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Thu, 31 Jan 08
Amazon deforestation rises sharply as jungle cleared for farming
http://www.agweekly.com/articles/2008/01/31/news/ag_news/news49.txt
Associated Press: The clearing of Brazil's Amazon rain forest jumped dramatically in the final months of 2007, spurred by heavy market demand for corn, soy and cattle, the government and environmentalists said Thursday. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called an emergency meeting of Cabinet ministers to consider emergency measures to stop the deforestation – an apparent reverse of a three-year decline that Silva has repeatedly praised. If emergency measures don't come soon, loggers and ...

Thu, 31 Jan 08
America is running dry
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml= /earth/2008/01/31/sciwater131.xml
Telegraph: An impending crisis in America's water supply is signalled by a study that concludes more than half of the recent decline seen in the west can be linked to human activities. Scientists have been documenting significant changes in water flow in the western United States for the past 50 years. Now it has been found that to 60 percent of the changes in river flow, snow pack and winter air temperatures in the region during this period can be attributed to human-caused climate ...

Thu, 31 Jan 08
Antarctic ice riddle keeps sea-level secrets
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-31698720080131
Reuters: A deep freeze holding 90 percent of the world's ice, Antarctica is one of the biggest puzzles in debate on global warming with risks that any thaw could raise sea levels faster than U.N. projections. Even if a fraction melted, Antarctica could damage nations from Bangladesh to Tuvalu in the Pacific and cities from Shanghai to New York. It has enough ice to raise sea levels by 57 metres if it melted, over thousands of years. A year after the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on ...

Thu, 31 Jan 08
Brazil unwilling to stop destruction of Amazon: experts
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/01/2151670.htm
Reuters: Brazil's Government is unwilling and unable to halt destruction in the Amazon rainforest despite emergency measures it announced last week to curb rising deforestation, environmental experts say. High commodity prices and increased land use elsewhere in Brazil are driving ranchers and farmers deeper into the Amazon in search of cheap land, environmentalists say. Between August and December last year, 7,000 square kilometres, or two-thirds the annual rate, were chopped ...

Thu, 31 Jan 08
Forests Finally Emerging as Climate Issue
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0130-wri_redd.html
Mongabay: The representatives of more than 100 countries in attendance at December's U.N. climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, finally focused on the important role tropical forests play in global warming. Developed countries have pledged almost $300 million to help forest-rich developing countries prepare for their new roles and responsibilities in the post Kyoto international climate-change agreement set to start after 2012. Deforestation, especially in the tropics, has been a ...

Thu, 31 Jan 08
Green groups cry foul as UK claims progress towards Kyoto targets
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/feb/01/carbonemissions.climatech ange
Guardian: Britain's greenhouse gas emissions fell slightly last year as homes and offices used less fuel during the mild winter and recycled more waste. Overall, UK greenhouse gas emissions for 2006 dropped to 652.3m tonnes, a reduction of 0.5% on the previous year, figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs show. CO2 emissions, accounting for 85% of the total UK greenhouse gas output, dropped by 0.1% in the same period. The figures put Britain on course ...

Thu, 31 Jan 08
Groups sue to block Alaska oil drilling plan
http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7272428
Reuters: Environmental groups sued the Bush administration on Thursday to stop plans to allow oil and natural gas drilling in the icy Chukchi Sea off Alaska, which they claim will endanger polar bears. The U.S. Interior Department plans to lease about 30 million acres of land in the Chukchi Sea -- home to about 10 percent of the world's polar bear population -- on Feb. 6. Environmental groups including the National Audubon Society, Natural Resources Defense Council and Earthjustice ...

Thu, 31 Jan 08
Hurricane Activity Linked To Sea Surface Warming
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080130130647.htm
Science Daily: The link between changes in the temperature of the sea's surface and increases in North Atlantic hurricane activity has been quantified for the first time. The research - carried out by scientists at UCL (University College London) and due to be published in Nature on January 31 - shows that a 0.5°C increase in sea surface temperature can be associated with an approximately 40 per cent increase in hurricane activity. The study, conducted by Professor Mark Saunders and Dr Adam Lea of ...

Thu, 31 Jan 08
Brazil: Reports: Brazil's Silva Says Amazon Deforestation Rise Unproven, Causes Uncertain
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080131/brazil_silva_amazon.html?.v=1
Associated Press: A reported jump in the rate of Amazon deforestation is unproven despite a government crackdown on tree cutting, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said in comments published Thursday. Silva said figures showing increased deforestation, issued last week by his Environment Ministry, have not yet been confirmed and more research is underway, according to reports in three major newspapers: Folha de S. Paulo, Estado de S. Paulo and O Globo. He compared the situation to a patient ...

Thu, 31 Jan 08
Scientists warn of looming water supply crisis
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jp1Cb5K67FgNlTuImyhdt0JsP9Qg
Agence France-Presse: Climate change has already dramatically altered the water cycle and these changes signal a looming water supply crisis, according to a prominent group of hydrologists and climatologists writing Thursday in Science magazine. They argue that radical water cycle changes will be widespread and that past trends can no longer be relied upon when planning future water management. "Our best current estimates are that water availability will increase substantially in northern ...

Thu, 31 Jan 08
Study: Global Warming Responsible for Western Droughts
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/31/AR200801310 1868.html?hpid=moreheadlines
Washington Post: The persistent and dramatic decline in the snowpack of the mountains of the West is caused primarily by human-induced global warming and not the result of natural variability of weather patterns in the region, researchers reported today. Using data collected over the past 50 years, the scientists confirmed that the mountains are getting more rain and less snow, that the snowpack is breaking up faster, and that more rivers are running dry by summer. The study, published online ...

Thu, 31 Jan 08
UN: Climate Change May Cost $20 Trillion
http://www.livescience.com/environment/080131-ap-gw-costs.html
Associated Press: Global warming could cost the world up to $20 trillion over two decades for cleaner energy sources and do the most harm to people who can least afford to adapt, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warns in a new report. Ban's report provides an overview of U.N. climate efforts to help the 192-nation General Assembly prepare for a key two-day climate debate in mid-February. That debate is intended to shape overall U.N. policy on climate change, including how nations can adapt to a ...

Thu, 31 Jan 08
US Scraps Plan for Biggest Clean-Coal Power Plant
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/46730/story.htm
Reuters: Ballooning construction costs that nearly doubled the price tag for building the world's cleanest coal-burning power plant to US$1.8 billion prompted the US Energy Department on Wednesday to pull the plug on funding the project. A consortium of utility and coal companies in December picked a site in Mattoon, Illinois, to build the so-called FutureGen plant, which would burn coal and sock away heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions underground. However, the Energy Department, ...

Thu, 31 Jan 08
US study concludes major crop losses from climate change by 2030 in world's poor areas
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/01/31/america/NA-GEN-US-Climate-Change- Agriculture.php
Associated Press: Changes in climate brought by global warming could cause major crop losses in many of the world's poorest regions within the next two decades, environmental specialists reported Thursday. The findings foresee alarming consequences for many of the 1 billion poor people who depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, largely because agriculture is the human activity that is most vulnerable to changes in climate. The worst affected areas were projected to be southern Africa and ...

Thu, 31 Jan 08
Warming May Cause Crop Failures, Food Shortages by 2030
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080131-warming-crops.html
National Geographic: Impoverished farmers in South Asia and southern Africa could face growing food shortages due to climate change within just 20 years, a new study says. Increasing levels of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, are heating up the planet, with droughts and shifting rainfall patterns predicted for many parts of the world. "The majority of the world's one billion poor depend on agriculture for their livelihoods," said the lead author of the new study, David Lobell ...

Thu, 31 Jan 08
World urged to help poor adapt to climate change
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN31371273
Reuters: The developed world should help poor countries brace for global warming by assisting them in taking steps like restoring coastal forests and training health care workers, the head of the U.N.'s climate panel said. Recognizing that climate change may be hard to reverse, experts are now examining "adaptation," or how to deal with potential catastrophes such as rising seas as a result of melting glaciers. "In the developing countries it's critical we think of ...

Thu, 31 Jan 08
Bill Clinton Says Economic Slowdown Could Be Necessary To Fight Global Warming
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7009891998
All Headline News: Speaking in Denver on Wednesday, former President Bill Clinton did not mince words on how to combat global warming, telling the crowd that the fight against climate change required industrialized nations to "slow down their economies and cut back on greenhouse gas emissions." Bill Clinton, who was traveling from state to state to campaign on behalf of his wife's presidential bid, spoke to the Colorado crowd about the importance of a good energy plan not only to curb ...

Thu, 31 Jan 08
Britain in bloom (as spring is sprung earlier than ever)
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/britain-in-bloom-as-spring- is-sprung-earlier-than-ever-776174.html
Independent: Gardening enthusiasts could be forgiven for forgetting what month it is when they step outside in the morning, as carpets of snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils – all traditional spring flowers – are in bloom across the country. It has been a record-breaking spell for flowers, with many spring varieties opening their petals a full two weeks before the average time for the decade. The unseasonably warm and wet winter so far in Britain has coaxed plants into early flowering. At Kew ...

Thu, 31 Jan 08
Candidates line up behind California in greenhouse-gas fight
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/31/BAQLUPSB9.DTL
San Francisco Chronicle: Republican presidential candidates lined up behind California's right to limit tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases in their final debate before Tuesday's primary, joining their Democratic counterparts and indicating the state would be likely to get a green light once President Bush leaves the White House a year from now. All four Republican candidates were asked at Wednesday's debate about the clash between California and the Environmental Protection Agency, which has blocked a ...

Thu, 31 Jan 08
Carbon trading must be globally regulated
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/01/31/ealinnett 131.xml
Telegraph: Simon Linnett, Executive Vice-Chairman of Rothschild, has called for a new international body, the World Environment Agency, to regulate carbon trading. In a recently published paper, Trading Emissions, for the Social Market Foundation, Mr Linnett argues that the International problem of climate change demands an international solution. Unless governments cede some of their sovereignty to a new world body, he says, a global carbon trading scheme cannot be enforced and ...

Sun, 27 Jan 08
United Kingdom: Legal threat to Heathrow plan
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/a rticle3257573.ece
Times (UK): GOVERNMENT proposals for a third runway at Heathrow airport are facing a possible legal challenge that could jeopardise the multi-billion-pound plan. Residents living under the flight path, local councils and environmental groups are consulting lawyers. Greenpeace is also seeking a judicial review.They believe there are strong grounds for arguing that the Department for Transport (DfT) consultation process is so flawed that it is not valid. Lawyers are examining ...

Sat, 26 Jan 08
Antarctic glaciers melting more quickly
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/26/MN50UM20C.DTL
San Francisco Chronicle: Antarctica's massive coastal glaciers are quickly melting into the sea as the oceans around the continent grow warmer - and the pace of ice loss is speeding up. An international satellite network measuring the thickness of the glaciers as they shrink year by year has found that the glaciers have melted so rapidly during the past 10 years that the continent is losing almost as much ice as Greenland, according to researchers gathering the satellite data. The team from Chile, ...

