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Brazil To Defend Biofuels At UN Summit In Rome (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 01:00:35
| Reuters: Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Sunday he would seek to convince world leaders gathering in Rome this week that ethanol is not to blame for global food inflation threatening millions with hunger. Brazil is the world's largest ethanol exporter and a pioneer in sugar-cane based biofuels, making it a target of critics who say ethanol is behind increases in world commodity prices. Lula said the UN summit on food security which begins on Tuesday would give ... |
Soaring Living Costs Cloud UN Climate Talks (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 01:00:35
| Reuters: UN-led climate talks kick off on Monday in Germany with experts trying to forge a global warming pact facing a new challenge from critics who say climate change measures are partly to blame for higher food and energy prices. The meeting is the second of eight which aim to secure a global climate deal by the end of next year, to come into force after the first round of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. The Bonn talks focus on the "toolkit" of steps which can curb ... |
US Emissions Bill A "First Step" - UN Climate Chief (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 01:00:35
| Reuters: A bill going to the US Senate next week seeking deep cuts in US greenhouse gases by 2050 is a "first step" but not enough to avert damaging climate change, the head of the UN Climate Panel said on Friday. Rajendra Pachauri also said that even tougher plans by some other developed nations to rein in emissions were insufficient to head off some projected impacts of global warming, ranging from more heatwaves and droughts to rising seas. The US bill, sponsored by Sen. ... |
China Kicks Off Drive To Stop Plastic Bag Habit (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 01:00:35
| Reuters: China Sunday became the latest country to declare war on plastic bags in a drive to save energy and protect the environment. Under new regulations, flimsy bags under 0.025 millimetres thick are banned and shopkeepers must charge for carrier bags. Those found breaking the law face fines and could have their goods confiscated. Shoppers in downtown Beijing and in Internet chatrooms seemed largely sympathetic to the idea. China, which goes through 3 billion plastic bags a day, is ... |
Climate Action in the Senate (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 01:00:35
| Washington Post: THE SENATE is scheduled to vote today on a motion to proceed to debate on the Climate Security Act of 2008. Given this nation's sluggish response to global warming, that will qualify as a big step. The chances of passage this year are worse than 50-50. But the markers being laid for the next president are worth pursuing. The world has clamored for U.S. leadership on climate change. Yet for seven years the Bush administration denied and dithered while the planet warmed. Initially, it ... |
Climate bill warms to money (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 01:00:35
| LA Times: A major climate-change measure goes before the Senate this week for the first time since Democrats declared it a top priority after taking control of Congress, but the long-awaited debate is ranging far beyond the effects of global warming. It also is focusing on Washington, D.C.'s most primal issue: money. That shift reflects two important changes in the national debate: the fact that recognition of climate change as a problem has grown and that businesses are more willing ... |
Rio Tinto Says U.S. Must Spend Billions for Clean-Coal Devices (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 01:00:35
| Bloomberg: Rio Tinto Group and U.S. utilities are urging the government to spend $20 billion on a technology they say has the best chance for eliminating pollution linked to global warming. The energy companies are lobbying Congress to help create devices that can trap carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants and bury the gas in underground caverns. Environmental groups, labor unions and members of Congress from coal states say pilot projects won't begin without U.S. support that is unlikely ... |
Canada: Baird blasts Ont.-Que. emissions plan (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 01:00:35
| Canwest News Service: A historic meeting of the Quebec and Ontario cabinets got off to a spectacular start Sunday when federal Environment Minister John Baird blasted the two provinces for deciding to go ahead without Ottawa with their own scheme to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A day before the provinces even ink the deal, Baird went on the attack, accusing them and other provincial premiers of "more talk and less action," when it comes to emissions while Ottawa has its own national plan that ... |
Getting warmer on emissions (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 01:00:36
| Boston Globe: WITH GASOLINE costing $4 a gallon and even the Bush administration admitting that global warming is endangering polar bears, the time is right for Congress to enact reductions in the use of fossil fuels that are a principal cause of global warming. Today, the Senate will take up the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, which would slap a cap-and-trade system on utility and industrial emissions and invoke other measures to tackle 85 percent of greenhouse gas emission sources in the United ... |
