NASA warming scientist: 'This is the last chance'

WASHINGTON (AP) — Exactly 20 years after warning America about global warming, a top NASA scientist said the situation has gotten so bad that the world's only hope is drastic action.

James Hansen told Congress on Monday that the world has long passed the "dangerous level" for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and needs to get back to 1988 levels. He said Earth's atmosphere can only stay this loaded with man-made carbon dioxide for a couple more decades without changes such as mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises.

"We're toast if we don't get on a very different path," Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute of Space Sciences who is sometimes called the godfather of global warming science, told The Associated Press. "This is the last chance."

Hansen brought global warming home to the public in June 1988 during a Washington heat wave, telling a Senate hearing that global warming was already here. To mark the anniversary, he testified before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming where he was called a prophet, and addressed a luncheon at the National Press Club where he was called a hero by former Sen. Tim Wirth, D-Colo., who headed the 1988 hearing.

To cut emissions, Hansen said coal-fired power plants that don't capture carbon dioxide emissions shouldn't be used in the United States after 2025, and should be eliminated in the rest of the world by 2030. That carbon capture technology is still being developed and not yet cost efficient for power plants.

Burning fossil fuels like coal is the chief cause of man-made greenhouse gases. Hansen said the Earth's atmosphere has got to get back to a level of 350 parts of carbon dioxide per million. Last month, it was 10 percent higher: 386.7 parts per million.

Hansen said he'll testify on behalf of British protesters against new coal-fired power plants. Protesters have chained themselves to gates and equipment at sites of several proposed coal plants in England.

"The thing that I think is most important is to block coal-fired power plants," Hansen told the luncheon. "I'm not yet at the point of chaining myself but we somehow have to draw attention to this."

Frank Maisano, a spokesman for many U.S. utilities, including those trying to build new coal plants, said while Hansen has shown foresight as a scientist, his "stop them all approach is very simplistic" and shows that he is beyond his level of expertise.

The year of Hansen's original testimony was the world's hottest year on record. Since then, 14 years have been hotter, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Two decades later, Hansen spent his time on the question of whether it's too late to do anything about it. His answer: There's still time to stop the worst, but not much time.

"We see a tipping point occurring right before our eyes," Hansen told the AP before the luncheon. "The Arctic is the first tipping point and it's occurring exactly the way we said it would."

Hansen, echoing work by other scientists, said that in five to 10 years, the Arctic will be free of sea ice in the summer.

Longtime global warming skeptic Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., citing a recent poll, said in a statement, "Hansen, (former Vice President) Gore and the media have been trumpeting man-made climate doom since the 1980s. But Americans are not buying it."

But Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., committee chairman, said, "Dr. Hansen was right. Twenty years later, we recognize him as a climate prophet."

On the Net:
Hansen's speech: http://www.columbia.edu/jeh1/2008/TwentyYearsLater_20080623.pdf

First cities go dark for Earth Hour

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Sydney's iconic Opera House and Harbour Bridge went dark Saturday night as the world's first major city turned off its lights for this year's Earth Hour, a global campaign to raise awareness of climate change.




The lights on the arch of Harbour Bridge were turned off at 8 p.m., followed shortly by the shells of the Opera House and other city landmarks. Most businesses and homes were already dark as Sydney residents embraced their second annual Earth Hour with candlelight dinners, beach bonfires and even a green-powered outdoor movie.

The city was noticeably darker, though not completely blacked out. The business district was mostly dark; organizers said 250 of the 350 commercial buildings there had pledged to shut off their lights completely.

The number of participants was not immediately available but organizers were hoping to beat last year's debut, when 2.2 million people and more than 2,000 businesses shut off lights and appliances, resulting in a 10.2 percent reduction in carbon emissions during that hour.

The effect of last year's Earth Hour was infectious. This year, 26 major world cities and more than 300 other cities and towns have signed up for the event.

New Zealand and Fiji kicked off the event this year. In Christchurch, New Zealand, more than 100 businesses and thousands of homes were plunged into darkness, computers and televisions were switched off and dinners delayed for the hour from 8 to 9 p.m. Suva, Fiji, in the same time zone, also turned off its lights.

Auckland's Langham Hotel switched from electric lights to candles as it joined the effort to reduce the use of electricity, which when generated creates greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.

After Australia, lights will go out in major Asian cities, including Manila and Bangkok before moving to Europe and North America as the clock ticks on. One of the last major cities to participate will be San Francisco -- home to the soon-to-be dimmed Golden Gate Bridge.

"What's amazing is that it's transcending political boundaries and happening in places like China, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea," said Earth Hour executive director Andy Ridley. "It really seems to have resonated with anybody and everybody."

Organizers see the event as a way to encourage the world to conserve energy. While all lights in participating cities are unlikely to be cut, it is the symbolic darkening of monuments, businesses and individual homes they are most eagerly anticipating.

Even popular search engine Google put its support behind Earth Hour, with a completely black Web page and the words: "We've turned the lights out. Now it's your turn."

"It is a wake-up call," said Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore. "We need to really plan for our future. (Earth Hour) is something we can all do together. Going global is very empowering."






to the source


AP Photo


Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

Wall Street joins battle against global warming

From New Scientist

ENVIRONMENTALISTS have a new, unlikely ally in the fight against global warming.

A document signed on Monday by three of Wall Street's largest banks - Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley - requires anyone seeking money for new fossil-fuel power plants in the US to consider the effect this will have on the global climate.

The document, entitled The Carbon Principles, states that power companies that want to build new plants will be asked to consider renewable alternatives and carbon-trading schemes. Even if legal emission limits are not yet in place, the document requires power firms to consider future legislative changes and budget accordingly.

Borrowers will also have to analyse the potential of carbon capture schemes (see opposite), such as locking away carbon dioxide in disused oil reservoirs. In the US, the principles are likely to have the greatest impact on new coal-fired plants, some of which are already being disrupted by environmental objections.

Climate Change - Want to know more about global warming: the science, impacts and political debate? Visit New Scientist continually updated special report.

U.S. Moving Toward Ban on New Coal-Fired Power Plants

In a report compiled in early 2007, the U.S. Department of Energy listed 151 coal-fired power plants in the planning stages and talked about a resurgence in coal-fired electricity. But during 2007, 59 proposed U.S. coal-fired power plants were either refused licenses by state governments or quietly abandoned.

In addition to the 59 plants that were dropped, close to 50 more coal plants are being contested in the courts, and the remaining plants will likely be challenged as they reach the permitting stage.

What began as a few local ripples of resistance to coal-fired power is quickly evolving into a national tidal wave of grassroots opposition from environmental, health, farm, and community organizations and a fast-growing number of state governments. The public at large is turning against coal. In a September 2007 national poll by the Opinion Research Corporation about which electricity source people would prefer, only 3 percent chose coal.

One of the first major coal industry setbacks came in early 2007, when environmental groups convinced Texas-based utility TXU to reduce the number of planned coal-fired power plants in Texas from 11 to 3. And now even those 3 proposed plants may be challenged. Meanwhile, the energy focus within the Texas state government is shifting to wind power. The state is planning 23,000 megawatts of new wind-generating capacity (equal to 23 coal-fired power plants).

In May, Florida’s Public Service Commission refused to license a huge $5.7-billion, 1,960-megawatt coal plant because the utility could not prove that building the plant would be cheaper than investing in conservation, efficiency, and renewable energy sources. This argument by Earthjustice, a non-profit environmental legal group, combined with widely expressed public opposition to any more coal-fired power plants in Florida, led to the quiet withdrawal of four other proposals for coal plants in the state. Republican Governor Charlie Crist, who is keenly aware of Florida’s vulnerability to rising seas, is actively opposing new coal plants and has announced that the state plans to build the world’s largest solar-thermal power plant.

The principal reason for opposing new coal plants is the mounting concern about climate change. Another emerging reason is soaring construction costs. And then there are intensifying health concerns about mercury emissions and the 23,600 U.S. deaths per year from power plant air pollution. (See data.)

