be electric by 2030, a figure far higher than industry's most optimistic projections. The document also planned for gas boilers to be replaced by heat pumps in 25 per cent of houses over the same period. These represent huge engineering programmes.
At the same time, we need to rebuild our electricity generation and transmission infrastructure. In the next 20 years, the coal-fired power stations, that provided more than half our electricity last winter, will be closed. All but one of the existing nuclear stations will expire. The CCC's plans say that, by 2030, renewable energy should supply 45 per cent of our needs, compared with 3 per cent today. This represents a massive engineering challenge.
We have not operated large fleets of offshore wind turbines for long enough to understand what maintenance regimes are needed in the inhospitable marine environment; our experience of wave energy is restricted to a few prototypes, not the thousands of installations that will be needed; carbon capture has, so far, been limited to a few megawatt prototypes, not the tens of gigawatts that will be required.
And this "system of systems" will need to be controlled by a smart grid that is an order of magnitude more sophisticated than the smart meters currently being introduced. The scale and costs of these systems will be of an kind never previously seen in peacetime.
One cannot fault the CCC's objectives; however one can question whether a committee that is setting the objectives for the largest engineering revolution since the 1850s should be more upfront about the huge challenges it is creating. It is telling that, in the recent report, the word "ambition" is used 154 times and "engineering" only twice. There are no references to "skills", which will be one of the main barriers to widespread adoption of renewable energy.
Professor Roger Kemp
Institution of Engineering and Technology, London WC2
The closure of the free market IPN follows years of controversy about Exxon funding, alleged links to the tobacco industry and contested claims about AIDs and the pesticide DDT.
It is possible, however, that the closure may be linked to family connections involving David Cameron that meant IPN could no longer exist as a major force of climate denial.
Whetstone is the mother-in-law of Steve Hilton, who is the director of strategy for the prime minister and was godfather to his son Ivan. Hilton is the man who persuaded the Conservative leader to adopt a robust stance on climate change and hug Huskies on the Norwegian glacier to illustrate his commitment.
Hilton’s wife, Rachel Whetstone, is a vice president at Google for communications, which has donated millions to climate change causes, including creating 21 Google Science Communication Fellows.
An attempt by European Union environment ministers to strengthen EU action to combat climate change was blocked by Poland last night, prompting a swift rebuke from the energy minister Chris Huhne.
"I'm
deeply disappointed that the only country in the EU that could not
accept a good compromise on how we can move Europe to a low carbon
economy was Poland," he said in a
Changes in North Atlantic could also undermine the entire food chain, says Europe-wide study
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/fears-for-baltics-marine-life-as-global-warming-decreases-the-salt-in-the-sea-2302854.htmlThey will be the first entire ecosystem to be destroyed by human activity, says top UN scientist
WA-based scientists have warned of "dire consequences" to the human race after detecting the first signs of dangerous climate change in the Arctic.
The scientists, from the University of WA, claim the region is fast approaching a series of imminent "tipping points" which could trigger a domino effect of large-scale climate change across the entire planet.
As they warm, they shift