Climate-change bill: how it works and key players involved (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 01:00:36
| San Francisco Chronicle: -- Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. - She chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and sees this bill as her chance to leave a lasting legacy. She'll have a tough task fighting off "poison pill" amendments aimed at killing the bill. -- Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. - The presumptive GOP nominee has long championed a cap-and-trade bill, despite opposition from President Bush and most Republican lawmakers. He's said he's likely to miss this week's climate votes, but ... |
Senate taking up key climate-change bill (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 01:00:36
| San Francisco Chronicle: The Senate will decide this week whether to follow in California's footsteps and pass legislation requiring cuts in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change. Lawmakers are to vote Monday to begin debate on a bill that could reshape the U.S. economy by requiring industry to pay to emit carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases. Opponents call it a new tax on industry that could raise gas prices and energy bills for consumers. Supporters say it's a crucial step to ... |
Trouble with Congress' Green Gambit (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 01:00:36
| Time Magazine: It's a truism in politics: support for environmental causes tends to be broad, but shallow. Broad, because most voters support political action to protect the Earth, and not even the most conservative of politicians want to be seen as standing against it. Shallow, because few Americans really allow environmental issues to dictate their votes – and politicians know it. Global warming is a cause that has gradually broadened its support among the American public. Now we'll begin to see ... |
Biofuels boom risks increasing landlessness among world's poor (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 03:00:35
| Post: The global biofuels boom risks harming poor people in poor countries by forcing them off land they depend on, says a report published by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. The report however adds that biofuels are not all bad, and shows that their production can also increase the access to land of the poor groups in the underdeveloped societies and improve their livelihoods if the right policies are in ... |
UN climate talks clouded by high energy costs (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 03:00:36
| Reuters: Mounting criticism over how some climate policies are adding to record energy and food prices threatens to distract UN-led talks on a new global warming pact, which resume this week in Bonn. The UN's climate change agency hosts more than 160 countries at the talks starting on Monday to help secure global agreement by the end of next year on a new pact to counter global warming. The Bonn talks, which end on June 13, will focus on the "toolkit" of policies which can ... |
United States: Bay Area fishermen struggle with salmon shutdown (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 03:00:36
| Contra Costa Times: Between his wife's small salary, a bit of crabbing and the federal aid they hope will arrive before the electricity bill is due, Jeff French figures he can hang on for a while. But for how long, and just what the coastal fishing industry will look like when he once again pulls Chinook onto the Langosta II are questions that leave French and other commercial salmon fishers clouded with doubt. "It's death by a million small cuts. We're pretty anemic," said French, of ... |
Brazil says biofuel production not to blame for food crisis (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 03:00:36
| Agence France-Presse: With its prodigious farm exports and its major industry making ethanol from sugarcane, Brazil is seeking to show that in the food versus biofuel debate at least in its case the two can co-exist. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has challenged critics who claim biofuel production is contributing to high food prices and demand, arguing the problem lies instead in poor agricultural and distribution models. "It is not ethanol that is causing food prices to rise, because ... |
Germany Slashes Solar Subsidies, Threatening Industry `Success' (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 03:00:36
| Bloomberg: Germany is slashing the subsidies that built its solar industry up to $8.8 billion in sales and made the country the world's biggest market for panels that capture the sun's energy. Homes and businesses earn a government-guaranteed price of as much as 47 euro cents ($0.74) for each kilowatt-hour of solar power they generate, enough to run a vacuum cleaner for 60 minutes and double the market rate. Spain and France are copying Germany's model as a way to nurture clean-energy ... |
Industries Allied to Cap Carbon Differ on the Details (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 03:00:36
