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Top 20 polluters gather in Mexico (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:19
| BBC: Ministers from the world's top 20 polluting nations are gathering in Mexico for talks on climate change. The delegates will discuss possible ways to meet future energy demand while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Former World Bank chief economist Sir Nicholas Stern is also expected to present findings from his review into the economic impacts of climate change. The meeting in Monterrey is the latest round of talks on the G8 Gleneagles Summit's climate action plan. ... |
Australia to lose ANU solar breakthrough (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:19
| Canberra Times: Australia is set to lose a revolutionary solar technology developed by researchers at the Australian National University to overseas commercial investors. The world-first solar sliver cells technology has won five major national science awards in the past two years and is tipped to make solar energy cost-competitive with coal within less than a decade. Origin Energy has confirmed commercial manufacture of ANU's solar sliver cell technology is poised to go offshore, possibly to ... |
Canada Emissions Trading Plan Awaits Ottawa Policy (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:19
| Reuters: The Montreal Exchange could start its planned emissions trading by year-end if the federal government soon brings in the required environmental framework, President and Chief Executive Luc Bertrand said. The exchange runs Canada's market for equity, currency and interest-rate derivatives and has said it intends to launch trading in a carbon dioxide emissions contract. Its joint-venture partner, the Chicago Climate Exchange, operates a voluntary US emissions trading market. ... |
United Kingdom: Cheap flights vote is blow to green plans (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:19
| Guardian: Conservative activists yesterday snubbed ambitious green tax plans put forward by David Cameron's advisers, by voting in favour of budget flights despite their environmental impact. John Gummer, the former environment secretary and head of the party's quality of life policy taskforce, said carbon taxes would undoubtedly be imposed. Zac Goldsmith, the environmentalist and fellow taskforce member, urged the Tories to shift taxes "away from good things like labour to bad things like ... |
Global Warming on the Forest Floor (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:19
| New York Times: Along with rising temperatures, global warming is very likely to cause a shift toward more extreme weather – stronger storms with more rainfall, and longer and more severe droughts. Those changes are likely to have large-scale, obvious effects on farmlands, grasslands and forests and on the creatures that inhabit them. But many smaller, more subtle effects are likely too. Researchers at the University of Kentucky looked at one: the impact of climate change on the decomposition of leaf ... |
Record Ozone Loss Over Antarctic this Year - ESA (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:19
| Reuters: A satellite has detected record losses of ozone over Antarctica this year, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Monday, further damaging the shield that protects the Earth from cancer-causing ultraviolet rays. In the past decade, the level of ozone in the Earth's atmosphere has fallen by about 0.3 percent, increasing the risk of skin cancer, cataracts and harm to marine life, ESA added. The presence of a hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic was first recognised in ... |
United Kingdom: Tories plan green levies to allow income tax cuts (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:19
| Independent (UK): The Tories plan to offer cuts in income tax at the next general election financed by higher taxation on behaviour that damages the environment. Although David Cameron is refusing to bow to growing pressure from Tory right-wingers to make an immediate promise of tax cuts, the leadership intends to include such a pledge in the party manifesto. An announcement may not be made until much closer to the election. Until then, the Tory leadership will stick to its policy that a tax ... |
EU Energy Saving Plan Delayed, Finland Concerned (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:20
| Reuters: An action plan laying out ways for the European Union to cut its energy use has been put on hold by the European Commission, drawing fire from environmentalists and from Finland, holder of the EU presidency. The efficiency plan targets ways for the 25-nation bloc to cut its energy use by 20 percent by 2020 -- a target the Commission says is key to the bloc's energy strategy at a time when demand for gas, oil and electricity is growing worldwide. The Commission had said it ... |
Irish Govt Unveils Plans to Transform Energy Sector (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:20
| Reuters: The Irish government published the country's first green paper on energy in nearly 30 years on Sunday, outlining ambitious plans to cut reliance on imported fuels and boost supply from renewable sources. The paper -- "Towards a Sustainable Energy Future for Ireland" -- calls for 30 percent of all electricity consumed in the country to come from renewable sources by 2020. "This is an ambitious goal but one I believe we can reach," Natural Resources Minister ... |