Sat, 26 Jan 08
Bush Opens Roadless Tongass National Forest to Logging
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2008/2008-01-25-095.asp
Environment News Service: Today, the Bush administration put a "for sale" sign on trees in pristine roadless areas of the Tongass rainforest in Alaska - America's largest national forest. This move by Bush officials to reverse roadless area protections parallels two others made recently in national forests located in Idaho and Colorado. Conservationists from across the country are indignant that roads will be punched through some of the nation's last, best roadless areas to allow private ...

Sat, 26 Jan 08
Climate change causes new 'epoch'
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climate-change-caus es-new-epoch-774293.html
Independent: The Earth has entered a new geological epoch because man-made changes to the climate are having a dramatic and long-term impact on the land and the oceans, a study has found. A team of geologists believes that humans have altered the Earth so much since the start of the industrial revolution that we are now living in a new epoch called the Anthropocene, which began when the previous Holocene epoch ended in about 1800. The geologists have proposed that the new epoch should be ...

Sat, 26 Jan 08
Bono and Al Gore in climate warning
http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5gBE-IvcuTKwK_W7ZJKCkoOfnR6gQ
Press Association: Former US Vice President Al Gore and U2 frontman Bono have offered measured praise for efforts in tackling climate change and global poverty, but warned that conditions are not improving as much as they could. At a session of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mr Gore warned that the climate crisis was worsening. "We could take the whole session talking just about the new scientific evidence of the last few weeks and months," said Mr Gore, who shared last ...

Sat, 26 Jan 08
Gadget Prods Homeowners to Cut Energy Use
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/25/AR200801250 1621.html
Washington Post: Most of us think of home energy savings in terms of products, prices and percentages. For instance: A compact fluorescent light bulb costs about five to 10 times as much as a standard incandescent bulb, it uses about 75 percent less energy, and it lasts eight to 10 times longer. But you can also save energy and money simply by getting more information. That means determining the amount of electricity used by all the equipment in your house. This can frequently be significantly ...

Sat, 26 Jan 08
United Kingdom: Is climate change is making us sick?
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/body_and_soul/artic le3251354.ece
Times (UK): You might think that a little climate change would not go amiss in the British Isles. We'd have more warm summers and fewer freezing winters. What's wrong with that? Ask the people of Yorkshire. As a result of global warming, many homeowners this week are up to their waists inmuddy water. Andflooding could be just the beginning of our worries. This week a paper in the British Medical Journal gave warning that climate change could be particularly damaging to the health of people in ...

Sat, 26 Jan 08
Lofty Himalaya Magnify Global Warming Impact
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/46612/story.htm
Reuters: The Himalayas are suffering the effects of global warming more acutely because of their height and melting glaciers could flood local settlements, the World Conservation Union (IUCN) said on Thursday. "The Himalaya, that's really moving very fast. They're being hit very hard," IUCN Director General Julia Marton-Lefevre told Reuters at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. Thousands of glaciers in the Himalaya mountains are the source of water for nine ...

Sat, 26 Jan 08
United Kingdom: New green taxes for 'gas-guzzling' cars
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/01/26/eacar126. xml
Telegraph: Motorists face having to pay new green taxes as ministers step up their war on "gas-guzzling" cars. The Government wants to get people out of high-emissions vehicles by making them more expensive, while also cutting the cost of driving for more environmentally-friendly options. Two recently published reports commissioned by the Department for Transport examine the impact of raising the cost of buying the most polluting cars, and of increasing running costs by raising ...

Sat, 26 Jan 08
Putting the blame for carbon on planes, not cars, 'is flight of fancy'
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3254069.ece
Times (UK): Which is worse for the environment – cars or aircraft? If your answer was aircraft, then you are among a growing crowd of aerophobes egged on by anti-aviation campaigners. But in terms of CO2 emissions you would be wrong. Official figures show an increase in the number of people duped into believing that flights are more damaging than car journeys. The number of people who think that flying contributes more to climate change than car journeys has risen rapidly in the past 18 ...

Sat, 26 Jan 08
Canada: Alberta Targets Emission Cuts With Carbon Capture
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/46611/story.htm
Reuters: Alberta, Canada's biggest oil-producing province, aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 14 percent from 2005 levels as part of a climate-change plan that imposes few restrictions on major industrial emitters. The government of Premier Ed Stelmach said Thursday it plans to form a council made up of government and industry officials charged with setting plans to implement carbon capture and storage and furthering the technology. The Alberta government said it could direct as ...

Sat, 26 Jan 08
Australia: Climate to hurt bush: study
http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/news/local/environment/climate-to-hurt-bus h-study/1169801.html
Canberra Times: Climate change posed a serious threat to human health and people living in the bush were likely to "bear the brunt", an Australian National University academic said yesterday. National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health fellow Professor Tony McMichael called for "clear and ambitious" targets to tackle climate change. "While we worry upfront the effects on jobs, the economy, infrastructure, valued species ... we really haven't come to terms ...

Sat, 26 Jan 08
EU Agrees Goal for Climate Deal by April 2009
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/46616/story.htm
Reuters: EU President Slovenia and the three countries that will succeed it in the EU chair agreed with European Parliament leaders on Thursday to aim to enact ambitious laws on energy and climate change by April 2009. Slovenian Environment Minister Janez Podobnik told a joint news conference with his French, Czech and Swedish counterparts the aim was to pass legislation on the measures proposed by the European Commission before the June 2009 European elections. The Commission ...

Sat, 26 Jan 08
Australia: Greenhouse cuts would land us in the Middle Ages, says Labor sceptic
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/greenhouse-cuts-would-land-us-in-the -middle-ages-says-laborsceptic/2008/01/25/1201157668460.html
Sydney Morning Herald: THE Hawke government finance minister Peter Walsh has warned the Rudd Government that cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 would send Australian living standards back to the Middle Ages. Mr Walsh, who was at the forefront of Labor's conversion to economic rationalism in the 1980s, heads the Lavoisier Group of hardline climate-change sceptics. In a submission lodged with the Garnaut climate change review, the former West Australian senator disputes the scientific ...

Sat, 26 Jan 08
Iraq ratifies Kyoto Protocol on climate change
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j36Xc3cFAC5MxVU1kzImFlZPv6Mw
Agence France-Presse: Iraq has formally ratified the UN's Kyoto Protocol on climate change, according to a government statement seen by AFP on Saturday. "The presidential council ratified in its session on January 23 a law according to which the Republic of Iraq will join the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol," the statement said. The Kyoto Protocol legally commits industrialised countries which have signed and ratified it to trim their output of ...

Sat, 26 Jan 08
United States: Panel backs climate-change report
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004146674_climatechange26m .html
Associated Press: A task force created by Gov. Christine Gregoire approved an interim report Friday that makes a dozen recommendations on responding to climate change in the state. The 80-page report has some suggestions that are reflected in a bill requested by Gregoire, including requiring major sources of greenhouse gases to measure and report their emissions. Gregoire praised the state's current efforts to cut emissions, as well as other initiatives the state has begun to help combat global ...

Sat, 26 Jan 08
Power, parties - and how to save the world
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jan/26/davos2008.economy
Guardian: I spent five minutes in a small concrete corridor in Switzerland this week and watched the following people pass by: Henry Kissinger, a Chinese telecoms boss, an executive from the Campbell soup company, a rabbi, a Brazilian oil baron, computer pioneer Nicholas Negroponte, a team of aides looking for UN secretary general Ban ki-moon, Peter Mandelson, an up and coming Palestinian writer, a Brazilian brain scientist, a vice-chairman of Merrill Lynch and a member of the Bill and Melinda Gates ...

Sat, 26 Jan 08
Britain must act quickly or fail to meet its obligations, say experts
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jan/26/windpower.renewableenergy
Guardian: Britain will miss its target of generating 15% of all its energy from renewables by 2020 unless it acts quickly, invests billions and changes its attitude to energy, industry figures said yesterday. The draft target, set this week by the EU, will challenge the government and industry because it means not just vastly increasing the amount of renewable electricity the UK generates, but also changing how we heat homes, power factories and drive vehicles and trains. Britain ...

Sat, 26 Jan 08
United Kingdom: Government faces scrutiny on emissions cutback plans
http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.1997243.0.governmen t_faces_scrutiny_on_emissions_cutback_plans.php
Sunday Herald: THE SCOTTISH government will face a key test of its environmental commitment this week when it launches a public consultation on plans to cut Scotland's climate pollution by 80% by 2050. The long-awaited report on proposed climate change legislation is due to be unveiled by Scottish ministers at Edinburgh's Botanic Gardens on Tuesday. Although it is not expected to contain any major surprises, it will be closely scrutinised to check that the government is serious about reducing ...

Sat, 26 Jan 08
Japan, Denmark Set New Climate Goals
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hQNEEOFdc9OxzgM-WgEOFV7CiMZwD8UDNA6G0
Associated Press: The United States, China and India must be part of the follow-up treaty to the Kyoto Protocol and agree to cut carbon emissions, Denmark's prime minister said Saturday. Japan's leader offered them a bold strategy for doing it. Climate change returned to the fore at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting, where Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda proposed a 2020 deadline for countries to boost their energy efficiency by 30 percent. He added that Japan would try to spread its ...

Sat, 26 Jan 08
Putting the brakes on ethanol
http://www.cbc.ca/news/reportsfromabroad/common/20080125.html
CBC: Ethanol was supposed to be this great fix for the air we breathe. Now it turns out it might be counterproductive, even dirty. At least, that is the view gaining ground in Europe. In principle, biofuels like ethanol were supposed to partially replace conventional fuels, thereby reducing already heavy demand on fossil fuels and offering a non-polluting alternative. As a bonus, the biofuels are made from plants and so demand for the crops of increasingly desperate farmers would ...