| New York Times: Some of the most powerful corporate leaders in America have been meeting regularly with leading environmental groups in a conference room in downtown Washington for over two years to work on proposals for a national policy to limit carbon emissions. The discussions have often been tense. Pinned on a wall, a large handmade poster with Rolling Stones lyrics reminds everyone, "You can't always get what you want." What unites these two groups – business executives from Duke ... |
Australia: Bartlett vow to move on carbon cuts (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 03:00:36
| Mercury: TASMANIA has committed to massive cuts in carbon emissions by 2050. Premier David Bartlett yesterday unveiled legislation to set up an independent Tasmanian Climate Action Council to find ways to cut emissions and to set interim targets. The draft Bill sets a target for Tasmania to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 60 per cent of 1990 levels by 2050. It was immediately attacked by the Greens and the Liberal Party as not going far enough. But Mr ... |
Japan: Govt report makes case for sectoral emissions cuts (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 03:00:36
| Yomiuri Shimbun: The government's annual report on energy issues, which was released Tuesday, sheds light on the proposed sector-by-sector approach to global warming, in addition to analyzing how speculative funds have contributed to pushing up crude oil prices. The white paper for fiscal 2007 deems it necessary to tackle global warming as an integral part of energy policy. The report says the government's proposed sectoral approach is the most effective way to curb greenhouse gas emissions, ... |
Economic cost drives Senate climate debate (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 03:00:37
| Associated Press: The possible economic cost of confronting global warming – from higher electricity bills to more expensive gasoline – is driving the debate as climate change takes center stage in Congress. The Senate will begin considering legislation Monday that would mandate a reduction in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from power plants, refineries, factories and transportation, cutting heat-trapping pollution by two-thirds by mid-century. The debate opens as Americans are ... |
Rising Costs End Quest for Cleaner Coal Power in US (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 03:00:37
| New York Times: For years, scientists have had a straightforward idea for taming global warming. They want to take the carbon dioxide that spews from coal-burning power plants and pump it back into the ground. Support for the idea is widespread in the United States - which vies with China as the world's top emitter of carbon dioxide emissions. President George W. Bush is for it, and indeed he has spent years talking up the virtues of "clean coal." All three major candidates to succeed him ... |
United States: Cost drives Senate climate debate (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 03:00:37
| Associated Press: From higher electric bills to more expensive gasoline, the possible economic cost of tackling global warming is driving the debate as climate change takes center stage in Congress. Legislation set for Senate debate Monday would require a reduction in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from power plants, refineries, factories and transportation. The goal is to cut heat-trapping pollution by two-thirds by midcentury. With gasoline at $4 per gallon and home heating and ... |
India holding some major cards in the carbon trade game (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 03:00:37
| Age: THE latest World Bank figures show that India has emerged as a big player in the carbon trading market, ranking as the second-largest seller of carbon credits in the global market last year. Although its share is only 6%, as compared with China's gigantic 73%, India now has 930 carbon credit projects in the pipeline. Carbon credits are generated by companies in the developing world when they move to cleaner technologies that help to reduce their greenhouse emissions. For ... |
Climate-change trigger? Degrading Arctic ice may release planet-warming methane (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 05:00:24
| Associated Press: Global warming could release long-dormant stores of methane gas trapped beneath the Arctic permafrost – causing an abrupt and catastrophic climate change like one that occurred 635 million years ago that ended the last great ice age, University of California-Riverside researchers have determined. Back then, the sheets of ice that covered Earth started to collapse, releasing methane gas that warmed the planet and caused the ice to retreat over a period of 100 to 1,000 years, said ... |
Bush sees 'enormous costs' in climate change bill (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 02:00:24
Canada: Ontario, Quebec unveil carbon cap-and-trade plan (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 02:00:24
New Zealand: Climate change talks get down to the tricky bits (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 03:00:36
AM Greenlist: Reducing illegal dumping, greenhouse gases (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 03:00:37
Biofuels: What do the experts think? (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 03:00:37
Germany Slashes Solar Subsidies, Threatening Industry (Update2) (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 03:00:37