Utilities have argued that carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal plant smokestacks could be captured and stored underground, thus helping keep hope for the industry alive. But on January 30, 2008, the Bush administration announced that it was pulling the plug on a joint project with 13 utilities and coal companies to build a demonstration coal-fired power plant in Illinois with underground carbon sequestration because of massive cost overruns. The original cost of $950 million when the project was announced in 2003 had climbed beyond $1.5 billion by early 2008, with further rises in prospect. The cancellation effectively moves the date for any coal plants with carbon sequestration so far into the future that this technology has little immediate relevance.

Some utilities are being refused licenses for coal plants because they have not examined alternative methods of satisfying demand, such as increasing the efficiency of electricity use. For example, insulating buildings greatly reduces energy needs for heating and cooling. Shifting to more-efficient light bulbs would save enough electricity to close 80 U.S. coal power plants.

The Sierra Club, the national leader on this issue, is working with hundreds of local groups to mount legal challenges in state after state. Other national groups that are actively involved include the Rainforest Action Network, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Environmental Defense. Information on the grassroots momentum to oppose coal plants is tracked on the Web site Coal Moratorium NOW!.

States that are working to reduce carbon emissions are banding together to discourage other states from building new coal plants simply because it would cancel their own carbon reduction efforts. In late 2006, for instance, the attorneys general of California, Wisconsin, New York, and several other northeastern states wrote to Kansas health officials urging them to deny permits for two new coal power plants of 700 megawatts each. The permits were subsequently denied, citing that carbon dioxide is an air pollutant and should be regulated, as determined in an April 2007 Supreme Court ruling. And in a letter on January 22, 2008, a similar grouping of states urged South Carolina’s Department of Health and Environmental Control to refuse a permit for the proposed 600-megawatt Pee Dee coal plant.

Coal’s future is also suffering as Wall Street turns its back on the industry. In July 2007, Citigroup downgraded coal company stocks across the board and recommended that its clients switch to other energy stocks. In January 2008, Merrill Lynch also downgraded coal stocks. In early February 2008, investment banks Morgan Stanley, Citi, and J.P. Morgan Chase announced that any future lending for coal-fired power would be contingent on the utilities demonstrating that the plants would be economically viable with the higher costs associated with future federal restrictions on carbon emissions. On February 13, Bank of America announced it would follow suit.

In August 2007, coal took a heavy political hit when U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who had been opposing three coal-fired power plants in his own state, announced that he was now against building coal-fired power plants anywhere in the world. Investment banks and political leaders are beginning to see what has been obvious for some time to climate scientists, such as NASA’s James Hansen who says that it makes no sense to build coal-fired power plants when we will have to bulldoze them in a few years.

In early November 2007, Representative Henry Waxman of California announced his intention to “introduce legislation that establishes a moratorium on the approval of new coal-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act until EPA finalizes regulations to address the greenhouse gas emissions from these sources.” If a national moratorium is passed by Congress, it will mark the beginning of the end for coal-fired power in the United States.

We may be on the verge of a monumental victory in the worldwide effort to stabilize climate. In our new book, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, I propose cutting carbon emissions 80 percent by 2020. The first step is to stop building any new coal-fired power plants. If the United States imposes a moratorium on such construction, as Denmark and New Zealand have already done, it would send a powerful signal to the rest of the world, bolstering the effort to cut carbon emissions. The next steps are to quickly exploit the vast worldwide potential to raise energy efficiency and to massively develop renewable sources of energy, such as wind, solar, and geothermal, in order to phase out existing coal-fired power plants.

The world is moving toward a political tipping point on the climate issue. If it comes soon enough, we may yet avoid catastrophic climate change.

Lester R. Brown -- Earth Policy Institute

Global Climate Change Response Can Spur $7 Trillion in Clean Energy Investment by 2030

Global Climate Change Response Can Spur $7 Trillion in Clean Energy Investment by 2030

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb 05, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Increasing public concerns about climate change -- and its potential economic and political security consequences -- are driving public policy and private investment to bring clean energy technologies from the fringes of the global energy industry to the center of activities as quickly as possible, a new analysis by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) has concluded.

The result of this rising public and private momentum is an increase in worldwide clean energy investment that could surpass US$7 trillion by 2030 in cumulative real 2007 dollars, according to the CERA report Crossing the Divide: The Future of Clean Energy.

"We are seeing a major shift in public opinion, reinforced by the expectation that carbon policies could fundamentally change the competitive landscape of the global energy business," said Daniel Yergin, CERA Chairman and IHS Executive Vice President. "This is providing a vital impetus that is moving clean technology across the great divide of cost, proven results, scale and maturity that has separated it from markets served by mainstream technologies and processes."

Key Insights

"The rapidly advancing new paradigms of climate change, energy security, and policy implementation and cooperation among the United States, the European Union, China and others will produce a broad range of opportunities, risks and pitfalls as the modern energy industry increasingly moves to adopt clean technologies that will be part of the alternative, low-carbon pathway to the energy future," said Robert LaCount, head of CERA's Climate Change and Clean Energy Group.

"All participants in the global energy business, from traditional incumbents such as electrical power companies and major oil and gas companies to new entrants such as venture capital firms," he added, "will play a role in shaping this alternative energy future. CERA's Crossing the Divide analysis offers a number of key insights about potentially significant clean energy opportunities for almost every energy sector participant:

-- There is already a "bubbling" of clean energy clusters - Some places are becoming concentrations of political, technical, institutional and financial clean energy specialization and experience. Examples include Brazil in biofuels, Germany in photovoltaic (PV) technology, Spain in wind technologies.

-- Renewable power technologies are poised for substantial growth - Wind will make the largest gains, followed by solar power and biomass -- despite near-term bottlenecks in wind turbine manufacturing, supply shortages in silicon, and competitive pressures from escalating component costs.

-- Government policy remains a key driver for clean energy advancement - Putting a price on CO2 emissions, setting mandates, and providing subsidies all work to kick-start clean energy technologies by overcoming the economic advantage of conventional technologies. The challenge in the years ahead is to provide subsidies in a way that ensures that these technologies get off the drawing board and are able to wean themselves from support - allowing for a phase-out rather than an increase in subsidies - as they become commercially viable on their own.

-- Conventional emission-free technologies - Nuclear and hydroelectric generation will account for most of the clean energy impact for the next decade, and almost half the gross clean power additions by 2030.

-- Disruptive technology potential - Clean energy technology could have disruptive rather than incremental impact. Modular and distributed PV could disrupt traditional central-station models of electricity production and distribution. Breakthroughs in cellulosic ethanol can disrupt the traditional vehicle fuel system if scale, logistics, and costs prove manageable. Conventional biofuel feedstocks, such as grains and oilseeds, may also produce serious unintended consequences such as disruption in global agricultural prices as well as land and water use patterns, as well as a policy backlash.

-- Asia demand and manufacturing - Rapid economic growth may push Asian energy needs from 30 percent of current global demand to 40 percent by 2030; combined with its manufacturing cost-competitiveness, this could make Asia a nexus for clean energy technology research, development and equipment production.

Clean Technology Drivers

Across the entire range of potential scenarios, Crossing the Divide identified the primary drivers that affect the pace of clean energy technological development and its commercial success:

-- Oil & natural gas prices - Directly affect the economics of clean energy technologies, energy security concerns, biofuels development, renewable power and conventional clean energy.

-- Government policy - Central to development of all clean energy technologies, with sustained government support ensuring ongoing research, seed money and confidence for investors; the sustainability of support policies shapes the timing and ultimate success of new technologies, particularly to the degree to which it encourages private investment.

-- Pace of technology innovation - Movement of technologies from the fringe to the center of the energy business is heavily dependent on policy support and private investment, which, in turn, is strongly affected by fossil fuel price cycles, carbon pricing, and expectations.

-- Economic growth - Affects energy demand and carbon emissions as well as the political and financial support for research and development of new clean energy technologies.