Sat, 26 Jan 08
Claim: Global warming will trigger illness
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/178941,claim-global-warming-will-tr igger-illness.html
United Press International: Experts claim global warming will likely cause illness for people in Britain. Officials present during Tuesday's conference at the Royal College of Physicians reportedly will be warned about the negative effects of global warming on the health of British people, The Times of London reported Saturday. "The result will be fewer deaths from colds and flu, but more from strokes and heart attacks because of the heat," said Dr. Hugh Montgomery, the conference's ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
Brazil's army to help combat Amazon destruction
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKN2427492820080125
Reuters: Brazil on Thursday unveiled measures to slow deforestation of the Amazon region including one that calls for the army to help carry out inspections.The steps came one day after Brazilian officials said Amazon destruction had surged during the last five months of 2007. Deforestation rose from 94 square miles in August to 366 square miles in December."Our aim is to establish institutional mechanisms to prevent deforestation," Justice Minister Tarso Genro told reporters after an emergency meeting ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
Climate change to hit health above economy: study
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKSYD6032420080125
Reuters: Climate change will have potentially devastating consequences for human health, outweighing global economic impacts, researchers said on Friday, calling for urgent action to protect the world's population. "While we embark on more rapid reduction of emissions to avert future climate change, we must also manage the now unavoidable health risks from current and pending climate change," said Australian researcher Tony McMichael, who co-authored a study in the British Medical ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
Europe climate targets strong signal to others-UN
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL25770393
Reuters: New European targets for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases are a strong signal to other countries to reduce their carbon output, the U.N. environment chief said on Friday. The European Commission's plan to cut emissions unilaterally by 20 percent by 2020, announced this week, is "quite far-reaching," Achim Steiner, head of the United Nations Environment Programme, said at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. "I think the signal value of the European ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
United Kingdom: Global warming prompts some lifestyle changes
http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKHO56314820080125
Reuters: Britons are starting to change their lifestyles in response to global warming, but few are making the tough choices and in many cases the motivation is fear of punishment, according to a new survey. Top of the list of environmental activities is recycling, with 90 percent of the people surveyed saying they were doing it more than a year ago. But the reasons given were mostly connected with council schemes and punishments rather than altruism, according to the survey by ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
Gore says "changing light bulbs" not enough
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKL2490201820080125
Reuters: Climate campaigner Al Gore urged world policymakers on Thursday to change laws "not just light bulbs" in tackling global warming, and a U.N. official said world market turmoil must not be allowed to delay action. An annual meeting of world political and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland, this year has scheduled a record number of sessions and workshops on global warming. But a sharp downturn on markets and fears of recession have dominated discussion. "If we get distracted ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
Scientists update climate change position
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Science/2008/01/25/scientists_update_climate_c hange_position/7924/
United Press International: The world's largest scientific society of Earth and space scientists has updated its position, saying the consequences of climate change "are not natural." "The Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming," the American Geophysical Union said in a statement released Thursday. "Many components of the climate system -- including the temperatures of the atmosphere, land and ocean, the extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, the sea level, the ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
UN: Water shortage and population growth will create conflict
http://www.livenews.com.au/Articles/2008/01/25/UN_Water_shortage_and_popula tion_growth_will_create_conflict
Live Science: Prevention of the looming water crisis should receive top priority in 2008, according to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Appealing to business and political leaders at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland yesterday, he said action was needed to prevent conflicts over scarce supplies. Mr Ki-Moon spoke of the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan which was touched off by drought echoing recent reports about the threat of eco-terrorism and climate change ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
Water Shortage, Warming Threaten Stability
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1230129/water_shortage_warming_threate n_stability/
Red Orbit: This week, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) -- the largest society of Earth and space scientists in the world -- issued a position paper on global climate change, warning that "the Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming," and that these changes are "not natural". The report states that evidence from most oceans and all continents except Antarctica shows warming attributable to human activities. "Many components of the climate system–including the ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
Canada: Alberta climate plan lets industry avoid new limits
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=e97103c8-1f8d-4afc-a1 71-a4d26568c9d4
Vancouver Sun: Alberta will let greenhouse gas emissions rise for more than a decade before emission cuts take hold in a new climate change plan that includes no new restrictions on industrial emitters. The government of Premier Ed Stelmach said Thursday it expects to bring carbon emissions 14 per cent below 2005 levels by 2050, mostly through capture and storage of the gases blamed for global warming. But emissions in the province -- where more than $100 billion of oil sands projects are ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
Brazil sugarcane industry eyes EU biofuel market
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5goQpr15wNPArazFwqOy3z5Lf95QA
Agence France-Presse: Brazil, the world leader in making ethanol from sugarcane, is homing in on Europe's biofuel market following a decision by the European Commission to combat climate change by reducing the dependency on petrol. The EU plan calls for biofuels to be used in at least 10 percent of fuels used in transport in the 27-nation bloc by 2020. For Brazil's sugarcane industry, the news is seen as a golden export opportunity. "We see this as very positive because it will allow the ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
Davos discusses how to address climate change, poverty alleviation
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iLMFCDWSlAREQUl6v3pLWoI1HEeQ
Agence France-Presse: Corporate responsibility rather than profit took centre stage in Davos on Friday, as the annual get-together of business chiefs turned its attention to issues of health, aid and development. Rock star activist Bono, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates and UN chief Ban Ki-moon steered the conversation away from the global economy and geopolitics, towards issues such as malaria eradication, poverty alleviation and climate change. Ban challenged delegates to renew a commitment ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
United States: EPA chief won't budge on waiver
http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/660988.html
Sacramento: The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency held firm Thursday to his declaration that California is not entitled to strike out on its own to cut vehicle emissions, insisting that there is nothing unique to California about the threat posed by global warming. "My job is to make the right decision, not the easy decision," EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The committee's chairwoman, California Democrat Barbara ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
Geophysicists: Theory of Global Warming 'Well Established'
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325688,00.html
Live Science: The world's largest society of Earth and space scientists has released a new statement on climate change that unequivocally names human activity as the cause of global warming. "Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming," according to the first paragraph of the statement by the American Geophysical Union. The statement cites many components of the Earth system that are changing at unnatural rates, including rising global temperatures, ice melt, sea ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
Canada: Greenhouse gas levels will climb for 12 years
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=39935287-ed3c-48d5 -b79d-3e95d663e187&k=62902
Edmonton Journal: The Alberta government's new climate change plan will allow overall greenhouse gas emissions to rise for another 12 years before new technology begins to bring the problem under control. Premier Ed Stelmach's government is pinning its environmental hopes on capturing carbon dioxide and storing it underground as a way to reduce projected emissions by 70 per cent by 2050. By that year, the government expects to reduce overall emissions by 14 per cent below 2005 levels. The ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
Hewlett Foundation plans climate change grants
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKL2579317820080125
Reuters: Trustees of a $9 billion endowment fund founded by the late William Hewlett, of Hewlett Packard, say they want to spend tens of millions of dollars a year fighting climate change as part of a bigger fund. "We've been meeting potential philanthropic investors," said President of the Foundation, Paul Brest, in London on Friday. "We're committing to a long-term grant-making project for climate change. There's a lot of initiatives by U.S. philanthropy, but we haven't ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
India, France issue joint declaration on global warming
http://www.topnews.in/india-france-issue-joint-declaration-global-warming-2 17047
Top News: France and India have decided to unite their efforts to work against the major challenge of climate change. Their efforts form part of the agenda outlined in the Bali Action Plan adopted on December 15, 2007 during the 13th Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNNFCCC) and the 3rd session of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, in keeping with the principle of common, but differentiated responsibilities and respective ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
Out of oil within seven years
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/01/25/out_of_oil_within _seven_years/
Marketplace: Scott Jagow: In Davos, Switzerland, they're wrapping up the World Economic forum. Today, the head of Royal Dutch Shell met with Nigeria's president to talk about security and oil. Shell's CEO is Jeroen Van der Veer. He told his employees something this week that might surprise you: World demand for oil and gas will outstrip supply within seven years. Our European correspondent, Stephen Beard, joins us now. Seven years? That's a lot sooner than we've heard before, isn't ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
UK chief boosts climate ties with China and India
http://www.scidev.net/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=readnews&itemid=4201&am p;language=1
SciDev.Net: The UK prime minister Gordon Brown's visits to China and India have strengthened the relationship between the two biggest developing countries and rich nations in fighting climate change. The UK and Chinese governments signed an agreement in Beijing last week (18 January) in which the United Kingdom promises to offer £50 million (US$100 million) from the UK's environment funds each year in beneficial loans – with no or low interest rates – or grants for research into climate change ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
US pushes its climate change agenda despite criticism
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jlgTTxinVCRqeqRMGI5Zq7bv0jBw
Agence France-Presse: The United States pushed forward with its own agenda on climate change Friday despite criticism that Washington is attempting to undermine the global effort led by the United Nations. But as senior officials outlined the broad agenda of a meeting the United States is hosting next week in Hawaii -- which includes an emphasis on controversial uses of nuclear power and technology to trap emissions from coal plants -- they insisted they are simply supplementing the UN ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
US Renewable Energy Market Reports Record Year in 2007
http://www.voanews.com/english/Science/2008-01-25-voa12.cfm
Voice of America: Last year was a record year for the renewable energy industry in the United States. The development and sale of power from wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and other renewable sources in 2007 infused $20 billion into the U.S. economy and created tens of thousands of jobs. But as VOA's Rosanne Skirble reports, industry leaders fear that growth could be stalled because of the failure of the U.S. Congress to ensure long-term support for renewable energy projects. Renewable energy in the ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
Analysis: Europe's climate action plan
http://www.upi.com/International_Security/Energy/Analysis/2008/01/25/analys is_europes_climate_action_plan/4598/
United Press International: Politicians hail the European Commission's latest energy and climate package as a climate protection milestone, with the fossil fuel-heavy industry warning of job losses. Earlier this week EC officials announced the individual, concrete targets each country will have to meet regarding the use of renewable energy. The targets are part of a plan that has the European Union by 2020 generating 20 percent of its energy needs with renewables, such as wind, solar and biofuels. That ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
Canada: BC to set up climate-change institute with $94.5-million endowment
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hlbFanDRNhNIK_tj69jiv2qm7Fcg
Canadian Press: The B.C. government wants to spend $94.5 million to set up a Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions to spark ideas for adapting to climate change and lessen its effects. Premier Gordon Campbell says the Victoria-based institute will bring together top scientists, researchers, government officials and the private sector to develop green products for consumers worldwide and encourage greener lifestyles. He says the institute will be a collaboration between the province's four ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
Biofuel Investments Seen Good Bet With Pricey Oil
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/46621/story.htm
Reuters: Biofuels made from plants and waste will prove an increasingly efficient and cheap substitute for oil in many areas over the coming five years, industry analysts said. As long as crude sells at prices towards US$100 per barrel, there will be strong demand for cheaper biofuels and manufacturing technology will improve, Vinod Khosla, founder of venture capital firm Khosla Ventures, told Reuters. "It's very clear to me that within the next few years -- about three I would ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
Brown calls for a 'green' World Bank
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i43Wl8IXZrvKgPSyh39KdmP8wudg
Agence France-Presse: Prime Minister Gordon Brown called Friday for the World Bank to assume an environmental role capable of taking on the global challenges posed by climate change. Addressing the global political and business elite gathered in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, Brown also pushed for similar operational reforms of other international institutions that had failed to move with the times. "The IMF, the World Bank and the United Nations were built for the problems of the 1940s and ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
United States: Doubling of energy tax credits advances
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1201229709267 210.xml&coll=7
Oregonian: The House Revenue Committee voted Thursday to forward an energy tax credit proposal for the full Legislature's consideration next month. The proposal would double the maximum tax credits available to manufacturers of renewable-energy equipment. The draft legislation would create a tax credit similar to the business energy tax credit, which lawmakers expanded last year to give up to a 50 percent tax credit for the costs of a renewable energy project. The expansion nearly ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
EPA chief defends denying Calif. rules
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.hearing25jan25,0,7191822.sto ry
Baltimore Sun: Facing heat from Congress yesterday, the head of the EPA stood by his decision to block California from limiting greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. Maryland was one of 15 states that had been awaiting Environmental Protection Agency approval to begin enforcing the new standards developed by the California Air Resources Board. But Stephen L. Johnson became the first EPA administrator to deny a so-called California waiver last month when he rejected the ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
France set for rapid growth in photovoltaic technology
http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/energie_elektrotechnik/beric ht-102041.html
Innovations Report: Photovoltaic (PV) technology is set to become one of France's fastest growing energy sources over the next decade, as dramatic increases in world oil prices radically shift the balance in favour of renewable energy sources. France's energy record is already very good – it has one of the lowest carbon footprints in Europe and is meeting its Kyoto Treaty obligations. France has seen energy consumption (calculated per unit of GDP) fall dramatically, with a reduction every year since ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
Japanese PM pledges initiatives on climate change, development
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hO7i8vlJDFh9ES5QndftVq-YoqXQ
Agence France-Presse: Japan's Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda pledged Tokyo-led initiatives on climate change and economic development in the near future in a comment piece in the Financial Times on Friday. Writing ahead of a speech to the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, on Saturday, Fukuda wrote that "combating climate change and fostering development, particularly in Africa, are two of the issues that Japan, as chair of the 2008 meeting of the (G8) ... is pushing hard to ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
New radar satellite technique sheds light on ocean current dynamics
http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/physik_astronomie/bericht-10 2065.html
Innovations Report: Ocean surface currents have long been the focus of research due to the role they play in weather, climate and transportation of pollutants, yet essential aspects of these currents remain unknown. By employing a new technique – based on the same principle as police speed-measuring radar guns – to satellite radar data, scientists can now obtain information necessary to understand better the strength and variability of surface current regimes and their relevance for climate change. ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
Scientists Warn Climate Change Rate Could Prompt Wholesale Calamity
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7009831645
All Headline News: The American Geophysical Union (AGU) has warned that slashing greenhouse gas emissions to half of the existing rates to stop a 3.6-degree warming could prove calamitous not just for the environment, but also for the economy and our whole future. The report found constant warming alters the Earth's entire ecosystem: atmosphere temperature, land and ocean, the extent of the sea ice, the sea level, the precipitation in terms of quantity and distribution, and the length of seasons. All ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
United States: Senators want to override EPA emissions decision
http://www.mercurynews.com/healthandscience/ci_8074045?nclick_check=1
Mercury News: The head of the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday defended his decision to turn down California's landmark bid to regulate vehicle emissions during a contentious Senate hearing. On the same day, 16 senators launched a rare effort to reverse that decision through legislation. Stephen Johnson, administrator of the EPA, told the Environment Committee that he decided not to "rubber-stamp" California's request - joined by 14 other states - for a waiver of agency rules ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
United States: Snowpack will melt earlier, scientist says
http://www.gjsentinel.com/hp/content/news/stories/2008/01/24/012508_1b_clim ate_change.html
Daily Sentinel: Abundant snow and cold temperatures might make it seem that climate change hardly affects Colorado, but a U.S. Geological Survey scientist warned that Colorado's runoff season will see dramatic mood swings in the coming decades. David Clow of the USGS told members of the Colorado Water Congress on Thursday that human-caused global warming doesn't seem to be dramatically affecting Colorado's snowpack just yet, but runoff is already occurring two weeks earlier than it did just 27 years ...

