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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 13th, 2008 From: benito.mueller at philosophy.ox.ac.uk Oxford Institute for Energy Studies To Earmark or Not to Earmark? OIES: EV 43, November 2008 Should revenue from auctioning of emission permits in the EU Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) be earmarked (‘hypothecated’) for funding climate change activities, par ticularly in developing countries? This question currently exercises EU decision-makers, with the EU Commission and Parliament in favour, strongly opposed by some Member States. This OIES Environment Paper by Benito Müller exposes the far-reaching consequences of this debate, and proposes a way forward to avoid a break-down of the current UN climate change negotiations. available at: Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 13th, 2008
Carbon News and Info, Tuesday, 11 November 2008. The Maldives is a group of 1200 tropical islands in the Indian Ocean, 80 per cent of which are less than one metre above sea level. Much of the most inhabited parts of the country are just 1.5 metres above the water. The first democratically elected leader, Mohamed Nasheed, and his Vice-President, Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik, wasted little time in declaring their plans to British newspapers saying a national fund would be established with royalties from the country’s tourist industry to fund land purchases. Nasheed told the Guardian that Sri Lanka and India were obvious targets given their proximity, and the cultural similarities of their people to the 300,000 Maldivians. He also named Australia as a possible destination. In 2005, authorities announced plans to move the 1000-strong population of the Carteret Atolls, in Papua New Guinea, to Bougainville in what were said to be the first climate change evacuations. Their current homes are predicted to become completely submerged by 2015. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 13th, 2008 The Original November 07, 2008 posting that we cancell now: ============= UNFCCC Tries To Wedge In Unto The G-20 Washington DC (the last Bush Summit) With Results From a Virtual Press Briefing November 14, 2008 - The Problem That They Allow Only Questions From The Akasaka/Fawzi/Fowley UN Sanctioned Journalists - A Sure Path To Irrelevance. Yvo de Boer Does Not Include Factors Critical Of UN Caused Inaction, And Thus Will Not Be Able To Lead When Finally There Will Be An Active USA Presidency. We Think Now That A Post-Kyoto I Regime Will Be Established Through Negotiations Outside The UN. INVITATION: UN Climate Change Secretariat virtual press briefing on the investment and financial flows required to finance the global response to climate change Date and time: Friday, 14 November 2008, 11:00 a.m. (Central European Time) This year’s update of the UNFCCC’s Investment and Financial Flows project will look at what kind of financial architecture must be agreed so that all 192 Parties to the UNFCCC are able to strike a deal on strengthened international action on climate change in Copenhagen next year, to follow on the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol. The press briefing will be webcast from the <unfccc.int> web site, and journalists will have the opportunity to pose questions via a phone-in facility and to send in questions via e-mail in advance. For further information, please contact: To accredit and/or address interview requests, please contact: Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 13th, 2008 From: cmariotte at theclimategroup.org The Climate Group is pleased to invite you to its “Breaking the Climate Deadlock: The future of Clean Power Generation” webinar with international technology guru, Sun Microsystems co-founder, and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla this Thursday, November 13th at 4pm GMT. This is the 5th in a series of webinars The Climate Group has been holding on key issues influencing the current post-Kyoto negotiations. These webinars support the “Breaking the Climate Deadlock” initiative with former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and build on the Briefing Papers produced by internationally-respected experts earlier this year (see www.breakingtheclimatedeadlock.com for more details). A. Login details: To add this meeting to your calendar program (for example Microsoft Outlook), click this link: B. Background information: Vinod Khosla’s Briefing Paper ‘Scalable Electric Power from Solar Energy’ can be downloaded there: The other Briefing Papers: More information on the Briefing Papers Webinar series (watch previous webinars, find speakers’ information, download presentation materials): General information on the “Breaking the Climate Deadlock” initiative: We look forward to your participation to the webinar. Kind regards, Clément Mariotte ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 12th, 2008 Science Proves Warming of Antarctica. By Adrianne Appel* BOSTON, Nov 12 (Tierramérica) - The Antarctic holds the world’s largest amount of fresh water in its icy grip, and it is most certainly warming as a result of greenhouse gases, say new scientific studies. “We’re able for the first time to directly attribute warming in both the Arctic and the Antarctic to human influences,” said Nathan Gillett of the University of East Anglia, in Britain, who led the study. Evidence of global warming, caused by the release of carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the