Red alert as climate change takes its toll on Scotland (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:20
| Scotsman: Key quote "Climate change is leading to changes in temperature, rainfall patterns, snow cover, wind and storm events, flooding and coastal erosion. All of these could have significant impact on Scotland's environment, economy and people." - Scottish Environmental Protection Agency report SCOTLAND was put on red alert over climate change yesterday, with experts saying it was already responsible for placing endangered species at greater risk, for rising sea levels, major ... |
Sunny Italy to Expand its Solar Power Programme (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:20
| Reuters: Italy aims to expand its photovoltaic energy programme greatly this year, officials say, in a revamp welcomed by the industry to boost the laggard solar power sector. Sun-washed Italy could set a new goal of 1,500 megawatts of photovoltaic energy by 2012, or triple the current target, officials said. It also could end subsidy limits after a year's worth were used up in 2006's first quarter alone. Reforms are needed to streamline a system plagued by bureaucratic headaches, ... |
United Kingdom: Trampling our environment (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:20
| Herald (UK): Humankind has a catchphrase to measure the impact of its activity on the environment: the ecological footprint. The bigger it is, the greater the damage caused will be, and the more imperilled life on earth will become. According to Dr Campbell Gemmell, chief executive of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), Scotland's ecological footprint is three times greater than is sustainable. Tackity-bootprint might be a more appropriate phrase in the circumstances. According to ... |
US Ethanol Industry Confident of Bush Support (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:20
| Reuters: Ethanol producers expect the Bush administration to push for more research money to make biofuels cheaper and more widely available to drivers, the industry's main trade group said on Friday. At a political event in Alabama on Thursday, President Bush devoted a portion of his remarks to promote ethanol, especially so-called cellulosic ethanol, which is made from less expensive switchgrass, wood chips and other agricultural waste. Most US ethanol is now made from corn. ... |
Climate report seen setting out scary scenarios (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:20
| Reuters: Climate campaigners said on Tuesday they expected a British government report on the global costs of climate change to make it clear that major concerted action was needed now. The full report, an outline of which will be presented by former World Bank chief economist Nick Stern to a closed-door meeting of G8 environment ministers in Mexico later on Tuesday, is expected to be published later this month. "The central message is that the problem is urgent, we have the ... |
Ozone Loss Reaches New Record (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:20
| Environment News Service: The loss of ozone over Antarctica reached a new record in 2006, scientists with the European Space Agency (ESA) announced Monday. The loss was caused by unusually low temperatures above Antarctica, the researchers said, and helped push the hole in the ozone layer to a near record size. "Such significant ozone loss requires very low temperatures in the stratosphere combined with sunlight," said ESA atmospheric engineer Claus Zehner. "This year's extreme loss of ozone ... |
Senators Request Inquiry Into White House Global Warming Activities (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:20
| Environment News Service: A group of 14 senators has called for an investigation of allegations the Bush administration has repeatedly interfered with federal scientists who have tried to publish research or speak to the media about the reality and impacts of global warming. The senators sent letters Friday to the inspector generals of NASA and the U.S. Commerce Department, which oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), requesting formal investigations into the claims. "These ... |
Alaskan storm cracks iceberg in Antarctica: study (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:20
| Reuters: A bad storm in Alaska last October generated an ocean swell that broke apart a giant iceberg near Antarctica six days later, U.S. researchers reported on Monday. The waves traveled 8,300 miles to destroy the iceberg, said Douglas MacAyeal of the University of Chicago and Emile Okal at Northwestern University. Writing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, they said their study shows how weather in one region can affect events far away. "One of the things we're ... |
United States: Group pushing towns to adopt global warming initiatives (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:20
| Associated Press: A bipartisan coalition of environmental groups and individuals hopes to get communities around the state to support national efforts to halt global warming, with an eye toward making climate change an issue in the 2008 presidential primaries for both parties. The Carbon Coalition: New Hampshire Citizens for a Responsible Energy Policy hopes to get its non-binding resolution on next spring's Town Meeting agendas and municipal ballots. "We wanted to work with the issue of ... |