Fri, 25 Jan 08
United Kingdom: The Battle of Lewis: wind farm plan is blown off course
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/the-battle-of-lewis -wind-farm-plan-is-blown-off-course-774277.html
Independent: A huge row over the biggest land-based wind farm ever proposed in Britain is coming to a climax this weekend. A decision on whether to proceed with the 181-windmill development on the Hebridean island of Lewis is imminent – with some reports claiming that Scottish ministers had already turned down the project on environmental grounds. The decision has implications for the growth of renewable energy in Britain, signalled this week by the EU's plans for a massive renewables ...

Thu, 24 Jan 08
Brazil: Amazon destruction soars again
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411366/1555979
Reuters: The destruction of the Amazon forest surged over the last five months of 2007, the Brazilian government said, only months after hailing progress in curbing deforestation. Deforestation in the Amazon, known as "the lungs of the world" for its ability to consume greenhouse gases and produce oxygen - shot up from 243 square kilometres in August to 948 sq km in December. That is four times as much as in the same period of 2004, the government said. It did not provide ...

Tue, 22 Jan 08
As Alps Warm, a Snow-Deprived Ski Resort Sells for $1
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=91762
New York Times: Bruno Prior, a British entrepreneur, saw the ad from the Ernen ski-lift company one day as he was sipping coffee and looking through the newspaper in London. Several months later – after paying the token sum of one Swiss franc, or about 90 cents – he is the proud owner of four ski lifts, two trail groomers and a restaurant on 12 miles of ski slopes. Effectively giving the ski operation away was an act of desperation on the part of Ernen, which, like hundreds of other small ...

Tue, 22 Jan 08
Dems Pressed on Global Warming Ahead of South Carolina Vote
http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/157062/1/3319
OneWorld U.S.: South Carolina voters concerned about global warming are calling on the Democratic candidates for president to focus on climate change solutions as they stage a public debate in the resort town of Myrtle Beach this evening. "Climate change is a top concern of South Carolina primary voters," said Cynthia Powell, a Myrtle Beach resident and undecided voter. "We see a clean energy future in South Carolina as the best way to create jobs and protect the ...

Tue, 22 Jan 08
United Kingdom: MPs' warning on biofuels angers Brussels
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jan/22/energy.climatechange
Guardian: The EU yesterday denounced a House of Commons report calling for a moratorium on the increased use of biofuels and made plain it would stick to mandatory targets for the use of biofuels in transport when it unveils a climate change package today. Yesterday's report from the Commons environmental audit committee warned that biofuels were too expensive, environmentally damaging and making a negative contribution to cutting greenhouse gases, and said British government and EU plans to ...

Tue, 22 Jan 08
EU Emissions Plan to Cost Billions - German Industry
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/46549/story.htm
Reuters: New financial burdens on German industry arising out of greenhouse gas emissions rules due from Brussels later this week could run to 17 billion euros (US$24.92 billion), a German energy users' lobby said on Monday. The European Commission is expected to introduce a new system on Wednesday to auction permits to emit carbon dioxide (CO2) after 2012 as part of proposals to protect the climate. "Should the Commission implement its plans, we calculate that the costs of the ...

Tue, 22 Jan 08
Renault to Develop Electric Cars for Israel
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/46560/story.htm
Reuters: The Renault-Nissan alliance on Monday signed a deal to begin mass producing electric cars as part of an Israeli-led project to develop alternative energy sources and slash oil dependency. Renault-Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn said the cars, with a range of about 100 km in city driving and up to 160 km on the highway, will accelerate from zero to 100 kph in 13 seconds and have a top speed of 110 kph -- similar to many gasoline-powered cars. Ghosn said a key reason why ...