air, has been found on almost every continent on Earth. The exception was the Antarctic, which holds 90 percent of the world’s ice and 70 percent of the world’s fresh water. Antarctica, about 1.4 times as large as the United States, has just 20 weather stations from which to gather data, and for this and other reasons, less has been known about the icy continent. Scientists can see that the warmer parts of Antarctica, including the Western Antarctic and Antarctic Peninsula, which juts north toward South America and is home to millions of seals and penguins and other birds, are seeing temperature increases. But the frigid East Antarctic, with ice 2,226 metres thick, has seen no significant change in air temperature during the past 50 years — in fact it has shown evidence of cooling — and this has made overall conclusions about the greenhouse gas effect inconclusive. The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that Antarctica was the only continent where human-caused temperature changes had not been detected, possibly due to insufficient data and observation. Gillett’s work “demonstrates convincingly what previous studies have suggested: that humans have indeed contributed to warming in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions,” said Andrew Monaghan, of the U.S. National Centre for Atmospheric Research, a close colleague of the researchers. The team used all data available from 1900 to 2000 from the 20 research stations, and complex computer predictions to reach its conclusions. The scientists created four computer models, including one that included the impact of greenhouse gases and one that did not. The model with the greenhouse gases produced predictions that matched actual temperature observations up to this point in time, according to their report, “Attribution of polar warming to human influence”, in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience. Taking averages across all of Antarctica produced findings of “overall warming” of a few tenths of a percent, Gillett said. But the team found temperature increases on the Antarctic Peninsula of up to 3 degrees Celsius since the 1950s, among the largest increases on Earth, Monaghan said. Still, the average monthly temperature is 1 degree to minus -15 degrees C. Several large glaciers in the West Antarctic are melting and contributing to a rise in global sea levels, due to warmer ocean currents that are hitting the ice sheets. The average monthly temperature there is -12 C to -35 C. “This melting of ice shelves has implications for sea level rise,” Gillett said. In 2002, a huge ice shelf on the Peninsula, called the Larsen B, broke apart and melted. It was 3,250 square kilometres in size, he pointed out. In addition, the team noticed data pointing to a warming along the coasts of East Antarctica, and they expect this warming to accelerate. Gillett hypothesised that the South Pole cooling may be due to a severe loss of ozone in the Pole’s atmosphere, due to pollution. He believes that because of his research, scientists can draw a more accurate picture of what the future may look like for Antarctica. Calculations about the melting of ice can now include the impact of global warming. “We won’t see anything catastrophic in the next century if things continue at the current rate. But the melt could accelerate,” Monaghan said. The IPCC was unable to include complete and accurate predictions of global sea rise because it did not have adequate Antarctic data. It predicted an increase of between 18 and 59 cm, Gillett said. In January, IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri made a personal plea to scientists to step up their research on Antarctica and Greenland. “My hope is the next [IPCC] report, if there is one, will be able to provide much better information on the possibility of these two large bodies of ice melting, in what seems like a frightening situation,” Pachauri said. Research about warming in the Antarctic Peninsula has been building. Earlier this year, Eric Rignot, of the University of California, reviewed satellite images from 1996 to 2000 and found that ice is definitely melting on the Antarctic Peninsula and in the West Antarctic. West Antarctica lost about 132 billion metric tons of ice in 2006, compared with about 83 billion metric tons in 1996, Rignot said. The Antarctic Peninsula lost 60 billion metric tons in 2006. The ice melt would have been enough to raise the world’s sea level by 0.5 mm, if not for a simultaneous ice accumulation in frigid East Antarctica, Rignot said. Research that shows humans are causing global warming may help bolster efforts to slow the emission of greenhouse gases, primarily by the United States and China, said Meg Boyle, a climate change expert with the environmental watchdog group Greenpeace. “In the United States, we have a small percentage of the world’s population but we produce 25 percent of the world’s global warming pollution. It is time for us to step up,” she said. She expressed hope that United States President-elect Barack Obama will be more willing to participate in global climate agreements. (*This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.) Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 12th, 2008 APP includes now: Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan, Korea, and the US. It was organized under the Bush Washington Regime
by its original 6 parties as a way to consider anti-Kyoto, and voluntary alternatives to the mandatory reduction of GHG Emissions.