Is Coal Golden? (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:21
| Time Magazine: Mike McCall knew at age 14 he wanted to work in the mines. Chalk it up to a fascination with those "big Tonka toys" used to haul away coal, he says. He wasn't afraid to be underground, either. One of his first engineering jobs was in Peabody's famous Mine No. 10, a massive seam running beneath Illinois. Today, old enough to have a teenage son of his own, he still mines coal, but for a different boss. He is spearheading the largest expansion of coal-fired electric plants in Texas ... |
Polar Winds Depleting Ozone, Affecting Climate Change, Study Says (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:21
| National Geographic: Winter winds circling high above the North Pole drew down near-record amounts of ozone-destroying gases from the upper atmosphere last year, according to a new study. The destruction of this ozone, which heats the upper atmosphere, could have profound impacts on global climate. What's more, some climate models suggest that global warming will increase the average strength of polar winds. Scientists had long believed that highly reactive nitrogen-oxygen gases, ... |
Texas tilts $10B toward wind power (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:21
| Reuters: Texas Gov. Rick Perry unveiled a partnership with the private sector Monday that will invest more than $10 billion in new wind power, deepening the oil-producing state's commitment to diversifying its energy. Private companies have agreed to invest the required capital, while the state's Public Utility Commission "directs" the building of extra transmission lines, the Republican governor said in a statement. Every 1,000 megawatts of wind power will help Texas, which ... |
Texas to ensure power lines for wind developers (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:21
| Associated Press: Gov. Rick Perry said Monday he has received a $10 billion investment guarantee from wind energy developers in exchange for the state's assurance that the necessary power transmission lines will be built. Should the development come to fruition, the state would gain about 10,000 megawatts of power supplied by wind, enough to light up about 2.3 million homes. "Private companies are putting up their money instead of taxpayers putting up their money," Perry said while ... |
Alaskan storm cracks iceberg in Antarctica (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:21
| Alaska Report: Scientists say a severe storm in the Gulf of Alaska in October 2005 generated an ocean swell that six days later broke apart a giant iceberg. The team of scientists, led by Professors Douglas MacAyeal of the University of Chicago and Emile Okal at Northwestern University, said the swell was so powerful it destroyed the iceberg near the coast of Antarctica, more than 8,300 miles away. "We are reporting on a unique kind of seismological signal picked up by seismometers we ... |
United Kingdom: Co-op in 'carbon neutral' scheme (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:21
| BBC: Co-op travel firm Travelcare is the first high street firm offering customers the chance to counter the environmental impact of their flights. Customers will be able to invest in overseas schemes, run by Climate Care, aimed at reducing carbon emissions. Such "offset" schemes, whereby the amount invested can vary to reflect the the flight's emission levels, have only been available on the internet. Aviation is the fastest growing source of carbon dioxide. ... |
Sepa climate fears for Scotland (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 12:00:21
| BBC Scotland: Scotland is facing "potentially devastating" consequences from climate change, experts have warned. A report on Scotland's environment predicts a warmer and wetter climate with more flooding and coastal erosion. The review by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) has been published at the start of a conference in Edinburgh. It says current emission rates mean there is "great risk" of reaching a point of irreversible change. The ... |
United States: A lighter energy load (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 06:00:24
| Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: At a time when Wisconsin's home electricity prices rank 15th in the nation, residents can head to the local hardware store to help them save more than $60 a year on their energy bills. Starting this week, Wisconsin's Focus on Energy program is pushing energy-efficient fluorescent light bulbs at a cut-rate price. The quest to encourage sales of the energy-efficient bulbs is joined this year by a new player: the nation's largest retailer. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. recently ... |
Chances of avoiding El Nino nil, climate centre says (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 06:00:24
| Australian Broadcasting Corporation: The National Climate Centre (NCC) has confirmed the chances of Australia avoiding the grip of an El Nino weather pattern this spring are virtually nil. The prospect of hotter and drier conditions, particularly in south-eastern Australia, is dire news for farmers. Near record temperatures have gripped much of Australia during September, and the south-east corner has recorded the most significant changes. But at this stage climatologists say this El Nino is not looking as ... |
Cutting edge: Global warming - Bush's climate of fear (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 06:00:24