Tue, 22 Jan 08
U.A.E. Plans Carbon-Capture Project to Increase Oil Production
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601091&sid=auRzLaJU_TWQ&re fer=india
Bloomberg: Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co. plans to build what may become the world's largest project to capture carbon dioxide and use it to boost oil and gas production. The state-owned company has chosen eight sites to inject about 15 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, a quarter of the emissions from Abu Dhabi, one of seven sheikhdoms in the United Arab Emirates. ``We hope to get approval during the first half of 2008,'' said Sam Nader, director of carbon management for the company, ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
11 Multinationals to Assess Their 'Carbon Footprint'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/20/AR200801200 2319.html
Bloomberg: Hewlett-Packard, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble and eight other global companies are assessing the emissions of their supply chains as part of efforts to cut greenhouse gases and inform investors of their so-called carbon footprint. Each picked as many as 50 of their suppliers to reply to questions from the Carbon Disclosure Project by March, the CDP said in an e-mailed statement. The nonprofit project coordinates environmental data requests on behalf of 315 investors with $41 ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Alarm Bells Ringing About Antarctic Thaw - Norway PM
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/46519/story.htm
Reuters: Alarm bells are ringing about risks of a quickening thaw of Antarctica that would drive up world sea levels, Norway's Prime Minister said on Sunday after a visit to the icy continent. Scientists say there are hard-to-quantify chances that newly detected lakes under Antarctica's ice sheets might lubricate a slide towards the oceans, or that climate change could warm southern seas and melt floating sea ice holding back glaciers. "It is alarming. Alarm bells are ringing. It ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Brussels urged to fight climate change with tax
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9c619832-c7c3-11dc-a0b4-0000779fd2ac.html
Financial Times: The European Union should fight climate change with a broad-based carbon tax rather than by setting precise targets for the use of biofuels and renewable energy, according to a team of British economists. Europe Economics, a London-based consultancy, argues that biofuel targets amount to "a form of state support for an environmentally and -economically harmful activity designed to consolidate existing price support mechanisms for vested interest groups, most notably ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
EU says companies profit from carbon trading
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/01/21/cnets121. xml
Telegraph: The European Commission believes that some of the most polluting electricity generators are making huge windfall profits, according to documents leaked to The Daily Telegraph. The commission said it is time to change EU rules to eliminate the practice, which has been strongly denied by power companies, many of which have hiked their domestic prices over the past three weeks. Brussels' admission that some companies are enjoying windfalls at the expense of consumers will add ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
EU's Barroso says pollution permits to be auctioned
http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7243904
Reuters: The European Commission will propose this week auctioning permits to emit greenhouse gases after 2012 in a package of measures to fight climate change, despite protests from business, its chief said on Monday. "Allowances will be auctioned, with revenues going to member states, but any EU company will be allowed to buy allowances in any member state," Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said in a speech prepared for delivery at investment bank Lehman Brothers in ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Europe, Cutting Biofuel Subsidies, Redirects Aid to Stress Greenest Options
http://biz.yahoo.com/nytimes/080121/1194739391218.html?.v=1
New York Times: Governments in Europe and elsewhere have begun rolling back generous, across-the-board subsidies for biofuels, acknowledging that the environmental benefits of these fuels have often been overstated. But as they aim to be more selective, these governments are discovering how difficult it can be to figure out whether a particular fuel – much less a particular batch of corn ethanol or rapeseed biodiesel – has been produced in an environmentally friendly manner. Biofuels vary greatly in ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Global Carbon Trade Rose 80 Pct Last Year - Group
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/46518/story.htm
Reuters: Trade in the world greenhouse gas credits market rose 80 percent last year as emissions rules became a concern for more companies, a carbon analysis group said on Friday. Global carbon credit trade rose to US$60 billion in 2007, from US$33 billion the previous year, according Point Carbon, an Oslo-based group of greenhouse gas analysts and consultants. Total traded volume in the global market reached 2.7 billion tonnes of greenhouse emissions reductions in 2007, a 64 percent ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Greenhouse gases at new peak, in sign of Asia growth
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/international/2008/01/21/139867/Greenhouse-gase s.htm
Reuters: Atmospheric levels of the main greenhouse gas have set another new peak in a sign of the industrial rise of Asian economies led by China, a senior scientist said on Saturday. "The levels already in January are higher than last year," said Kim Holmen, research director of the Norwegian Polar Institute, during a visit to the Troll scientific research station in Antarctica by Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. Holmen said measurements at a Norwegian station high ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
New energy behind nuclear power
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-ft-nuclear21jan21,0,4147533 .story?coll=la-headlines-pe-business
Associated Press: Global warming and rocketing oil prices are making nuclear power fashionable, drawing a once-demonized industry out of the shadows of the Chernobyl disaster as a potential model of clean energy. Britain is the latest nation to announce support for the construction of new nuclear power plants. Nuclear plants produces about 20% of Britain's electricity, but all but one are expected to close by 2023. However, some countries hopping on the nuclear bandwagon have abysmal industrial ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Australia: Pulp mill delays hearten opponents
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23082232-2702,00.html
Australian: MORE than three months after federal approval for Gunns' $2 billion pulp mill, final building contracts, finance, construction approvals and boardroom endorsement have yet to be locked in. The delays, and the global credit squeeze, have left opponents of the Tasmanian project with a new confidence that it will not proceed. Prospective lead financier ANZ Bank, targeted by intense anti-mill lobbying, is requiring Gunns to provide further information before it decides whether to ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Renewable energy's potential
http://www.upi.com/International_Security/Energy/Analysis/2008/01/21/analys is_renewable_energys_potential/6539/
United Press International: Faced with rising energy costs and growing demand, much of U.S. industry and government are turning to renewable energy as a solution, but for many citizens it's unclear when and how well these technologies will work. Given the approximately $2 billion allotted to renewable energy research and development in the recently signed Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, taxpayers may want to know what their money is going to support. Many renewable energy technologies exist, ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Rich countries owe poor ones trillions over environmental damage: study
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jKTBKK0tWNTYm9VZpKtPRLJBujKg
Canadian Press: As rich countries push away from the table after four decades of environmental degradation, the poor ones are stuck with the bill, says new research attempting to assess the costs and causes of human economic activity. According to a paper published Monday in the U.S.-based Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, low-income nations subsidized the living standards of middle-and high-income nations by more than $3 trillion between 1961 and 2000 - almost all of that caused by ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Rich nations' environmental footprints tread heavily on poor countries
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/uoc--rne011808.php
EurekAlert: The environmental damage caused by rich nations disproportionately impacts poor nations and costs them more than their combined foreign debt, according to a first-ever global accounting of the dollar costs of countries' ecological footprints. The study, led by former University of California, Berkeley, research fellow Thara Srinivasan, assessed the impacts of agricultural intensification and expansion, deforestation, overfishing, loss of mangrove swamps and forests, ozone depletion ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
TVNZ Criticised Over Link to Rainforest Destruction in PNG
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/8-1-21/64434.html
Epoch Times: TVNZ is facing severe criticism over its decision to allow the National Bank to sponsor its news updates. The National Bank is a subsidiary of the ANZ Banking Group, which is providing financial services to one of the world's largest and most controversial logging companies, Rimbunan Hijau. This Malaysian logging company is responsible for large-scale rainforest destruction in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Greenpeace, the Green Party and the Indonesia Human Rights Committee ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
1st Japanese Rice Ethanol Plant to Start 2009
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/46539/story.htm
Reuters: Japan's first commercial plant to produce ethanol for cars from locally grown rice will reach full capacity of 1,000 kilolitres a year by March 2009, a few months behind schedule, a senior manager said on Friday. The project in Niigata, central Japan, for which the Japanese government is paying half the plant construction cost of 1.6 billion yen (US$15 million), is one of Japan's three such government-backed commercial production schemes. It is managed by the National ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
United Arab Emirates: Abu Dhabi says to invest $15 bln in green energy
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL21281714
Reuters: The Gulf Arab emirate of Abu Dhabi said on Monday it will invest $15 billion in the first phase of an initiative by the oil-exporter to develop green energy. The investment would be made as part of the Masdar initiative to develop sustainable and clean energy, Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahayan told the World Future Energy Summit in the emirate. Sheikh Mohammed did not give a time frame for the investment in Abu Dhabi, one of seven members of the ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
An Oil Giant's Green Dream
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1705616,00.html
Time Magazine: If you filled your tank with gasoline today, or warmed your home with natural gas, there's a decent chance you sent some money to Abu Dhabi. The capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is blessed with fossil fuels, including the fourth-biggest reserves of oil in the world. Selling that petroleum at record prices has helped Abu Dhabi achieve the highest per-capita GDP in the world – wealth that's visible in every luxury hotel rising from the desert or spotless Mercedes prowling the streets. ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
As carbon dioxide levels rise, staple grains could lose some nutritional value
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/01/21/0121protein. html
Austin American-Statesman: It started with a seemingly off-the-wall question in a 2004 global change biology class at Southwestern University. The discussion was about how increases in carbon dioxide, a contributing cause of global warming, lead to a decline in the amount of proteins in some plants. "How would rising CO2 levels affect the Atkins diet?" asked Holly Allen, then an undergraduate majoring in environmental studies. The Atkins diet, still en vogue then, emphasizes proteins over ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
China's energy policies 'do not tackle climate change'
http://www.scidev.net/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=readnews&itemid=4191&am p;language=1
SciDev.Net: China's economic, energy and environment policies have not been streamlined to fight climate change, according to a new study. Carmen Richerzhagen and Imme Scholz from the German Development Institute reviewed China's recent climate-relevant policies and actions in a study published last month (3 December) in World Development. They found that China has struggled hard to increase its energy efficiency but many of its policies, while contributing to climate change mitigation, ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Climate controls gaining support
Climate controls gaining support
Sacramento Bee: U.S. businesses are betting that the federal government soon will put mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions, and they're making sure they have a say in shaping a vast new regulatory system. Some of the country's biggest businesses support a cap and trade system, the approach that Congress is considering. Under cap and trade, the government gives or sells companies allowances to emit certain amounts of greenhouse gases, and companies may sell unused allowances to other ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
United Kingdom: Committee calls for biofuel moratorium
http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKL1885287820080121
Reuters: Most biofuels harm rather than help the environment and the government should call a moratorium on increasing their use, a parliamentary committee said on Monday. "Biofuels can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from road transport -- but at present most biofuels have a detrimental impact on the environment overall," Tim Yeo, chairman of the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) said. Biofuels can be substituted for fossil fuels and are seen by advocates as a way of ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Corporations Team Up to Cut Supply Chain Emissions
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/46520/story.htm
Reuters: Eleven of the world's largest companies are teaming up to see how they can work with thousands of their suppliers to curb greenhouse gas emissions, a green consultancy said on Sunday. Cadbury Schweppes, Dell, Nestle, PepsiCo, Proctor & Gamble and Tesco are amongst the companies in the scheme, called the Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration (SCLC). The venture is being coordinated by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a UK-based non-profit organisation that helps ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Economists help climate scientists to improve global warming forecasts
http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/umwelt_naturschutz/bericht-1 01554.html
Innovations Report: Climate scientists are collaborating with experts in economic theory to improve their forecasting models and assess more accurately the impact of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Although there is broad consensus that there will be a significant rise in average global temperature, there is great uncertainty over the extent of the change, and the implications for different regions. Greater accuracy is urgently needed to provide a sound basis for major policy decisions and to ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
EU carbon plans seen hurting coal plants
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKL2155945220080121
Reuters: European Commission proposals to be published on Wednesday will force power generators to pay for carbon-emissions permits and could chop profits at companies which burn coal to produce electricity, analysts said on Monday. That in turn could re-open a debate about how Europe can safeguard its future energy supplies, especially as Germany plans to phase out nuclear power. "For PPC (Public Power Corp) in Greece and Drax in Britain you could see a more than 50 percent cut in ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
EU climate change plans to cost 60 billion euros: Barroso
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iAPPqQWjK6iTAOVLv3TTRe_S7aTA
Agence France-Presse: European Union plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions could cost at least 60 billion euros (86.6 billion dollars) a year, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Monday. "Taking action is not cost free, although we think we can limit the cost of our proposals to around 0.5 percent of gross domestic product," he said, according to remarks prepared for delivery in London. Barroso's total estimate, which will apply for the next 12 years, counts on the 27 EU ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
EU to Set Easier CO2 Regime for Heavy Industries
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/46516/story.htm
Reuters: Europe's steel, aluminium and cement industries will have a special, less strict regime for greenhouse gas emissions under European Commission proposals to fight climate change to be announced this week. After weeks of intense lobbying by business and governments, EU sources said on Sunday those three energy-intensive industries would be introduced more slowly into a new system for auctioning permits to emit carbon dioxide (CO2) from 2013. The sources insisted on anonymity ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Everyone's profiting from carbon offsets. Too bad the environment isn't
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080121.RAGENDAMORGAN21_A RT_1851/TPStory/Business
Globe and Mail: A cartoon in The New York Times brilliantly captured the mentality behind the latest green trend. It showed a man kneeling at the confessional praying, "Forgive me, but I have SUV'd." The minister takes the proffered bag of money and replies, "Go thy way, thy sins are offset." You too can be forgiven of your carbon emitting sins and achieve the exalted status of being "carbon neutral" without trading in your SUV or cancelling that overseas vacation. It ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Green energy to cost up to £6bn a year
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7fb8f43c-c877-11dc-94a6-0000779fd2ac.html
Financial Times: Delivering the UK's contribution to the European Union's renewables target is expected to cost £2.25bn-£6bn a year, a government study has found. The European Commission will unveil tomorrow the details of its plan to generate 20 per cent of energy from renewable sources by 2020. As the UK lags behind most other EU member states, getting less than 2 per cent of its energy from renewable sources, it is expected to be set a lower-than-average target of about 15 per cent. José ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Greenpeace blames India for going slow on "Ban the Bulb" campaign
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News_by_Industry/Greenpeace_blames_Indi a_for_going_slow_on_Ban_the_Bulb_campaign/articleshow/2717612.cms
Economic Times: International environmental watchdog Greenpeace has blamed New Delhi for not doing enough to press the "Ban the Bulb" campaign. Holding banners and black balloons, Greenpeace activists marched through the capital on Sunday to protest the tardy progress on global warming. Greenpeace wants India to ban the use of incandescent bulbs. "We are staging this protest to remind Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh that seven months have lapsed and year has also ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Japan to propose 2000 as post-Kyoto base year: report
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gxVEKjyBTj2yZGdKKbJZopVm9Ppw
Agence France-Presse: Japan will propose setting 2000 as the reference year for future greenhouse gas emission cuts in a bid to bring more countries aboard a post-Kyoto Protocol deal, a report said Monday. The Kyoto Protocol requires major developed nations to slash emissions causing global warming by an average of five percent from 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda will propose in a speech Saturday at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland to switch the base ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Protecting Minnesota's changing northern forests
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/01/21/forests/?rsssource= 1
Minnesota Public Radio: For trees, northern Minn. is something of a cross-roads. The state's hardwood forests blend north into pine and birch, and then, in the northeast lakes area into cold climate species like aspen and jack pine. Cold tolerant trees are a signature feature of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Voyageurs National Park. That is the southern stretch of the boreal forest, which continues north into Canada. However, according to researchers with the Nature Conservancy, the northern ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Rich countries grow at ecological expense of poor countries
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0121-economics.html
Mongabay: The costs of environmental degradation caused by rich countries are disproportionately falling on the world's poorest countries, reports an analysis published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Tallying the environmental costs of climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, agricultural intensification and expansion, deforestation, overfishing, and mangrove conversion from human activities over 1961-2000, University of California Berkeley researchers ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
States combat global warming
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/environment/2008-01-20-states-emis sions_N.htm
USA Today: With proposals to cap greenhouse gas emissions stalled in Congress, more than half the states are moving aggressively to combat the pollution that causes global warming. This year, eight states are slated to release plans to slash emissions of the heat-trapping gases and at least several are likely to recommend specific reduction targets, say state officials and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Seventeen states already have such targets in place. States are deploying ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Sun Rises Slowly on China's Solar Energy Sector
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/46532/story.htm
Reuters: Solar power equipment makers will have to wait another half-decade or so before China, one of the world's fastest-growing but most polluted economies, becomes a major market for them alongside Europe. But many are already preparing. A bevy of US-listed Chinese firms such as SunTech Power and foreign players such as Applied Materials Inc are starting to expand capacity in China, ploughing billions of dollars into factories across the country to capitalise on Beijing's ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Trees Lost to Katrina May Present Climate Challenge
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17814049&ft=1& f=1007
National Public Radio: Almost everyone has heard about Hurricane Katrina's toll on the residents of New Orleans. But Gulf Coast trees also took a wallop. Hundreds of millions of trees were destroyed or badly damaged and have become an unexpectedly large contributor to global warming, according to new research. In fact, trees killed by Katrina will release about as much global warming pollution into the air as all the trees across the nation soak in over the course of one year, according to a study by Jeff ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
US warns EU against using environment for protectionism
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5grgs-sW0nQ78bD3C0Od1q1Jc70kA
Agence France-Presse: US Trade Representative Susan Schwab warned Europe on Monday against using environmental issues as an excuse for protectionism amid disputes ranging from biotechnology to greenhouse gas emissions. "We have been dismayed at a variety of suggestions where we see climate or the environment being used as an excuse to close markets," Schwab said after talks with EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson. She said it was "imperative" to "work with our colleagues ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Big Business Ponders a Low-Carbon Diet
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40868
Inter Press Service: With a tax on carbon emissions appearing to be inevitable, some of the world's largest corporations will be asking their suppliers to report on their carbon emissions as part of future reduction efforts. "Investors are demanding that companies know what their carbon emissions are and consumers want companies to be green," said Paul Dickinson, CEO of the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), an independent not-for-profit organisation in Britain that is coordinating the effort. "A ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
California flood risks are 'disaster waiting to happen
http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/umwelt_naturschutz/bericht-1 01629.html
Innovations Report: While flooding in California's Central Valley is "the next big disaster waiting to happen," water-related infrastructure issues confront almost every community across the country, according to engineers at the University of Maryland's Clark School of Engineering in separate reports to California officials and in the journal Science. An independent review panel chaired by Clark School Research Professor of Civil Engineering Gerald E. Galloway said the area between the ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Call to abandon biofuels targets
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7199073.stm
BBC: The EU should abandon its biofuels targets because they are damaging the environment, a committee of MPs says. The Environmental Audit Committee says biofuels are ineffective at cutting greenhouse gases and can be expensive. It also says problematic emissions from cars can be cut more cheaply and with lower environmental risk. The report comes in the week the EU launches a huge, over-arching climate change strategy which includes rules aimed at reducing damage from ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
Climate Laws May Be Used to Limit Exports, Group of 77 Says
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=a9HLNKV3Ne8E&re fer=australia
Bloomberg: The Group of 77 developing nations, representing about two-thirds of the world's population, said it is concerned that climate-protection laws will be used to curb their exports to rich nations. The G77, which includes China, India and 128 other nations, was ``reasonably satisfied'' with an agreement hammered out last month in United Nations climate talks on the island of Bali, Indonesia, said Munir Akram, a Pakistan ambassador and spokesman for the group. Developing nations ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
EU seeking greener energy but nuclear option fuels dissent
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iJ54A88pIN0Eo_Ye6Ov6sjahD-RA
Agence France-Presse: The European Commission will on Wednesday unveil detailed plans to slash greenhouse gases by 2020, with the focus on renewable fuels and emissions trading, despite French attempts to push the nuclear option. France has recently been joined by Britain at the forefront of the pro-nuclear lobby, extolling it as a more reliable, less polluting fuel supply which cuts down on Europe's huge dependence on Russia and the Middle East for increasingly scarce and expensive fossil ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
EU to spend parts of emission auction proceeds on climate technology - report
http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2008/01/21/afx4553331.html
Thomson Financial: The European Union plans to spend about a fifth of the proceeds from auctioning off emission rights on research into renewable energy sources and underground storage of carbon dioxide, Financial Times Deutschland reported, without saying where it got the information. Parts of the money would also be spent on preventing deforestation in developing countries, the newspaper said. The EU Commission is currently pressing member states to back the plan, the paper ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
EU's Barroso says 'ready for criticism' over climate change package
http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2008/01/21/afx4554660.html
Thomson Financial: European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said the EU executive is 'ready for criticism' from national politicians over its climate change proposals to be presented on Wednesday. Speaking in London, Barroso said he hopes member states will react positively to proposals which they agreed to in March but is 'ready for criticism from some national politicians'. As part of its package, the commission will propose an EU-wide cap on carbon dioxide emissions so that by 2020 ...