-- The Big Three: "The Big Three" in terms of energy consumption - the United States, the European Union and China - will have a major impact on development of "clean energy," along with certain other countries, particularly Japan and Brazil.

Scenarios Findings

CERA's analysis used a scenarios framework to assess the winners and losers among various clean energy technologies and help define key risks and opportunities as companies seek to place their technology bets. The analysis addressed new and conventional energy technologies that can provide energy with a minimal carbon footprint and facilitate greater energy security. These technologies include biofuels, renewable power technologies, carbon capture and storage, nuclear and hydropower. While CERA's scenarios provide widely different outcomes, advances occur in at least some clean energy technologies across all three scenarios.

In the Launch Pad scenario, strong energy prices, growing public pressure to control CO2 emissions, and a stable investment environment coalesce to drive the development and adoption of a wide range of clean energy technologies. Renewable power capacity grows from three to 16 percent of global capacity and biofuels grow from less than two percent to 16 percent of the total road transportation fuels market.

In contrast to Launch Pad's broad-based advancement of clean energy, the Global Fissures scenario highlights how weaker global economic growth coupled with increasing global tensions and political insecurity could lead to an uneven outlook for clean energy technologies. In the Global Fissures scenario, renewable power capacity grows to seven percent of the global power mix, but nuclear power experiences little growth and carbon capture and storage technology fails to develop commercially by 2030.

The Asian Phoenix scenario describes a world where the global balance of geopolitical and economic power shifts to Asia, expanding Asia's role as both consumer and exporter of clean energy technologies. Although concerns over climate change influence political agendas, a global patchwork of uncoordinated policies result in inconsistent government support programs leading to periods of fits and starts for private investment flows, and limiting technological and commercial breakthroughs. Renewable power grows to 10 percent of global capacity and biofuels capture seven percent of the market for road transportation fuels.

"Crossing the Divide and the CERA scenarios highlight that the future of clean energy can take several paths," said Lawrence Makovich, CERA vice president and senior advisor. "This demonstrates how important not only technology, but also well-crafted energy policy are to shaping the energy future."

The Crossing the Divide analysis combined the collective input of study participants with CERA's broad research capabilities and deep expertise in a range of energy segments and geographic regions to help gauge the expectations for clean energy and align them with reality. Highlights of each technology include the following:

-- Biofuels. Development of biofuels is rapidly growing around the world, driven by rising global oil prices and transportation demand. Support for biofuels is also driven by interest in promoting domestic agricultural sectors. Based on the state of current technologies, however, biofuels promise to displace a relatively small fraction of petroleum, owing to twin constraints:

competition for land with food crops and relatively high production costs. More petroleum could be displaced if next generation technology is developed that converts more plentiful nonfood biomass into fuel and expands the useable crop base, but significant cost and technology hurdles must first be overcome. Biotechnology may surprise and shine a light on the appropriate solutions.

-- Wind. Given its relatively low cost compared with other renewable power alternatives, wind is the leading renewable technology in power generation worldwide in terms of installed capacity. As favorable onshore resources are harnessed, the key to maintaining wind capacity growth will be movement to low-speed onshore sites and offshore wind development. The majority of all new wind capacity (approximately 80 percent) is expected to come online in Asia and Europe, with almost all of the remainder in North America.

-- Biomass. Europe continues to lead the way in biomass power growth for electric generation through its bioenergy policy initiatives. Cost-effective, dedicated biomass crops would create a breakthrough for this technology.

-- Geothermal power. Current trends indicate that new geothermal power projects should increase installed capacity by 50 percent or more in the next five years as the number of countries with geothermal power operations roughly doubles to over 40. Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), commonly known as "hot rocks," may hold the greatest potential for expanding the role of geothermal energy. EGS takes advantage of the heat locked in impermeable rock layers deep below the earth's surface through artificially created geothermal reservoirs. Although EGS technology shows great promise, it is still in a formative stage of development and must overcome a number of challenges before becoming a viable energy source.

-- Solar PV. Solar enjoys fast growth globally, with installations increasing from just over three GW in 1996 to 6.5 GW in 2006. Solar PV is primarily a decentralized source of power generation that produces electricity directly from sunlight without moving parts or the need for significant balance-of-plant equipment. It is versatile in terms of applications, ranging from integration in lighting products and building materials to modular power installations that provide power to the grid. Its versatility and falling manufacturing costs make solar PV attractive to the investment community looking for clean energy technologies with near-term market potential. Still, solar PV-generated electricity costs significantly more than conventional power generation and requires subsidies to compensate.

-- Concentrating solar power (CSP: 11.25, +0.07, +0.62%). CSP is a large-scale, centralized power production technology that concentrates sunlight to generate heat that is used to produce steam-generated electricity. Although solar PV is more widely known, CSP technologies are actually much less expensive and more appropriately sized for utility-scale generation. However, they still require subsidies in order to compete in the marketplace. Emerging CSP technologies can be equipped with thermal storage systems that reduce the impact of solar energy's intermittence.

-- Ocean. The enormous energy potential of ocean resources is unlikely to provide a significant contribution to world electricity supplies for the next few decades owing to the early-stage nature of the technology. Successful demonstration projects, cost reductions and policy development on standards for resource use will be required to advance the growth of ocean energy. However, successful projects could have an impact on a local level, and within the next half century a tidal power plant with a capacity as big as or bigger than the Hoover Dam or the Yangtze River Dam is possible.

-- Carbon capture and storage (CCS: 23.09, +0.14, +0.61%). Carbon capture and storage is a combination of technologies that holds promise of bringing fossil fuel combustion into the clean energy portfolio. If done on a large enough scale, capturing and effectively storing CO2 before it reaches the atmosphere could fundamentally alter the carbon footprint of conventional fossil fuels. Even in the best case, CCS is at least two decades away from large scale deployment. Carbon capture technology is likely to advance well ahead of storage technology. Technical hurdles to carbon capture will be addressed in technology trials over the next decade while the associated political, regulatory and legal issues are worked out.

-- Nuclear. Nuclear power is an important part of the world's current electricity mix, providing 15 percent of global power generation. Future prospects for new nuclear construction, buoyed by growing concerns over climate change and energy security, could support new nuclear build of up to 700 GW of installed capacity by 2030. However, many challenges lie ahead with regard to policy, capital costs, waste management -- and public opinion. There is always the risk of a major safety incident or a successful terrorist attack which could seriously impede the progress of nuclear power.

-- Hydropower. Many developing economies and power systems are following the path set by the developed economies and maximizing their domestic hydroelectric potential to support economic development. Like nuclear, hydropower currently provides a significant portion of global power generation (16 percent) and is also poised for growth over the next few decades. Particularly in developing economies in Asia and Latin America, up to 600 GW of new capacity could be added through 2030. Hydropower engenders controversy, however, based on the social displacement and environmental impacts associated with large-scale dams and reservoirs.

About CERA (www.cera.com)

World fells trees at ‘alarming’ rate, experts say

Scientists say global deforestation will feed global warming

ABO EBAM, Nigeria - In the gloomy shade deep in Africa's rain forest, the noontime silence was pierced by the whine of a far-off chain saw. It was the sound of destruction, echoed from wood to wood, continent to continent, in the tropical belt that circles the globe.

From Brazil to central Africa to once-lush islands in Asia's archipelagos, human encroachment is shrinking the world's rain forests.

The alarm was sounded decades ago by environmentalists — and was little heeded. The picture, meanwhile, has changed: Africa is now a leader in destructiveness. The numbers have changed: U.N. specialists estimate 60 acres of tropical forest are felled worldwide every minute, up from 50 a generation back. And the fears have changed.

Experts still warn of extinction of animal and plant life, of the loss of forest peoples' livelihoods, of soil erosion and other damage. But scientists today worry urgently about something else: the fateful feedback link of trees and climate.

Global warming is expected to dry up and kill off vast tracts of rain forest, and dying forests will feed global warming.

"If we lose forests, we lose the fight against climate change," declared more than 300 scientists, conservation groups, religious leaders and others in an appeal for action at December's climate conference in Bali, Indonesia.