Papua New Guinea: Third-largest rain forest falling to loggers (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 03:00:38
US lawmakers to debate sweeping climate change bill (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 03:00:38
Papua New Guinea: Satellite Images Reveal Papua Forest Destruction (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 09:00:25
| Reuters: Thirty years of satellite imagery of Papua New Guinea's rainforests has revealed destruction on such a rapid scale that by 2021 most accessible forest will be destroyed or degraded, a study released on Monday said. Papua New Guinea has the world's third largest tropical rainforest, after the Amazon and the Congo, and its government is seeking compensation for conserving its forests as carbon-traps to help reduce global greenhouse gases. Papua New Guinea has allowed widespread ... |
Senate Agrees to Debate Climate-Change Bill (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 09:00:25
| New York Times: The Senate voted Monday evening to proceed with a debate on climate-change legislation that is putting its supporters on the spot, despite support from all three presidential candidates. The vote to proceed was 74 to 14, but that procedural step was not a true reflection of the bill's popularity. The measure places its backers in an awkward position because it essentially forces them to come out in favor of higher energy costs at a time when American consumers are already facing ... |
US Wind Sector Urges Tax Credit, Power Line Work (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 09:00:25
| Reuters: The United States must keep offering tax credits for alternative energy projects and take steps to simplify building of large power lines if the country is to meet a goal of getting 20 percent of its electric supply from wind power by 2030, a panel of experts said on Monday. The production tax credit for alternative energy is set to expire at the end of the year. Industry leaders said the credit must be extended to avoid the "stops and starts" that have plagued the US wind ... |
Bush Would Veto US Climate Change Bill (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 09:00:25
| Reuters: Even before debate began Monday on the first comprehensive climate change bill to reach the Senate floor, the White House said President Bush would veto it in its current form. Bush himself slammed the bill, saying it would cost the US economy $6 trillion. His estimate drew quick denials from those who support the legislation, including Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat and long-time environmentalist. The Bush administration has consistently opposed economy-wide ... |
Papua New Guinea rainforest 'all gone by 2021' (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 09:00:25
| Reuters: Thirty years of satellite imagery of Papua New Guinea's rainforests has revealed destruction on such a rapid scale that by 2021 most accessible forest will be destroyed or degraded, says a study made public yesterday. Papua New Guinea has the world's third-largest tropical rainforest, after the Amazon and the Congo, and its Government is seeking compensation for conserving its forests as carbon-traps to help reduce global greenhouse gases. Papua New Guinea has allowed ... |
Two Biggest Canadian Provinces Sign Emissions Deal (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 09:00:25
| Reuters: In a rebuff to the Canadian government's plan to fight climate change, the country's two biggest provinces agreed in principle on Monday to set up a market-based system to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The premiers of Ontario and Quebec, which between them account for almost two-thirds of Canada's 33 million population, said Ottawa's program to cut emissions 20 percent from 2006 levels by 2020 was inadequate and misguided. The two signed a memorandum of understanding to ... |
New Zealand: Climate change talks get down to the tricky bits (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 09:00:26
| New Zealand Herald: If the devil is in the details, climate change negotiators are about to enter purgatory. Two thousand delegates from 162 countries and dozens of specialist agencies are opening a two-week conference, the first to get into the nuts and bolts of a new global warming agreement to take effect after 2012. The meeting builds on a landmark accord reached in December on the Indonesian island of Bali which, for the first time, held out the promise that the United States, China and India ... |
Food Price "Catastrophe" Feared On Eve Of Summit (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 09:00:26
| Reutes: Soaring food prices could trigger a global catastrophe and the world's poor need action, not words, from this week's UN food security summit, human rights activists and the World Bank said on Monday. The warning came as world leaders arrived in Rome for a global conference to tackle a food crisis that is pushing 100 million people into hunger, provoking food protests and could aggravate violence in war zones. "The current food crisis amounts to a gross violation of human ... |
Turkish Government Decides To Approve Kyoto Protocol (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 09:00:26