| West Australian: "As a small part of the earth slips away into oblivion, the Bush administration stands accused of trying to silence nature's most compelling warning... and of misleading the people." Hilary Andersson, reporter – Global Warming – Bush's Climate of Fear Has the Bush administration covered up scientists' findings that humans contribute significantly to global warming? Screening on SBS Television on Tuesday, 3 October at 8.30pm in the Cutting Edge timeslot, Global Warming – Bush's ... |
Japan: Environment Ministry to get tough over carbon dioxide emissions (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 06:00:24
| Mainichi Daily News: The Environment Ministry has decided to tell major power companies to abide by voluntary goals for the curbing of carbon dioxide emissions, officials said. Under the Kyoto protocol, Japan is required to cut carbon dioxide and other gas emissions by 6 percent between 2008 and 2012 from those of 1990 in the fight against global warming. An industry body formed by 10 top electric power companies in Japan has also set voluntary goals. Under these goals, the companies will try to ... |
Canada: Get back to Kyoto, PM urged (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 06:00:24
| Toronto Star: Canada should recommit itself to the Kyoto Protocol to protect people in developing countries from drought, storms, flooding and other devastating impacts of climate change, major humanitarian groups say. The Conservative government has walked away from the international treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the groups state in a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. "By delaying immediate action on climate change, the federal government is putting at risk the lives ... |
Making a lean-green tax shift (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 06:00:24
| Philadelphia Inquirer: Robert Walker is president of Get America Working, an employment-policy group (www.getamericaworking.org) in Virginia Al Gore gave a speech at New York University recently in which he proposed lowering the payroll tax and substituting a "carbon tax" to make up the lost revenue. Conservatives and progressives, tax-cut hawks and Inconvenient Truth tellers alike should pay attention. Viewed from the right or left, the "carbon tax" is an idea whose time has ... |
Heat on top polluters to reduce global costs of climate change (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 03:00:15
| Reuters: The world's top 20 polluting nations are under new pressure to attack the global costs of climate change. Delegates from the G8 group of nations meeting in Mexico are discussing possible ways to meet future energy demand while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Former World Bank chief economist Sir Nicholas Stern is expected to present findings from his review into the economic effect of climate change. An outline of his report will be presented to a closed-door meeting ... |
Cost of climate change action manageable: study (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 03:00:15
| Reuters: A UK-commissioned study on the economics of climate change will advocate taking action to combat global warming as soon as possible, seeing the costs of such action as manageable, Britain's Treasury said on Tuesday. The review's author Nicholas Stern, former World Bank chief economist, presented his findings to energy and environment ministers of the world's top 20 polluters at a meeting in Mexico on Tuesday, prior to the study's imminent publication. In a summary of his ... |
Australia: End to logging planned (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 03:00:15
| Courier-Mail: QUEENSLAND'S $2.7 billion-a-year timber industry has put a plan to the State Government to end logging in native forests and increase plantations by 50 per cent. The plan's target is to make Queensland the largest timber-producing state. Industry also wants the Government to back emissions trading so major polluters such as electricity producers and smelters would buy and plant out land as a trade-off to the global-warming carbon they emit into the atmosphere. Industry ... |
Canada: Nothing's immune to climate crisis (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 03:00:15
| CanWest News Service: Drought in British Columbia's rain forest. Prairie rivers running dry. Storms leaving trails of multimillion-dollar damage in Eastern Canada. The climate has changed. The insurance industry knows it. So do savvy municipal managers and scientists amassing evidence that show temperatures are rising and impacting everything from ski conditions to wheat harvests. "Climate change affects every Canadian and every activity we're engaged in, there's not one activity that's ... |
Ozone Hole Matches Record Size (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 03:00:15
| Associated Press: The "ozone hole" over Antarctica this year has matched the record size of 11.4 million square miles, the U.N. weather agency has said. The area of the so-called hole -- a thinning in the ozone layer during the South Pole winter -- is the same as in the record year of 2000, according to measurements by NASA, said Geir Braathen, ozone specialist at the Geneva-based World Meteorological Organization. But Braathen said of greater concern is that the amount of ozone gas ... |
Unusual allies unite on global warming (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 03:00:15