The burning or rotting of trees that comes with deforestation — at the hands of ranchers, farmers, timbermen — sends more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than all the world's planes, trains, trucks and automobiles. Forest destruction accounts for about 20 percent of manmade emissions, second only to burning of fossil fuels for electricity and heat. Conversely, healthy forests absorb carbon dioxide and store carbon.

"The stakes are so dire that if we don't start turning this around in the next 10 years, the extinction crisis and the climate crisis will begin to spiral out of control," said Roman Paul Czebiniak, a forest expert with Greenpeace International. "It's a very big deal."

The December U.N. session in Bali may have been a turning point, endorsing negotiations in which nations may fashion the first global financial plan for compensating developing countries for preserving their forests.

The latest data from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) helped spur delegates to action.

"Deforestation continues at an alarming rate of about 13 million hectares (32 million acres) a year," the U.N. body said in its latest "State of the World's Forests" report.

Because northern forests remain essentially stable, that means 50,000 square miles of tropical forest are being cleared every 12 months _ equivalent to one Mississippi or more than half a Britain. The lumber and fuelwood removed in the tropics alone would fill more than 1,000 Empire State Buildings, FAO figures show.

Although South America loses slightly more acreage than Africa, the rate of loss is higher here _ almost 1 percent of African forests gone each year. In 2000-2005, the continent lost 10 million acres a year, including big chunks of forest in Sudan, Zambia and Tanzania, up from 9 million a decade earlier, the FAO reports.

Across the tropics the causes can be starkly different.

The Amazon and other South American forests are usually burned for cattle grazing or industrial-scale soybean farming. In Indonesia and elsewhere in southeast Asia, island forests are being cut or burned to make way for giant plantations of palm, whose oil is used in food processing, cosmetics and other products.

In Africa, by contrast, it's individuals hacking out plots for small-scale farming.

Here in Nigeria's southeastern Cross Rivers State, home to one of the largest remaining tropical forests in Africa, people from surrounding villages of huts and cement-block homes go to the forest each day to work their pineapple and cocoa farms. They see no other way of earning money to feed their families.

"The developed countries want us to keep the forests, since the air we breathe is for all of us, rich countries and poor countries," said Ogar Assam Effa, 54, a tree plantation director and member of the state conservation board.

"But we breathe the air, and our bellies are empty. Can air give you protein? Can air give you carbohydrates?" he asked. "It would be easy to convince people to stop clearing the forest if there was an alternative."

The state, which long ago banned industrial logging, is trying to offer alternatives.

to the source

Humans Force Earth into New Geologic Epoch

Humans have altered Earth so much that scientists say a new epoch in the planet's geologic history has begun.

Say goodbye to the 10,000-year-old Holocene Epoch and hello to the Anthropocene.

Among the major changes heralding this two-century-old man-made epoch:

Vastly altered sediment erosion and deposition patterns.
Major disturbances to the carbon cycle and global temperature.

Wholesale changes in biology, from altered flowering times to new migration patterns.

Acidification of the ocean, which threatens tiny marine life that forms the bottom of the food chain.

The idea, first suggested in 2000 by Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen, has gained steam with two new scientific papers that call for official recognition of the shift.

Vivid metaphor

In the February issue of the journal GSA Today, a publication of the Geological Society of America, Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams of the University of Leicester and colleagues at the Geological Society of London argue that industrialization has wrought changes that usher in a new epoch.

Scientists of the future will have no trouble deciding if the proposal was timely. All they'll need to do is dig into the planet and examine its stratigraphic layers, which reveal a chronology of the changing conditions that existed as each layer is created. Layers can reflect volcanic upheaval, ice ages or mass extinctions.

"Sufficient evidence has emerged of stratigraphically significant change (both elapsed and imminent) for recognition of the Anthropocene — currently a vivid yet informal metaphor of global environmental change — as a new geological epoch to be considered for formalization by international discussion," Zalasiewicz's team writes.

The paper calls on the International Commission on Stratigraphy to officially mark the shift.
In a separate paper last month in the journal Soil Science, researchers focused on soil infertility alone as a reason to dub this the Anthropocene Age. (The term "age" is sometimes used interchangeably with "epoch" or to indicate a transition period between epochs.)

As an example, they said, agriculture in Africa "has so degraded regional soil fertility that the economic development of whole nations will be diminished without drastic improvements of soil management."

"With more than half of all soils on Earth now being cultivated for food crops, grazed, or periodically logged for wood, how to sustain Earth’s soils is becoming a major scientific and policy issue," said Duke University soil scientist Daniel Richter.

Richter's work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Origin of a term

Earth's 4.5-billion-year history is divided into major eras, then periods and finally epochs. The Holocene Epoch began after the last Ice Age.

As early as the late 1800s scientists were writing about man's wholesale impact on the planet and the possibility of an "anthropozoic era" having begun, according to Crutzen, who is credited with coining the term Anthropocene (anthropo = human; cene = new) back in 2000. That year, Crutzen and a colleague wrote in the scientific newsletter International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme about some of the dramatic changes:

"Urbanization has ... increased tenfold in the past century. In a few generations mankind is exhausting the fossil fuels that were generated over several hundred million years."

Up to half of Earth's land has been transformed by human activity, wrote Crutzen and Eugene F. Stoermer of the University of Michigan. They also noted the dramatic increase in greenhouse gases and other chemicals and pollutants humans have introduced into global ecosystems.
The epochal idea has merit, according to geologist Richard Alley of Pennsylvania State University.

"In land, water, air, ice, and ecosystems, the human impact is clear, large, and growing,"Alley told ScienceNow, an online publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "A geologist from the far distant future almost surely would draw a new line, and begin using a new name, where and when our impacts show up."

original article

Hundreds of Scientists Call on Congress to Help Wildlife Survive Global Warming

January 29, 2008 -- WASHINGTON, DC – More than 600 prominent scientists from across the United States are calling on Congress to pass legislation that will curb America’s global warming pollution and help protect wildlife and other natural resources threatened by global warming. Spearheaded by some of America’s greatest scientific minds, including Harvard Professor E.O. Wilson, Thomas Lovejoy, Paul Ehrlich and Camille Parmesan, the scientists have sent a letter to Congress urging action.

“The science is irrefutable not only about the reality of climate change, but also that plant and animal species are already being harmed by it,” said Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, renowned conservation biologist and president of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment. “Alarming effects are already being observed in nature from mountaintops to the oceans, and from the equator to the polar regions. We have the choice to allow these effects to intensify or to move to avoid the more disastrous consequences for life on earth.”

“The precarious status of polar bears and their melting sea ice habitat in the Arctic is only the tip of the iceberg,” said Dr. Dan Svedarsky, president of The Wildlife Society, on behalf of its over 8,000 professional wildlife biologists. “It’s not just polar bears – wildlife across America are being impacted by global warming, including birds, butterflies, fish and mammals.”

“The science is clear that without major action to both reduce global warming pollution and to help wildlife survive global warming, species will suffer rapidly increasing extinction rates,” said Jeff Price, one of the authors of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (2007). “It is not too late, but we must take action now.”

The U.S. Senate is currently considering legislation that would begin to take the urgent actions these scientists say are necessary. The Climate Security Act, introduced in 2007 by Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and John Warner (R-VA), creates a market-based system that cuts global warming pollution and helps communities address the impacts of climate change.

“Global warming is an unprecedented challenge for wildlife, adding a host of new threats such as thawing permafrost, disappearing mountain snow pack, and the warming of rivers, lakes and estuaries,” said John Kostyack, executive director of wildlife and global warming at the National Wildlife Federation. “Senators Lieberman and Warner recognize the gravity of the threat and the necessity of timely and effective action. The Climate Security Act provides the best hope for saving wildlife at risk of extinction and for conserving ecosystems that are essential for both wildlife and people.”