Mon, 21 Jan 08
India: High cost of solar power generation hindering growth
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/004200801211968.htm
Press Trust of India: The high cost of solar power generation in the country was the main factor hindering the growth of the sector, a top official of the ministry of new and renewable energy, said on Monday. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an international conference on solar cells, V Subramanian, Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, said the department had launched a demonstration project to support setting up a megawatt capacity grid connected solar power generation plants in the ...

Sun, 20 Jan 08
Biofuels 'do more harm than good'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jan/20/biofuels.renewableenergy
Guardian: Controversial plans to make cars greener by using fuel made from crops and animal fat will be thrown into doubt this week when MPs are expected to question whether they will do more harm than good. Biofuels have been hailed as a green alternative to oil by some, but in the US, where there are massive plants converting maize (corn), it has been criticised for making food more expensive and being environmentally unfriendly. From April, petrol and diesel sold in the UK must have ...

Sun, 20 Jan 08
Dark side of a hot biofuel
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/647848.html
Sacramento Bee: Every morning, the cage doors swing open and 34 orangutan orphans climb into the outstretched arms of their human mothers. Grabbing at wrists, tugging at elbows, these baby apes cling to the young women like Velcro, happy to be free of their cages, to play in the dappled sun of the nearby forest for a few hours. It's primate day care, a scene that seems choreographed for the Animal Planet channel. But this spectacle of one hominid helping another is more than entertainment. It ...

Sun, 20 Jan 08
Ocean floor sensors will warn of failing Gulf Stream
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jan/20/climatechange.meteorology
Observer: An armada of robot submarines and marine sensors are to be deployed across the Atlantic, from Florida to the Canary Islands, to provide early warning that the Gulf Stream might be failing, an event that would trigger cataclysmic freezing in Britain for decades. The £16m system, called Rapid Watch, will use the latest underwater monitoring techniques to check whether cold water pouring south from melting Arctic ice sheets is diverting the current's warm waters away from Britain. ...

Sun, 20 Jan 08
When it comes to keeping the ocean healthy, we can be part of the solution
http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/012008/out_20080120003.shtml
Juneau Empire: Most of us are unaware that the health of the ocean underlies all life - even a cactus can't live without the ocean. And almost everyone is unaware that this basis of life on earth is dying. Many marine biologists now call their work "documenting the decline." The ocean provides at least 70 percent of the world's oxygen. Sylvia Earle, a world-renowned oceanographer and director of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for many years, puts this figure at 85 percent. ...

Sun, 20 Jan 08
British PM visits India in trade and climate change push
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iBJ4Z71MJsUrC0FyTkzTdJpUtM7A
Agence France-Presse: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown arrived Sunday in India from China, looking for movement from New Delhi on tackling climate change while also building on strong trade and investment links. The prime minister's first visit to New Delhi since taking office last June was expected to follow the themes seen in Beijing and Shanghai, where he said Sino-British relations had risen to new levels across the board. Relations between India and the former colonial power are "at ...

Sun, 20 Jan 08
Brown tackles climate change in China
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2008/01/20/2003398039
Agence France-Presse: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's visit to China switched to environmental issues yesterday, as he sought to boost cooperation between the two nations on tackling climate change, senior Downing Street officials said. Brown, whose focus on Friday was on furthering business links with the world's fastest-growing economy, was looking to secure backing for a new global deal on fighting greenhouse gas emissions for when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. How Britain can help ...

Sun, 20 Jan 08
Global warming bear campaign is cold comfort for Inuit
http://news.scotsman.com/world/Global-warming-bear-campaign-is.3691618.jp
Scotsman: LEADERS of Canada's Arctic Inuit people have criticised US environmentalists for pushing Washington to declare the polar bear a threatened species. The move is unnecessary and would hurt the economy of the far north of the country, the residents of the remote Nunavut territory claim. The US has delayed a decision on whether global warming threatened polar bears on the grounds that it needed more time to analyse data. Three US green groups said they would sue for quicker ...

Sun, 20 Jan 08
Japan follows Europe by tapping offshore wind for power
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKT10204120080120
Reuters: Overlooking a mountain lake a few hours drive from Tokyo, dozens of tall wind turbines spin in the breeze creating carbon-free power for the world's fifth-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. A sudden change in breeze spins the turbines in a different direction, an apt symbol of Japan's efforts to shift away from fossil fuels for renewable energy such as wind power to help cut its greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. Wind farms such as the Nunobiki Plateau Wind ...

Sun, 20 Jan 08
Report warns of rise in Mediterranean
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Science/2008/01/20/report_warns_of_rise_in_med iterranean/3031/
United Press International: Both sea levels and temperatures in the Mediterranean have been rising since the 1970s, Spanish scientists report. The study, "Climate Change in the Spanish Mediterranean," warned that the pace of change has picked up in the past decade, the BBC reported. Researchers at the Spanish Oceanographic Institute predict the Mediterranean could rise half a meter (19.5 inches) in the next half-century. The report said rising sea levels could cause major problems in low-lying ...

Sun, 20 Jan 08
To work, carbon tax must sting
http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/Environment/article/295677
Toronto Star: Most Canadians tell pollsters they're concerned about climate change. Many insist they'd like to do something about it, and would even pay for measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But propose actual cash amounts – 25 cents a litre on gasoline, perhaps, or a $10 daily commuter toll – and support evaporates. "Once you put a price on it, people tend to think twice about it and say, `Maybe not,'" says Mario Canseco of Angus Reid Strategies, which surveyed about ...

Sun, 20 Jan 08
United Kingdom: Why green power has left us all in the dark
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jan/20/renewableenergy.carbonemi ssions
Observer: Once we were offered an easy way to help save the planet: ask an electricity provider to supply you with power from renewable sources and you would reduce carbon emissions and so tackle climate change. But doing the right thing has turned out to be more complicated. There are growing concerns that 'green tariffs' reduce carbon emissions by far less than promised - a point accepted even by government. Supporters still argue they are worthwhile because they boost demand for renewable ...