After the change of government, Canada joined. After the change of Government in Australia, the partnership weakened somewhat.
Now, it seems, that after the change in the Administration in Washington, there will most probably, be a complete revamping of this organization.
So, the upcoming meeting might be the last hooray of this basically coal driven organization.
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 12th, 2008 From: reply at dods.eu
The Parliament Magazine’s November 10th issue is now available to download. This week’s cover features new trade commissioner Catherine Ashton in her first article for the Parliament Magazine. She suggests a trade deal should be high on the priority list of G20 leaders as they prepare to meet in Washington to discuss the financial crisis at the end of this week. “An introspective, protectionist world will create a climate that makes it harder to recover – with negative consequences for business and jobs,” she warns.
NEXT EDITION: Nov 24th - covering United Nations Climate Change Conference, 1-12 Dec. in Poznań, Poland; the EU and the Central Asian Republics; and Cancer: Rare Tumours in Europe, a conference by the European Society for Medical Oncology.
If you would like to have your message included in the next edition, please contact Commercial Manager Jackson Clark on +44 207 091 7676. The Parliament Magazine Editor: Brian Johnson Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 12th, 2008
The ‘Road to Copenhagen’ project, which Robinson and Wallström are spearheading along with former Norwegian prime minister and UN special envoy on climate change, Gro Harlem Brundtland, was created to give the general public, industry, politicians and NGOs a say in the UN climate negotiations.
—————– Unless postponed until the change in US Administration, Poznan will end up in a ditch and better to postpone it then let it derail the following Copenhagen meeting. The Road to Copenhagen is a very bright idea if there is a productive Poznan meeting - otherwise Copenhagen will turn naturally into Poznan II and not into a Kyoto II as the UN professionals hope, or a Copenhagen I as an agreement between the US, China, India, Brazil would entail. Poznan is thus a make or brake event on the road to Copenhagen, and a US represented by Paula Dobriansky will just push the rest of those present into the ditch. Barak Obama cannot speak up before January 20, and obviously cannot have his negotiator vetted by US Congress before he takes over as US President. He said clearly that he works under the rules of the US Constitution that says there is only one President at a given time. Pushing for keeping the Poznan date under these conditions is rather like saying that it is imperative for those opposing the notion that the world must be kept addicted to petroleum and other fossil carbons in their self-interest must have the day. Barak Obama could appoint his Climate Change negotiator on January 20, 2009, right there at his inaugural speech, and Congress could approve his selection, the speediest, within a month - so, a Poznan meeting in March 2009 is the earliest it makes sense to hold this meeting if you are positively inclined to do something about climate change. We keep saying so for over a year, this even before we had an inkling of who might be next US President. We kept pouring cold water on the UN euphoria with their debate time-line. We are afraid that UN talk is very expensive - it allows people to fly around freely but is not intended to come up with results. Statements by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, on how much he wants to see results from the climate change negotiations, and rosy pronunciations from the Executive of the UNFCCC, Yvo de Boer, cannot change the reality that in the end - it is the US President that holds the keys for a positive outcome of the Climate Change negotiations. It is in the promise of the US and the response from the Brazil, China, India, that an effective plan will be born.
See please also: The Columbia University World Leaders Forum, September 26, 2008, Became The Podium For Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen of Denmark To Make Known A Roadmap To The December 2009 Climate Change Meeting in Copenhagen. The Prime Minister Is Keenly Interested That The Copenhagen Event Becomes The Turnaround Point From Our Present Descent Towards Global Environmental Disaster, and He Negotiated This Week A Roadmap With The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and The Two Candidates For The US Presidency. We Wished Him All The Luck He Needs; Nevertheless We Expressed Some Skepticism. Posted on Sustainabilitank.info |