Under the bill’s carbon cap-and-trade system, global warming pollution would be capped at levels that enable the U.S. to achieve 2 percent annual reductions through the middle of the century. Permits, also known as allowances, to release global warming pollution would be auctioned annually. Revenues from these auctions would be dedicated to various public purposes, including conservation of wildlife and other natural resources at risk from global warming.

During the first 19 years of the program the bill would raise an estimated $175 billion in revenue for wildlife and natural resource conservation. With this critically needed funding, managers of wildlife, land and water would be able to effectively utilize a number of tools at their disposal to protect and restore wildlife and ecosystems harmed by global warming. The bill would provide substantial investments to state and federal agencies to reduce non-climate stressors on ecosystems, prevent and control invasive species, and protect coastal wetlands and address the impacts of sea level rise, all of which will help wildlife survive the pressures of global warming.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change points to droughts, wildfires, flooding and intensified storms as consequences of unchecked global warming. Both people and wildlife are at risk from these impacts. Investing in the conservation of wildlife and natural resources will directly benefit Americans whose jobs, health and quality of life depend on maintaining natural ecosystems. The letter emphasizes that “global warming represents, by far, the greatest threat ever posed to the planet’s living resources, which provide the foundation of our economy and quality of life.”

“Salmon and trout are among our most vulnerable species and their protection in the face of a rapidly changing climate demands strong actions,” said Helen Neville, research scientist with Trout Unlimited. “Trout Unlimited urges Congress to enact legislation reducing global warming pollution and funding conservation of fish and wildlife threatened by global warming.”

The signers are hoping to convey to Congress “our sense of urgency. Global warming is already causing serious damage and disruptions to wildlife and ecosystems, and reliable projections call for significant additional damage and disruptions. To fulfill the nation’s longstanding commitment to conserving abundant wildlife and healthy ecosystems for future generations, Congress must craft legislation that greatly reduces global warming pollution and generates substantial dedicated funding to protect and restore wildlife and ecosystems harmed by global warming.”

The Lieberman-Warner bill is expected to come to a full Senate vote within the next several months.

See the full list of signers


click to download and view scientists letter


Source: National Wildlife Federation



original article

Pumping pollution beneath the desert

World's oil companies will be carefully watching Abu Dhabi's plan to capture carbon emissions underground

Abu Dhabi is planning to construct the world's largest carbon capture and storage project, as part of the oil-rich emirate's $15-billion (U.S.) bid to become a leader in clean technology and renewable energy.

While countries around the world are wrestling with the daunting economics of carbon sequestration, Abu Dhabi is planning to invest up to $4-billion to capture as much as 15 million tonnes of CO{-2} annually from eight industrial plants, and then inject the gas underground to enhance oil recovery.

Once injected, it is expected that the greenhouse gas will remain sequestered underground indefinitely.

The effort is being spearheaded by Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co., a state-owned company that has been endowed with $15-billion to spend on carbon management programs, alternative power sources such as solar and energy-from-waste, and a model, zero-emission city that would be powered by renewables.

It is all part of the emirate's effort to invest its vast and growing oil wealth in new technologies that will broaden its economic base, while meeting international commitments to begin reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Though other countries have individual carbon capture projects - including one run by EnCana Corp. in southern Saskatchewan that is the world's largest - none has moved beyond single, isolated endeavours. As a result, oil companies from around the world will be watching the effort to determine whether a carbon-capture network can be economically viable.

In Alberta, where massive oil sands development is raising fears about rapidly rising greenhouse gas emissions, the federal and provincial governments have indicated a willingness to help finance a pipeline that would deliver CO{-2} to oil fields for use in enhanced recovery. However, industry officials say the gathering system represents a small fraction of the cost - the biggest expense is the effort to capture carbon dioxide from the emissions stream.

With Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. doing feasibility work, the Abu Dhabi project - known as Masdar - has identified eight sources of CO{-2}, including power plants and refineries. It initially plans to proceed with the "low hanging fruit" from four of them, said Sam Nader, the project's director of carbon management.

Masdar, established in 2006, is working with state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. - which produces virtually all of the emirate's 2.5 million barrels of crude per day - to identify oil fields that would benefit from CO{-2} injection to enhance oil recovery.

"This is a win-win situation for us," Mr. Nader said in a telephone interview from Abu Dhabi. "We get the environmental benefit from capturing the CO{-2}, and also enhance oil production."

As one of the world's most prolific oil producers, Abu Dhabi is also a major emitter of greenhouse gases - third in the world on a per capita basis after neighbours Qatar and Kuwait.

In addition to the revenue generated by replacing the natural gas that is currently used to enhance oil production, the Abu Dhabi company will profit from the sale of emission credits generated by the reduction in greenhouse gases.

SNC-Lavalin principal consultant Doug Macdonald presented the preliminary results of the feasibility study at an energy futures conference hosted by Abu Dhabi last week. He told the conference that up to six of the eight projects can be implemented in a "relatively short" amount of time, Bloomberg News reported.

"Our mandate is to act as an agent for promoting sustainability in this part of the world," Mr. Nader said. "The Middle East has been a laggard in terms of adapting to a carbon-constrained world, but we believe we can catch up."

As part of that overall $15-billion announced last week, Masdar Clean Tech Fund is investing $250-million in renewable energy and other clean technologies that would be appropriate for the desert conditions of the region.

Masdar fund manager Alex O'Cinneide said in an interview that he is looking for a commercial rate of return on the investments in industries like solar and energy-from-waste. But at the same time, the company is investing in technology "that can be scaled up for Masdar to deploy in the region."

Those technologies will then be featured in Masdar City, a planned six-kilometre-square development that the emirate unveiled last week. It will feature zero greenhouse gas emissions, zero waste, with no cars allowed. The emirate is also partnering with Massachusetts Institute of Technology to establish in the city a graduate level program in clean-tech engineering.

The urban centre, with a projected population of 47,500, will include an electric light-rail system, a solar-power plant and a desalination plant, with wastewater being used to grow plants for biofuels. Construction is to begin next month, and residents are to begin moving in next year.
Mr. O'Cinneide said the Abu Dhabi commitment is unprecedented for any government.

"There are plenty of funds our size," he said. "But from an all-encompassing perspective - building cities, building universities, building a manufacturing base - there's nothing like it," he said.

the source

Is Congress Finally Ready to Go Green?

As concern over global warming became more and more prominent in the U.S. over the past several years — in the media, in opinion polls, in business and in state governments — the one place where the issue seemed all but invisible was the one place that could really do something about it: Congress. But that began to change in 2007, and nowhere more so than in the Senate's key committee on the environment and public works, which drafts much of the country's environmental legislation. Up until last January, the committee was chaired by Alaskan Sen. James Inhofe, a Republican who memorably called global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." When the Democrats took over Congress in the 2006 midterm elections, however, the chairperson's gavel was handed over to Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, and the floodgates opened. Boxer began a series of open hearings on the science of global warming, giving airtime to the sort of experts — including former Vice President Al Gore — who had been suppressed under Inhofe. "As soon as the change took place, I realized that this was going to be one of my number one goals," says Boxer. "Elections have consequences, and this was one of the consequences."

Hours and hours of hearings finally led to a legislative breakthrough in December: the passage out of the committee of the first bill that would put carbon caps on the U.S. economy. Co-sponsored by the Republican Sen. John Warner and the Independent Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the America's Climate Security Act would cap U.S. carbon emissions at 15% below 2005 levels by 2020, with a 70% cut projected for 2050. If enacted, those carbon caps would all but force U.S. businesses to invest in cleaner technology and greater energy efficiency, and would help the country take a leadership role in international climate negotiations.

Similar bills had been put forward over the past several years, only to die in committee. This time, however, Boxer was able to help pull together not only Democrats but also several Republicans on the committee, ensuring relatively bipartisan support. That's key — given how narrowly divided Congress has become, meaningful climate change legislation only has a chance if its supporters can draw allies from across the political aisle. Boxer is confident she can. "The environment has been an issue that has pulled together Republicans and Democrats in the past," she says. "Everyone has to breathe the same air."