Sun, 20 Jan 08
Brown hails environmental work with China
http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKPEK32893920080120
Reuters: Prime Minister Gordon Brown hailed a new era of environmental cooperation between Britain and China on Saturday and called for a renewed drive for a world trade deal. Brown visited a highly efficient gas-fired power station in Beijing and studied the plans for an environmentally friendly town to be built near Shanghai to underline his keenness to cooperate with China on fighting global warming. "We now enter this new era of environmental cooperation," Brown told a ...

Sun, 20 Jan 08
EU to set Finland 38 pct renewables goal-report
http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7239865
Reuters: The European Commission will ask Finland to increase its renewable energy output by around a third to 38 percent in draft proposals to be unveiled next week, Finnish public broadcaster YLE said on Saturday. The Commission is due to spell out on Wednesday how it intends to cut greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change, share out the burden of cuts in carbon dioxide (CO2) and increase the use of renewable energy sources. "According to information obtained by ...

Sun, 20 Jan 08
German farmers cultivate ways to fight global warming
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gU1rS1sJ2SgDLIbwGmhYRkNJ7raw
Agence France-Presse: German farmers attending a week-long agricultural fair -- dubbed Green Week -- are divided on their level of responsibility for the environment and the best methods to fight global warming. The image of a farmer in harmony with nature has long prevented a hard look at the sector's contribution to climate change, notably when farming is compared with much more visibly polluting activities such as the chemical and steel industries and their iconic smokestacks. Farmers are also ...

Sun, 20 Jan 08
Canada: Planned carbon tax endangers BC's fragile economy
http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/editorial/story.html?id=cade30f5-80f 2-4076-9e8b-c1654df274ed
Province: It should by now be clear to everyone that, despite the rosy projections of some politicians, B.C.'s economy faces a rough ride this year, due mainly to troubles south of the border. The spillover into Canada of the U.S. subprime mortgage debacle poses a real and present danger to our standard of living. It has battered the assets of some of our major financial institutions. And it is savaging the bottom line of key export industries. It is all very well for Carole ...

Sun, 20 Jan 08
Rising temperatures in California attributed to human activities
http://www.dailyindia.com/show/209215.php/Rising-temperatures-in-California -attributed-to-human-activities
ANI: A new research by scientists has shown that the temperatures in the state of California in US have risen by more than 2.1 degrees Fahrenheit between 1915 and 2000, largely because of human activities. The research, which was conducted at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the University of California, Merced and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, used data from up to eight different observational records to come up with the findings. According to the ...

Sat, 19 Jan 08
An Oil Quandary: Costly Fuel Means Costly Calories
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=91632
New York Times: Rising prices for cooking oil are forcing residents of Asia's largest slum, in Mumbai, India, to ration every drop. Bakeries in the United States are fretting over higher shortening costs. And here in Malaysia, brand-new factories built to convert vegetable oil into diesel sit idle, their owners unable to afford the raw material. This is the other oil shock. From India to Indiana, shortages and soaring prices for palm oil, soybean oil and many other types of vegetable oils are the ...

Sat, 19 Jan 08
Arctic ice may vanish due to warming
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Arctic_ice_may_vanish_due_to_warming/art icleshow/2714083.cms
Times of India: A new study using satellite measurements has revealed that thick Arctic sea ice older than nine years, had all but disappeared by 2007, because of global warming. According to a report in Discovery News , this older ice is giving way to thinner ice which is only two or three years old. In fact, the new ice now accounts for 58 percent of the ice cover - up from 35 percent in the mid-1980s. "The thinning is consistent with long-term warming," said ice researcher James ...

Sat, 19 Jan 08
China takes climate change seriously, says British PM
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/calgarybusiness/story.html?id=0950 68a7-1b54-459e-8151-16f13a423d77
Calgary Herald: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said after meeting his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao that the Chinese premier wants to take action on climate change. Brown, who travelled to Shanghai on Friday after meeting Wen in Beijing, pointed to the damage to China from global warming. The Chinese government recently warned that melting Himalayan glaciers could lead to food and water shortages. "He takes seriously the problem of climate change," Brown told the British ...

Sat, 19 Jan 08
Details of Norway's national climate policy agreement
http://www.norwaypost.no/cgi-bin/norwaypost/imaker?id=126468
Norway Post: He says the agreement on climate policy is a sign of Norway's willingness to move forward the target year for becoming carbon-neutral from 2050 to 2030. By doing so, Norway is showing that it is willing to lead the way by setting itself ambitious climate targets. Here are some of the details of the agreement: The parties believe that it is realistic to assume that Norway's annual greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced by 15–17 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents by 2020 when ...

Sat, 19 Jan 08
EU demands action from Germany on climate goals
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKL193227820080119
Reuters: Germany must take concrete steps to tackle global warming instead of protesting when it comes to implementing planned measures, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was quoted as saying on Saturday. In an interview with German magazine WirtschaftsWoche, Barroso hit back against German protests about the Commission's proposals to cut emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). "We agreed on climate policy goals in the EU -- under the German presidency by the way," ...

Sat, 19 Jan 08
From Detroit, a Biofuel Breakout
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/17/AR200801170 2306.html
Washington Post: There were snickers aplenty here last week when General Motors joined hands with an Illinois company to announce a major biofuels initiative. Cynics in the audience at the 2008 North American International Auto Show joked that the union between giant GM and relatively small Coskata has about as much chance of succeeding as a Hollywood marriage. Others found smug comfort in the theory that the whole GM-Coskata affair was little more than a green publicity stunt. Admittedly, on ...

Sat, 19 Jan 08
India: Green plan with solar energy
http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEQ20080118224936&Page=Q&am p;Title=ORISSA&Topic=0
Express News Service: The ambitious Local Renewables Model Communities Network Project undertaken by BMC to reduce conventional energy consumption by tapping solar energy in the city has been extended by another two years. The programme, being implemented with the active support of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), would see several energy efficient measures like exploitation of solar energy in illuminating streets, parks, running campuses, buildings and traffic ...

Sat, 19 Jan 08
India to stand up to Brown on climate change
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hgfE0llwrvKYvOJonWeQiBMEPp1Q
Agence France-Presse: India will put aside differences with Britain over cutting carbon emissions to pursue closer ties in trade, education and counter-terrorism during a state visit by Prime Minister Gordon Brown starting Sunday, officials said. Brown arrives in New Delhi from China for a two-day visit -- his first official trip to the region since moving into Downing Street last year. Indian foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said the British premier's talks with Indian leaders would cover ...

Fri, 18 Jan 08
Climate change forces car manufacturing rethink
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/18/2141215.htm
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: The head of car giant General Motors has publicly warned the switch to biofuels such as ethanol and electric cars is now inevitable and with oil prices at record highs, motorists may soon become familiar with the phrase "peak oil". It is the theory that more than half the planet's oil reserves have now been used and demand will inevitably outstrip supply, driving prices ever higher. While some experts reject the theory, arguing the planet still holds enormous ...

Fri, 18 Jan 08
Misery for millions as temperatures plummet across the Middle East
http://news.scotsman.com/world/Misery-for-millions-as-temperatures.3686898. jp
Scotsman: THE Middle East is shivering amid exceptionally low temperatures that have left at least ten people dead in Saudi Arabia alone and killed countless livestock and damaged crops across a region usually associated with sun-baked deserts. Some have had cause to cheer. Children in several countries have been enjoying days of fun after icy temperatures forced the closure of schools. And snow has fallen in Baghdad for the first time in living memory. But the severe cold snap, caused ...

Fri, 18 Jan 08
United States: Decide on polar bears first, then oil: lawmaker
http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/29533
Reuters: The U.S. government must decide first if polar bears are threatened by climate change before it opens part of their icy habitat to oil drilling, the head of a congressional environment panel said on Thursday. The decision whether to list the big Arctic bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act was supposed to happen last week but was postponed for up to 30 days. That means it could come after the government offers 29.4 million acres in the Chukchi Sea off the Alaskan ...

Fri, 18 Jan 08
Brazil: Destruction of rainforest accelerates despite outcry
http://environment.independent.co.uk/green_living/article3348001.ece
Independent: The destruction of the Amazon rainforest has surged in the past four months, raising the prospect of 2008 being a disastrous year for the world's most important eco-system, a senior Brazilian government scientist has warned. Dr Carlos Nobre, a scientist with a government agency that monitors the Amazon said thousands of square miles of rainforest had been destroyed since October, after four years in which deforestation rates had begun to slow. "I think the past four months ...

Fri, 18 Jan 08
EU pollution plan threatens million jobs
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Pollution/EU_pollution_plan_threatens_mi llion_jobs/articleshow/2711336.cms
Agence France-Presse: German industrialists estimate that one million jobs are threatened in Germany by European Union plans to fight global warming, a sector leader said on Friday in an interview. "If the German government enacts its 2020 goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 40 per cent, I estimate that one million jobs are threatened," Federation of German Industries (BDI) president Juergen Thumann told the daily Rheinische Post. "Sectors such as chemicals and steel in ...

Fri, 18 Jan 08
Global carbon trade rose 80 percent last year: group
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKN1832831820080118
Reuters: Trade in the world greenhouse gas emissions market rose 80 percent last year as climate change became a greater concern for more companies, a carbon analysis said on Friday. Global carbon credit trade rose to $60 billion in 2007, from $33 billion the previous year, according to Point Carbon. Total traded volume in the global market reached 2.7 billion tonnes of greenhouse emissions reductions in 2007, a 64 percent jump in the same period. The UN's climate panel last year ...

Fri, 18 Jan 08
Targets no panacea for climate change: Japan advisor
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUST4013320080118
Reuters: Setting targets for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions is not the only solution to global warming nor a gauge of a country's commitment in fighting it, an advisor to Japan's government said, dismissing criticism that Tokyo's leadership on the issue was too weak. Japanese media have reported that Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda will present a goal for Japan to reduce carbon emissions beyond the 2012 expiry of the Kyoto Protocol at a meeting of political and business leaders in Davos, ...

Fri, 18 Jan 08
Texas is world's seventh biggest polluter
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/01/18/eatexas11 8.xml
Telegraph: A love affair with vast, gas-guzzling 4x4 vehicles and contempt for environmental activism has helped Texas become the world's seventh biggest polluter. The challenge facing the green lobby in America is illustrated by the latest figures for the Lone Star state from the US Energy Information Administration. In 2003, Texas pumped 670 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere - more than countries including Britain and more than that of California and ...

Fri, 18 Jan 08
The global grain bubble
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20080118/cm_csm/efood
Christian Science Monitor: Record prices for grain from corn to rice have ignited food riots from Jakarta to Rome. In Pakistan, troops now guard wheat stocks. China and Russia have imposed price controls. Connect the dots and there's a need for a fix to a crisis that, strangely, isn't caused by smaller harvests. No, the main reasons for a long-term bubble in grain prices lie largely in a number of dubious human actions, related to heightened competition for grain as either fuel or feed. One reason is an ...

Fri, 18 Jan 08
The politics of coal
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-coalside18jan18,1,4689 013.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
LA Times: Washington politics has played a key role in both the nation's rush toward coal-fired energy and the current pullbacks and delays. During his 2000 run for the White House, George W. Bush promised to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant, curbing emissions that contribute to climate change. But he reversed course shortly after taking office in 2001, saying that Vice President Dick Cheney's energy policy task force had advised against it. Bush campaign strategist and ...