| Asahi Shimbun: The vast taiga, or boreal coniferous forest, stretches across much of Scandinavia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Alaska and Canada. In Siberia alone, it covers 600 million hectares. Remote it may be, but like most environmental issues, the problems of the world's largest terrestrial biome have the potential to become the problems of the world. For the taiga has become increasingly prone to forest fires, a result of which is huge amounts of carbon dioxide being released into the ... |
Climate change threatens Maldives (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 03:00:16
| InTheNews.co.uk: The Maldives could become flooded due to climate change, the country's president has warned. Maumoon Abdul Gayoom said that his concerns are rooted in present-day evidence, as there are already indicators there sea levels are rising. Speaking on the Today programme, Mr Gayoom said that as well as his fears that the country will be flooded, he is concerned that coral reefs surrounding the islands could be damaged. "We are a very low-lying island nation," he ... |
Cutting emissions without an economic slow-down (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 03:00:16
| SciDev.Net: An international accountancy firm has outlined how to sustain the rapid economic growth of emerging economies without having serious effects on the climate. "Our analysis suggests there are technologically feasible and relatively low-cost options for controlling carbon emissions," says John Hawksworth, head of macroeconomics at PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Global gross domestic product "might be reduced by no more than around 2-3 per cent in 2050 if this strategy was ... |
Haze Shrouds Parts of Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 03:00:16
| Bloomberg: The air quality in Singapore and parts of Malaysia has worsened, reducing visibility and disrupting flights in East Malaysia as the smoke haze from forest fires in the region thickened. The air pollutant index reached ``unhealthy'' levels in Sabah and Sarawak states, located on the Malaysian part of Borneo island, exceeding 100 in eight towns as of 11 a.m. this morning, the department of environment said on its Web site. An index reading of 101 to 200 is considered unhealthy. ... |
India pushes alternative fuels (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 03:00:16
| Asia Times: Though oil prices have settled down a bit, a serious attempt is being made to push alternative energies, to meet future contingencies. India produced 32 million tons of crude oil and imported nearly 99 million tons, which is nearly 80% of its requirement in 2005-06. India has scaled up its estimate of power requirements to between 800,000 and 950,000 megawatts by 2030 to achieve the targeted economic growth of more than 8%. The choices China and India make in the next few years will ... |
Jet skids off Indonesia runway in smoky haze (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 03:00:16
| Reuters: A passenger jet skidded off the runway upon landing in thick haze in Indonesia on Tuesday as forest fires in the country spread a pall of smoke around the region. A Boeing 737-200 jetliner skidded 50 meters (164 ft) off the runway in the town of Tarakan in Indonesia's East Kalimantan province on Borneo island. "The visibility for the pilot was clouded by the haze," an airport official told Reuters, adding all 110 passengers of the Mandala airline plane survived the ... |
United Kingdom: Ministers set to address climate change summit (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 03:00:16
| Guardian: Representatives of the 20 biggest energy-using countries are meeting today in Mexico to discuss the threat of climate change. The UK's foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, and environment secretary, David Miliband, join representatives of the other G8 industrialised nations and the emerging economies of China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico. These countries already have the greatest energy needs and many of the emerging nations are expected to have substantial rises in ... |
United States: Save energy, save money (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 03:00:16
| Miami Herald: If Ronald Reagan was president when you bought your last refrigerator, it may be time for an upgrade. Your 18-year-old fridge could be sucking up enough energy to light the entire house -- for four months. If you're thinking of swapping it, or other aging home appliances, for something new and more energy efficient, this is the week to buy. Starting Thursday, retailers will knock the sales tax off eight major appliances and other products that meet federal energy efficiency ... |
Wells Fargo to buy renewable energy certificates (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 10-03-2006 at 03:00:16
| Reuters: Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Tuesday that it will buy renewable energy certificates to support generating 550 million kilowatt-hours of clean, renewable wind energy a year for three years. The company said the move makes it the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the United States, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The purchase will offset 40 percent of Wells Fargo's electricity consumption with wind energy, ... |
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