The Climate Security Act has passed the first barrier to becoming law, but the road is only going to get tougher. To have a chance in the Senate, the bill needs at least 60 votes — anything less, and opponents can stop it with a filibuster. That will require winning over more conservative Senators, while at the same time ensuring the bill doesn't become so watered down that it loses all effectiveness. And even if the bill were to pass the Senate, and then the House of Representatives, it still has to make it through President George W. Bush, who has shown little inclination to support it. Bush favors what he calls technological solutions to global warming, but without the pressure of carbon caps. "That's like saying let's meet at the field and play baseball, but you don't bring a mitt or a ball," says Boxer. "You can't play the game."

Critics like Bush tend to focus on the economic costs of reducing carbon emissions — through increased energy prices — but Boxer, and many of her supporters, believe that combating climate change can have a net positive effect on the economy. Boxer hails from California, which has already passed the strongest state legislation on climate change, cutting carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Far from hurting the state economically, Boxer notes, the carbon bill has helped California become the center for green innovation in the U.S., with Silicon Valley venture capitalists pouring billions into alternative energy start-ups. Those businesses will create new, green jobs that should make up for the short-term costs of cutting carbon. "The cure for global warming is positive," says Boxer. "That makes it easy for me to approach it with hope."

Emphasizing the hope, the positive possibilities of dealing with climate change, should also help Boxer broaden the appeal of the Climate Security Act. Americans are worried about global warming, but they're also worried about Iraq, the economy and health care. Make global warming into an economic issue, or an issue of national security, not just an environmental one, and there's a better chance of achieving broad, bipartisan support. Not all environmentalists are happy with the Climate Security Act — it has been criticized by the Sierra Club, among other groups, as too weak. While it could be tightened, the reality is that only a moderate bill is likely to pass soon, and with science telling us that we may have less than 15 years to turn around carbon emissions, we can't afford to hold out for a perfect law. "The longer we wait to do what we need to do, the harder the transition will be," says Boxer. "We're running out of time." She's absolutely right, but at least Congress is no longer standing still.

to the source

Lawyers Push for Energy Conservation

David White Jr. doesn't fit the mold of an environmentalist.

An attorney and partner in the Boston firm of Breakstone, White and Gluck, White is more comfortable in a suit and tie than tie-dye.

Before joining the Massachusetts bar, however, White was a student at the University of Vermont, where he received a degree in environmental studies. After graduation, he spent three years working as an environmental advocate for the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.

Now the president of the Massachusetts Bar Association, White is putting his environmental pedigree to use, leading the industry group in a push to encourage lawyers to be more environmentally friendly.

Called the Lawyers Eco Challenge, the program urges lawyers to sign an "environmental pledge" to take steps to implement a set of green guidelines drafted by the association.

"It's not a whimsy, it's a real concern," White said this week, of promoting "green lawyers." "The why of it is we all have a duty to fight global warming and protecting environmental resources, and one way we can definitely do that is by reducing our energy usage."

Taking even simple steps to reduce energy usage, like turning off lights or installing motion-activated lights in law offices, turning off computers and other electronics, reducing paper use and increasing recycling, White said, can have dramatic impacts.

Read more about green guidelines

"What we've done in my office is...we took out all incandescent bulbs and replaced them with compact fluorescents," White said. "We put the common areas on motion sensors, and we've just adopted good habits about turning off equipment that's not being used."

Those few steps, he said, combined with a plan to replace traditional fluorescent bulbs with the super-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs should cut the firm's energy use by as much as 25 percent.

"I'm pretty confident most firms around the state can do the same thing," he said. "We want to be an example for other businesses around the state. If lawyers can do it, accountants can do it, and insurance people can do it."

White's sentiment already seems to be catching on.

Barely a day after the Eco Challenge campaign was unveiled this week, more than two dozens lawyers and law firms had signed the online pledge. By week's end, more than 30 had signed up.

"My desire to go green started with my daughter" Rachel, said Alan Klevan, of the Wellesley firm Klevan and Klevan. "She's in middle school, and over the past several months she's become very environmentally conscious."

Spurred by his daughter and his work with the MBA's Law Practice Management Section, Klevan uses technology like document scanners to cut back on the amount of paper his office uses.

"I personally believe I'm 50 to 60 percent there," he said, of his goal of a paperless office.

"Lawyers have been so focused on their practice of law and doing right by their clients, they're not understanding the idea that there's other means out there to represent their clients as efficiently, if not better."

Even for lawyers who already consider themselves "green," the guidelines have been eye-opening.

"I've gotten all kinds of new ideas from this group," Sudbury attorney Susan Crane, who served on the MBA task force which helped draw up the guidelines, said this week.

"I've done a whole lot, but I could always do more, and I think we all could," she added. "A lot of lawyers focus on the environment and energy - this seemed like something we should be doing so our clients can model our behavior, and send a message out there that we're all trying.

"Lawyers need to be doing this. We can't just be taking on causes for others and forget what we're doing ourselves."

"For us, it was something that made a lot of sense, because it makes a good statement," said Tim Borchers, senior partner at Borchers, Ware and Guglielmo, which has offices in Medway and Franklin. "Every profession ought to have some kind of commitment to cutting back on the use of resources."

Like Klevan, Borchers is exploring the notion of the paperless office, and said the firm may purchase equipment and software to help cut back on paper usage.

"In our business, paper is king," he said. "We do a lot of printing. One thing we're actually studying right now is the impact of printing on both sides of the paper."

The firm has also urged employees to turn computer monitors off at night, switches to energy saving light bulbs and is upgrading its office to use programmable thermostats.

The idea of the challenge, though, isn't to mandate lawyers or law firms follow the MBA's strict rules on environmental awareness.

"It's more about planning," said Nancy Reiner, who co-chaired the task force. "The idea is just to get people and lawyers and law firms thinking about it.

"When you have a can, don't just throw it in the garbage. If we all, if a lot of firms do work to save energy, then it will have an impact."

"It's very exciting," said Philip Warburg, president of the Conservation Law Foundation, the MBA's partner in the Eco Challenge, of the commitment from lawyers and law firms. "I think that we are encouraging leaders in the Massachusetts professional community to walk the walk about climate change and other environmental practices they can show leadership on.

"It's a process of both thinking differently, and acting differently. We're not asking people to somehow reduce their efficiency on the job, or cutting into their profit margin. It's simply saying here are responsible choices you can make that can help us address a problem we can no longer afford to ignore."

to the source

Tempers Rise as Climate Talks Stall; UN Official Sheds Tears

Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) -- The head of the United Nations' climate unit walked out of global warming talks in Bali, Indonesia in tears, as tempers flared among nations wrangling over the terms of a new climate change treaty.

Talks aimed at setting a negotiating agenda leading to a new international treaty on fighting global warming to replace the Kyoto Protocol were suspended twice after China and India objected to some of the language in the draft document.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, left the auditorium in tears after China's delegation demanded to know why the session had twice been started while separate talks were ongoing elsewhere.

``The secretariat was not aware that meetings were going on elsewhere,'' de Boer said, before closing the book in front of him and walking off stage. He returned about 15 minutes later.

Tempers rose during an earlier session when Sun Guoshun, a member of the Chinese negotiating team, told the plenary meeting: ``I'm not sure whether the secretariat is our secretariat, and I would like to ask for an apology.''

De Boer was then heard to say ``I have been offended now,'' before Witoelar suspended the session a second time.

Talks overran yesterday's deadline and carried on into the early hours as delegates tried to reach a compromise. The European Union and developing nations clashed with the U.S. over language outlining greenhouse-gas emissions reduction targets for industrialized countries and possible commitments by developing nations such as China and India.

`Game of Chicken'

``It's a big game of chicken right now,'' said Andrew Deutz, senior policy adviser for UN affairs at the Nature Conservancy. ``The U.S. doesn't want to move unless they know India and China are going to move, and India and China of course don't want to move until the U.S. does.''

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon canceled a speech in Jakarta today to stay in Bali and push for a compromise.