Fri, 18 Jan 08
Carbon Capture Remains Elusive
http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/carbon_capture_remains_elusive/C69/L37 /
New West: The U.S. Department of Energy will fund a 10-year, $38 million project to study the long-term storage of carbon dioxide in deep geologic formations on the Gulf Coast. For the next 18 months, the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas will pump about a million tons a year of CO2 into brine formations up to 10,000 feet below ground, near the Cranfield oil field about 15 miles east of Natchez, Miss. Part of DOE's 10-year Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership Program, ...

Fri, 18 Jan 08
EU urged to watch biofuel costs
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/CF270C78-D3AE-4873-A8CE-EDE953CA3BAE .htm
Agence France-Presse: An internal European commission study has criticised a European Union (EU) plan to boost the use of biofuels in transport, concluding that their costs outweigh the benefits. A commission spokesman downplayed the study and insisted that the use of biofuels remained at the centre of its strategy to cut greenhouse gas emissions in Europe. The unpublished working paper was written by the joint research centre, the commission's in-house scientific body. It comes ahead of a ...

Fri, 18 Jan 08
United States: Protect polar bears, not oil corporations
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_8006777?nclick_check=1
San Jose Mercury News: The polar bear has become an icon of global warming, often pictured amid sheets of melting Arctic ice. Now Ursus maritimus has become a flash point, not just a symbol, in the climate change debate. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed a year ago to list the polar bear as a threatened species because its habitat is rapidly melting away. But on the eve of a final decision, the agency on Jan. 7 postponed it by up to a month. Conveniently for the oil-centric Bush ...

Fri, 18 Jan 08
Sun rises slowly on China's solar energy sector
http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7236380
Reuters: Solar power equipment makers will have to wait another half-decade or so before China, one of the world's fastest-growing but most polluted economies, becomes a major market for them alongside Europe. But many are already preparing. A bevy of U.S.-listed Chinese firms such as SunTech Power and foreign players such as Applied Materials Inc are starting to expand capacity in China, ploughing billions of dollars into factories across the country to capitalise on Beijing's ...

Fri, 18 Jan 08
Tourism at the End of the World
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40837
Inter Press Service: Hurry! Hurry! See the polar bears, penguins, Arctic glaciers, small pacific islands before they disappear forever due to global warming. Tourism companies are now using climate change as a marketing tool: Visit the pacific island paradise of Tuvalu before rising sea levels swallow it in the next 30 to 50 years. See the Arctic while there is still ice and polar bears. "Some companies are using climate change as a marketing pitch, a 'see it now before it's gone' kind of ...

Fri, 18 Jan 08
U.S. key factor in new climate deal - Danish minister
http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7236826
Reuters: Whether the long road from last year's Bali climate summit to the 2009 Copenhagen gathering ends with a binding deal to replace Kyoto depends crucially on the United States, according to the Danish climate minister. "I think that the United States, and getting the United States to move, is the key to also get China and India moving," Danish Minister for Climate and Energy Connie Hedegaard told Reuters in an interview this week. The UN climate summit in Bali late last ...

Fri, 18 Jan 08
UK set for 15% renewables target
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7195420.stm
BBC: The European Union is expected to tell the UK that 15% of energy needs must be met from renewable sources by 2020. The figure, currently about 2%, will include all energy used for heating and cooling buildings. Experts have called the target challenging because they say heating and cooling are hard to achieve on a mass scale using renewable fuels. The EU, which is trying to create a low-carbon economy in Europe, will announce its decision next week. Tough but ...

Fri, 18 Jan 08
Zealous nuclear France may be vulnerable at home
http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7236433
Reuters: France hopes its prized nuclear industry will be the model for the worldwide renaissance of atomic power, but its reliance on one energy source could leave it vulnerable at home. President Nicolas Sarkozy has placed the French nuclear industry at the heart of his foreign policy. "I am convinced that we need to help those countries on the road to development ... If they have the wisdom to chose French technology it's even better," Sarkozy has said. Chief ...

Fri, 18 Jan 08
Canada: Alberta premier says oilsands cleaning up its carbon record
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=3796d4c0-9334-4ec7 -8b94-3b7117f6a498&k=76176
Canwest News Service: Alberta Premier Stelmach predicted Thursday that the oilsands will be clean enough for any green-fuel standards that California, Washington or other U.S. governments impose. As U.S. activists and even policy-makers grow increasingly wary of the Alberta resource's massive environmental footprint, the premier continued to insist Thursday that critics are seriously misinformed. A day earlier, he expressed fear that California's low-carbon fuel standard will "penalize" ...

Fri, 18 Jan 08
United States: Demanding greenhouse curbs
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.warming18jan18,0,2180007.stor y?coll=bal_tab01_layout
Baltimore Sun: Snow fell on a global warming protest outside the State House yesterday, but it did not dampen the shouts of about 400 activists who urged lawmakers to pass the nation's toughest law to control greenhouse gases. As supporters waved signs, chanted and banged drums, 18 legislators walked down a symbolic green carpet to sign up as co-sponsors of a bill that would require all businesses and institutions in Maryland to cut emissions of global warming pollution by 90 percent by ...

Fri, 18 Jan 08
EU climate policy 'too negative'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7194250.stm
BBC: Green groups have accused the European Union of planning for failure in global climate change negotiations. Europe's leaders promised last year to cut greenhouse gases by 20% by the end of the next decade, or by 30% if other big polluters made similar efforts. But a draft document seen by BBC News shows that the European Commission is asking member states to just plan for the lower figure for the time being. Campaigners say the lower target could harm the EU's ...

Fri, 18 Jan 08
Forests, carbon capture keys to climate-Norway PM
http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL18833483.html
Reuters: Protecting forests and burying greenhouse gases are key ways of slowing world climate change, Norway's prime minister said on Friday a day after the Nordic nation set a stiff 2030 goal of becoming "carbon neutral". Jens Stoltenberg, in South Africa on a stopover before a weekend trip to Antarctica, said about half the world's emissions of greenhouse gases came from deforestation and from burning fossil fuels in power plants and industries. "Forestry and carbon ...

Thu, 17 Jan 08
Australia: Coral destruction by starfish spreads
http://www.theage.com.au/news/climate-watch/coral-destruction-by-starfish-s preads/2008/01/16/1200419885338.html
Age: A CORAL killer that has wreaked havoc along the Great Barrier Reef is threatening part of the "coral triangle" – the world's richest centre of coral reef biodiversity. Marine surveys in Halmahera, Indonesia, last month revealed the crown of thorns starfish has almost completely destroyed some of the region's stunning reefs. The predatory starfish feeds on corals by spreading its stomach over them and secreting an enzyme that breaks down the coral tissue. About ...

Thu, 17 Jan 08
Global food shortages 'avoidable' say experts
http://news.sbs.com.au/worldnewsaustralia/global_food_shortages_39avoidable 39_say_experts_538274
Special Broadcasting Service: The world's population now eats more food than it produces, leading to fears of global shortages which could prompt famines and even war. But experts say that given the right research and technology, the damaging effects of a lack of food could be lessened, and even avoided altogether. Australians have already seen the drought push up the prices of meat, dairy products, fruit and vegetables – and those price rises could be about to get much worse. "This brings ...

Thu, 17 Jan 08
Green-tech investment topped $5 billion in 2007
http://www.reuters.com/article/fundsFundsNews/idUSN168041920080117
Reuters: Investments in environmentally friendly "clean-tech" companies rose 44 percent to more than $5 billion last year as soaring oil prices, climate change concerns and government incentives boosted interest in renewable energy, an industry group said. The Cleantech Group LLC, whose members include venture capital firms, investment banks, and other investors, on Thursday said 2007 venture investment in the alternative energy market in North America and Europe was $5.18 billion, ...

Thu, 17 Jan 08
Scientist says Amazon deforestation surging again
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKN169836020080117
Reuters: Deforestation of the Amazon has surged in recent months and is likely to rise in 2008 for the first time in four years, a senior Brazilian government scientist said on Wednesday. The rise raises questions over Brazil's assertion that its environmental policies are effectively protecting the world's biggest rain forest, whose destruction is a major source of carbon emissions that drive global warming. "I think the last four months is a big concern for the government and now ...

Thu, 17 Jan 08
Solar Industry Faces More Supply, Falling Prices
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/46472/story.htm
Reuters: The booming solar power sector is about to get squeezed by the age-old laws of supply and demand. Solar energy companies are scrambling to ramp up production amid skyrocketing interest in renewable energy, but the pendulum is swinging quickly toward oversupply. That places a few players in the sector, including Yingli Green Energy Holding Co Ltd, First Solar Inc, as well as Q-Cells and SolarWorld AG, in the best position to benefit from the changing dynamics, analysts said. ...

Thu, 17 Jan 08
New research raises concern on biofuel safety
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0117/p04s01-wogi.html
Christian Science Monitor: Creating fuel from plants seems like a win-win proposition. It reduces dependence on foreign oil, and it doesn't produce the greenhouse gases that cause global warming – at least that's what advocates claim. But biofuels are not without their critics. Some recent research suggests bio fuels could have a greater environmental impact – biodiversity loss, destruction of farmland, and the energy necessary to produce them, for example – than burning fossil fuels, reports The Guardian, a ...

Thu, 17 Jan 08
Norway says aims to go carbon neutral by 2030
http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7233176
Reuters: The Norwegian government has reached an agreement with three opposition parties to bring forward a goal for Norway to go "carbon neutral" to 2030 from an earlier target of 2050, officials said on Thursday. The Labour-led government said last year that Norway would aim to cut net emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) to nil by 2050 by reducing emissions at home and investing abroad in environmental projects that will give Norway CO2 credits. The parties agreed to set the ...

Thu, 17 Jan 08
Canada: Oilsands boycott bad for U.S., premier warns
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=dea9494d-660d-439a -95e9-a6c041de63ee
Edmonton Journal: U.S. politicians will hurt their country's hopes of escaping addiction to oil from politically unstable regions if they move against Alberta's oilsands and their environmental impact, Premier Ed Stelmach warned a Washington, D.C., audience on Wednesday. If Americans don't want the lucrative but hard-to-produce resource and try to limit development, countries such as China and India will happily take it, he cautioned in his first foreign speech as premier. It was a message he ...

Thu, 17 Jan 08
Yangtze hit by drought in China
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7193252.stm
BBC: China is facing its worst drought in a decade, with water in parts of the Yangtze River at the lowest level in 142 years, state media has reported. Millions of people were short of water, and dozens of ships had run aground in the river since October, reports said. Officials said low water levels in the Yangtze were not linked to construction of the massive Three Gorges Dam. China faces droughts and floods annually but has seen a recent increase in extreme weather ...

Thu, 17 Jan 08
2007 was tied as Earth's second warmest year
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/008200801171543.htm
Hindu: Climatologists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City have found that 2007 tied with 1998 for Earth's second warmest year in a century. Goddard Institute researchers used temperature data from weather stations on land, satellite measurements of sea ice temperature since 1982 and data from ships for earlier years. The greatest warming in 2007