| Reuters: The Turkish government has decided to approve the Kyoto Protocol. the UN-led global climate pact, and will send a bill on the issue to parliament shortly, a government spokesman said on Monday. The Kyoto Protocol binds 37 industrialised countries to limits on their greenhouse gases compared to 1990 levels. More than 170 nations have ratified the pact, which came into force in 2005 and Turkey is one of the few countries to have failed to do so. "The government has ... |
Bush weighs in against Senate climate bill (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 09:00:26
| Associated Press: President Bush weighed in Monday against a Senate bill that would require dramatic cuts in climate-changing greenhouse pollution, cautioning senators "to be very careful about running up enormous costs for future generations of Americans." The Senate climate bill expected to be debated much of this week would cut emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and other greenhouse gases by about 70 percent over the next four decades. The bill targets power plants, ... |
Biofuels: What do the experts think? (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 09:00:27
| CNN: It wasn't so long ago that biofuels were being heralded as the savior of the planet and a thoroughly green solution to our climate woes. But fair winds have been replaced by persistent storms of criticism. But is it justified? Principal Voices has spoken to three people -- an economist, a scientist and an environmental campaigner -- at the heart of the biofuels debate. Here, they have their say on biofuels. Have yours at bottom of the page. Keith Wiebe is the service chief in the ... |
Bush sees 'enormous costs' in climate change bill (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 09:00:27
| Reuters: President George W. Bush slammed a U.S. Senate climate change bill set for debate on Monday, saying the measure would cost the American economy $6 trillion. The bill's supporters expected this argument, and maintain the legislation's cap-and-trade provisions would in fact create jobs and that the cost of doing nothing about climate change justifies action now. "I urge the Congress to be very careful about running up enormous costs for future generations of Americans," ... |
Bush would veto climate bill in current form-W.House (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 09:00:27
| Reuters: U.S. President George W. Bush would veto climate change legislation to be considered by the U.S. Senate this week if it passes Congress in its current form, the White House said on Monday."As the legislation is drafted, if it were to pass in its current form, the president would veto it," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters. But she added, "It's very unlikely to pass the Senate anyway."The legislation the Senate will debate, which is not expected to become law this year ahead of ... |
Canada: Ontario, Quebec unveil carbon cap-and-trade plan (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 09:00:27
| CBC: The governments of Quebec and Ontario have formally agreed to work together to cut greenhouse gas emissions, set up a high-speed train service and further integrate their economies. In the first significant move in the new initiative, Premier Jean Charest and his Ontario counterpart, Dalton McGuinty, on Monday unveiled a cap-and-trade protocol for atmospheric carbon in Quebec City after holding their first joint provincial cabinet meeting. McGuinty said he would like to see a ... |
Canada: Plant waste biofuels benefit from food debate (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 09:00:27
| Reuters: In the search for renewable energy, turning low-value materials like switchgrass and corn husks into ethanol to fuel cars is something of a Holy Grail. In theory, these materials would replace corn as the main feedstock for ethanol in North America, reducing the pressure on farmland that has played a role in rising food prices and put drivers into competition with hungry people. But scientists on the front lines of this search are finding that making the process commercially ... |
Papua New Guinea: Third-largest rain forest falling to loggers (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 09:00:27
| Associated Press: Papua New Guinea's tropical forests are being destroyed so quickly by logging, fires and farming that more than half could vanish by 2021, according to a study released Monday. The loss of the world's third-largest rain forest would destroy a wealth of unique flora and fauna and deprive the region of a natural defense against global warming, the study by scientists at the University of Papua New Guinea and Australian National University found. Analyzing three decades of ... |
US lawmakers to debate sweeping climate change bill (View Original Story)
Source: Posted: 06-02-2008 at 09:00:27
| Agence France Presse: US lawmakers braced Monday for a fight to push a sweeping climate change bill through the Senate, as President George W. Bush threatened to veto it and other opponents railed that it was economically unsound. The legislation, known as the Lieberman-Warner bill after its sponsors, Senators Joe Lieberman and John Warner, calls for a "cap and trade" system, under which companies can trade permits giving them the right to emit a certain amount of pollution, "capped" ... |
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