``This has been a tough set of negotiations,'' said Australian Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, the co-chair of the Bali negotiations. ``We were cautiously optimistic last night about the progress that was being made, unfortunately that progress has not continued this morning. But we are still attempting to proceed to a negotiated resolution.''

Delegates resumed today for a plenary session designed to adopt all decisions made during the two-week conference and set a deadline for a new climate accord. When he came to the contentious document, Witoelar, the president of the conference, urged delegates to ``exercise leadership'' and accept the text.

EU Agrees

Portugal, speaking for the EU, agreed to the document, before India, speaking on behalf of the G77 group of developing nations, and then China, objected to language describing efforts developing nations should take, forcing the session into recess. The meeting resumed after a 100-minute pause, and the fractious exchange led to a second halt.

``When the ministers broke up last night there were two options'' for the disputed text, Prodipto Ghosh, an adviser to the Indian delegation, told reporters after the meeting was suspended for the second time. ``Our understanding was both would be available for discussion in the plenary. The president in his wisdom chose one option,'' he said, referring to Witoelar.

``Our minister would prefer the second option.''

At issue are two paragraphs in the so-called Bali Roadmap for a new climate treaty that calls for ``commitments or actions'' from all developed countries to reduce emissions blamed for global warming. Developing countries should take ``appropriate mitigation actions,'' according to the text.

``The Americans would like the two paragraphs to look as much alike as possible and the Indians want them to look as different as possible,'' said David Doniger, former head of climate policy at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and now climate policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. He spoke in an interview in Bali.

`Not Good Enough'

The U.S. succeeded in its aim to have removed from the preamble of the text a statement that developed nations should slash emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020. Instead, a footnote was placed, referencing passages in reports by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that call for emissions cuts of as low as 10 percent in the same period. That left some delegates unhappy.

``An ordinary person picking up the text will then have to follow the reference and find it on page seven hundred and whatever it is,'' Grenadian Ambassador Angus Friday, a spokesman for 39 small island states, told reporters early today in Bali. ``That's not good enough.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Alex Morales in Nusa Dua at amorales2@bloomberg.net ; Kim Chipman in Nusa Dua, Indonesia, at kchipman@bloomberg.net .

Worldwide Shift from Incandescents to Compact Fluorescents

On February 20, 2007, Australia announced it would phase out the sale of inefficient incandescent light bulbs by 2010, replacing them with highly efficient compact fluorescent bulbs that use one fourth as much electricity. If the rest of the world joins Australia in this simple step to sharply cut carbon emissions, the worldwide drop in electricity use would permit the closing of more than 270 coal-fired (500 megawatt) power plants. For the United States, this bulb switch would facilitate shutting down 80 coal-fired plants.

The good news is that the world may be approaching a social tipping point in this shift to efficient light bulbs. On April 25, 2007, just two months after Australia’s announcement, the Canadian government announced it would phase out sales of incandescents by 2012. Mounting concerns about climate change are driving the bulb replacement movement.

In mid-March, a U.S. coalition of environmental groups—including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Alliance to Save Energy, the American Coalition for an Energy-Efficient Economy, and the Earth Day Network—along with Philips Lighting launched an initiative to shift to the more-efficient bulbs in all of the country’s estimated 4 billion sockets by 2016.

In California, the most populous state, Assemblyman Lloyd Levine is proposing that his state phase out the sale of incandescent light bulbs by 2012, four years ahead of the coalition’s deadline. Levine calls his proposed law the “How Many Legislators Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb Act.” On the East Coast, the New Jersey legislature is on the verge of requiring state government buildings to replace all incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents by 2010 as part of a broader statewide effort to promote the shift to more-efficient lighting. (See additional initiatives.)

The European Union, now numbering 27 countries, announced in March 2007 that it plans to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2020. Part of this cut will be achieved by replacing incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents. In the United Kingdom, a nongovernmental group called Ban the Bulb has been vigorously pushing for a ban on incandescents since early 2006. Further east, Moscow is urging residents to switch to compact fluorescents. In New Zealand, Climate Change Minister, David Parker, has announced that his country may take similar measures to those adopted by Australia.

In April, Greenpeace urged the government of India to ban incandescents in order to cut carbon emissions. Since roughly 640 million of the 650 million bulbs sold each year in this fast-growing economy are incandescents, the potential for cutting carbon emissions, reducing air pollution, and saving consumers money is huge.

At the industry level, Philips, the world’s largest lighting manufacturer, has announced plans to discontinue marketing incandescents in Europe and the United States by 2016. More broadly, the European Lamp Companies Federation (the bulb manufacturers’ trade association) is supporting a rise in EU lighting efficiency standards that would lead to a phase-out of incandescent bulbs.

At the commercial level, Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, announced a marketing campaign in November 2006 to boost its sales of compact fluorescents to 100 million by the end of 2007, more than doubling its annual sales. In the U.K., Currys, Britain’s largest electrical retail chain, has announced that it will discontinue selling incandescent light bulbs.

Switching light bulbs is an easy way of realizing large immediate gains in energy efficiency. A study for the U.S. government calculated that the gasoline equivalent of the energy saved over the lifetime of one 24 watt compact fluorescent bulb is sufficient to drive a Prius from New York to San Francisco. While a worldwide phase out of the inefficient incandescents would reduce world electricity use by more than 3 percent, shifting to more-efficient street lighting and replacing older fluorescent tubes with newer, more-efficient ones might double this reduction in power use.

Although highly efficient compact fluorescent bulbs have been around for a generation, they have until recently been on the fringe, used only by environmentally-minded consumers and typically sold in hardware stores, but not in supermarkets. One reason consumers lacked interest was that the new bulbs can cost five times as much as incandescents. Only the more knowledgeable consumers knew that a compact fluorescent bulb uses only one fourth as much electricity as an incandescent bulb, lasts 10 times as long, and easily saves $50 during its lifetime.

One disadvantage of compact fluorescents is that each bulb contains a small amount of mercury, roughly one fifth the amount in a watch battery. This mercury is only a small fraction of that released into the atmosphere by the additional coal burned to power an incandescent.

Mercury released by coal-fired power plants is the principal reason why 44 of the 50 states in the United States have issued mercury intake advisories limiting the consumption of fish from freshwater streams and lakes. Nonetheless, worn-out compact fluorescents, watch batteries, and other items that contain mercury still need to be recycled properly. Fortunately, this is possible, whereas the mercury spewing from coal smokestacks blankets the countryside, ending up in the water and food supply.

Shifting to the highly efficient bulbs sharply reduces monthly electricity bills and cuts carbon emissions, since each standard (13 watt) compact fluorescent over its lifetime reduces coal use by more than 210 pounds. Such a shift also substantially reduces air pollution, making it obviously attractive for fast-growing economies plagued with bad air like China and India.

In the United States, an ingenious website called 18seconds.org (the name derives from the time it takes to change a light bulb), provides a running tally of compact fluorescents sold nationwide since January 1, 2007. As of early May, it totaled nearly 37 million bulbs, yielding a reduction in carbon emissions comparable to taking 260,000 cars off the road. Sponsored by Yahoo! and Nielson, the site also provides data on how many dollars are being saved and how much less coal is burned. Data are available on the website for each state, providing a convenient way of monitoring local progress in replacing incandescents.

The challenge for each of us, of course, is to shift to compact fluorescents in our own homes if we have not already. But far more important, we need to contact our elected representatives at the city, provincial, or state level and at the national level to introduce legislation to raise lighting efficiency standards, in effect phasing out inefficient incandescent light bulbs. Few things can cut carbon emissions faster than this simple step.

In a world facing almost daily new evidence of global warming and its consequences, there is a need for a quick decisive victory in the effort to cut carbon emissions and stabilize climate. If we can engineer a rapid phase-out of incandescent light bulbs it would provide just such a victory, generating momentum for even greater advances in climate stabilization.

# # #

Lester R. Brown is President of the Earth Policy Institute and author of Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble.

Note: This shift to compact fluorescent light bulbs is one of a dozen or so measures to cut world carbon emissions 80 percent by 2020 to be outlined in the forthcoming book Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization by Lester R. Brown.
Copyright © 2007 Earth Policy Institute

Climate change disaster is upon us, warns UN

A record number of floods, droughts and storms around the world this year amount to a climate change "mega disaster", the United Nation's emergency relief coordinator, Sir John Holmes, has warned.

Sir John, a British diplomat who is also known as the UN's under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said dire predictions about the impact of global warming on humanity were already coming true.

"We are seeing the effects of climate change. Any year can be a freak but the pattern looks pretty clear to be honest. That's why we're trying ... to say, of course you've got to deal with mitigation of emissions, but this is here and now, this is with us already," he said.

As a measure of the worsening situation, Ocha, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - part of the UN secretariat that employs Sir John - has issued 13 emergency "flash" appeals so far this year. The number is three more than in 2005, which held the previous record.

Two years ago only half the international disasters dealt with by Ocha had anything to do with the climate; this year all but one of the 13 emergency appeals is climate-related. "And 2007 is not finished. We will certainly have more by the end of the year, I fear," added Sir John, who is in charge of channelling international relief efforts to disaster areas.

More appeals were likely in the coming weeks, as floods hit west Africa. "All these events on their own didn't have massive death tolls, but if you add all these little disasters together you get a mega disaster," he said.

The only one of this year's emergency appeals not connected to the climate was an earthquake in Peru, in August. The others arose after an unprecedented string of catastrophic floods across much of Africa, south Asia and North Korea, and followed severe drought in southern Africa, Nicaragua's category-five hurricane, and extreme climate conditions in Bolivia, which brought both drought and floods.

The Ocha appeals represent the tip of an iceberg since they are launched only with the agreement of the affected country. India was badly affected by floods that hit the rest of the Asian region in July. But unlike its neighbour, Pakistan, India did not call on the UN for help.

Ocha believes that 66 million people were made homeless or were otherwise affected across south Asia. The lives of several million more people were turned upside down across Africa. Sudan, Mozambique, Madagascar, Zambia and Uganda experienced disastrous floods, and Swaziland and Lesotho declared emergencies because of severe drought that reduced harvests by half.

The latest appeal from Ocha was launched yesterday, to try to raise emergency relief funds for Ghana, where more than 400,000 people are reported to be homeless as a result of flooding. Appeals may also be started for Togo and Burkina Faso.

"The flooding in Africa just now is the worst anyone can remember," Sir John said, expressing frustration at how little media attention in the west was being devoted to what he terms creeping climatic catastrophe.

Flooding is likely to be common for a warming planet, and climate change has a double effect - causing an increase in the frequency of storms, while higher atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide curb the ability of plants to draw groundwater.

A climate-change summit is to be held in Bali in December, with the aim of agreeing the principles of a new international treaty to replace Kyoto, the accord that expires in 2012. But the talks face determined US opposition to mandatory emissions targets, and most climate negotiators doubt a real breakthrough can be achieved before the Bush government leaves office in 2009.

Sir John argues that whatever is done on greenhouse gas emissions, money has to be spent now on mitigating the impact that climate change is already having. "You can't actually stop disasters happening but you can do a lot to reduce their impact and reduce people's vulnerability to them by making sure people don't live on the coast or river plains, and that roads are raised and dams are in reasonable shape."

According to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is leading research on the issue, global warming will disrupt and potentially devastate the lives of billions of people.
And, just as global warming starts to make itself felt, there are signs that "donor fatigue" has set in. Of about $338m (£166m) requested for Ocha's 13 flash appeals this year, only $114m has so far come from donors.

The Guardian

Bush Moves on Climate Change

White House officials say a series of developments has stirred President Bush's new push for international action to limit global warming.

Bush advisers say that he has been sensitive to the issue from the start of his presidency but that the media haven't given him credit for it. As a result, he has been at odds with the punditocracy over climate change since early in his first term.

White House officials say a big part of the media bias derived from Bush's rejection of the international Kyoto Protocol mandating actions to limit carbon emissions—a plan that many media observers endorsed. But Bush concluded that the protocol would have seriously damaged the U.S. economy and would have been unfair to American consumers. Bush believes that economic growth and a reduction of carbon emissions can go hand in hand.

It's only recently, however, that several additional factors have emerged, pushing him take a more active role on climate change. He started to do this very visibly last week when he convened a conference in Washington of the world's 16 biggest greenhouse gas emitters. At the conference, Bush called climate change one of the "great challenges of our time." This comment struck his critics as remarkable since he has barely mentioned the issue in recent months and has expressed doubt that scientists have proved that human activity is causing the global warming problem.

But as he approaches his eighth year in office, Bush has gotten more aggressive in trying to shape his legacy. He still calls for voluntary measures, not mandatory action. But he is confident that new technology can deliver improvements relatively painlessly. His thinking, aides say, was also shaped by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which called for strong international action.

And Bush is heartened that public opinion may be turning around at home on nuclear power, which he supports as a clean energy source. He has told aides he is pleased that an American company has finally shown a serious interest in building a new nuclear power plant after many years of inaction.

—Kenneth T. Walsh

New study finds sea change in Americans' views on Climate Change

A growing number of Americans consider global warming an important threat that calls for drastic action, and 40% say that a presidential candidate's position on the issue will strongly influence how they vote, according to a national survey conducted by Yale University, Gallup and the ClearVision Institute.

One of the most surprising findings was the growing sense of urgency, said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change and the study's principal investigator. Nearly half of Americans now believe that global warming is either already having dangerous impacts on people around the world or will in the next 10 years - a 20-percentage-point increase since 2004. These results indicate a sea change in public opinion.

'When do you think global warming will start to have dangerous impacts on people around the world - is it having dangerous impacts now, will it have dangerous impacts in 10 years, in 25 years, in 50 years, in 100 years, or will it never have dangerous impacts?'The survey's findings further include:

62% percent of respondents believe that life on earth will continue without major disruptions only if society takes immediate and drastic action to reduce global warming.

68% of Americans support a new international treaty requiring the United States to cut its emissions of carbon dioxide 90 percent by the year 2050. Yet, Leiserowitz notes, the United States has yet to sign the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty that would require the United States to cut its emissions 7 percent by the year 2012.

A surprising 40% of respondents say a presidential candidate's position on global warming will be either extremely important (16 percent) or very important (24 percent) when casting their ballots. With the presidential primaries and general election near, candidates should recognize that global warming has become an important issue for the electorate.

85% of those polled support requiring automakers to increase the fuel efficiency of cars, trucks and SUVs to 35 miles per gallon, even if it meant a new car would cost up to $500 more; and 82 percent support requiring electric utilities to produce at least 20 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources, even if it cost the average household an extra $100 a year.

50% of respondents say they are personally worried - 15 percent say a 'great deal' - about global warming.Many Americans, however, believe that global warming is a very serious threat to other species, people and places far away, said Leiserowitz, but not so serious of a threat to themselves, their own families or local communities. Nonetheless, they do strongly support a number of national and international policies to address this problem:

energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: fossil fuels :: climate change :: global warming :: carbon tax :: Kyoto Protocol :: United States ::

The survey was conducted July 23-26, 2007, using telephone interviews with 1,011 adults, aged 18-plus. Respondents came from Gallup's household panel, which was originally recruited through random selection methods. The final sample is considered to be representative of U.S. adults nationwide, with a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

The Yale Project on Climate Change at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies supports public discourse and engagement with climate-change solutions.Gallup, Inc., headquartered in Washington, D.C., is one of the world's leading research companies focusing on studying human nature and behavior. The Gallup Poll has been monitoring U.S. public opinion since 1935, and Gallup now tracks public opinion in over 100 countries worldwide on an ongoing basis.

The ClearVision Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to applying entertainment education as a social-change strategy to address climate change through U.S. commercial television.References:Yale University, Gallup, ClearVision Institute: American Opinions on Global Warming [*.pdf].