Managing director of Ebono Institute and major sponsor of The Generator, Geoff Ebbs, is running against Kevin Rudd in the seat of Griffith at the next Federal election. By the expression on their faces in this candid shot it looks like a pretty dull campaign. Read on
UK overseas aid ignoring small scale agriculture Ecologist 3rd February, 2010 Department for International Development (DfID) accused of failing to support long-term agricultural programmes and being obsessed with an ‘industrial model’ of food production MPs have criticised the Department for International Development (DfID) for overseeing a decline in support for agriculture in international development and Continue Reading →
• Government will claim CO2 fall helps meet 2020 targets
• Experts say fall is only due to recession and energy prices
The government claims a small drop in carbon emissions since 2008 help meets its 2020 targets, but experts cite the recession and high energy prices as the main reason. Photograph: Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images
The government is expected to confirm tomorrow that emissions of greenhouse gases fell by a modest amount in 2008 compared to the previous year. Ministers are likely to try to portray the figures as evidence that the UK is on the right track to meeting its targets to cut emissions by over a third by 2020 compared to 1990 levels.
UN hails ‘important step’, but 137 nations yet to make promise
UN climate chief Yvo de Boer walks past members of an environmentalist group during the Copenhagen climate change conference in December 2009. Photograph: Miguel Villagran/Getty Images
Fifty-five countries have formally pledged to cut or limit their emissions in a move welcomed by the UN’s climate change body as an important step towards achieving a legally binding global agreement.
They include the US, all EU countries and China, as well as major emerging economies such as Brazil, Indonesia and India. The 55 nations between them emit 78% of the world’s greenhouse gases. But, significantly, the group includes only Brazil from South America, and just six out of 55 African countries. In all, 137 countries have not made pledges. Independent analyses indicate the pledges as they stand are about half of what is required to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
UK Government nuclear consultation ‘farcical’, say locals Ecologist 29th January, 2010 Local residents say they have been ‘insulted’ rather than ‘consulted’ over Government plans for new nuclear power stations Local campaign groups have given a damning verdict on Government engagement with local communities over its plans for new nuclear power stations and have called for Continue Reading →
President Obama pledges to help pass ‘comprehensive’ climate change law, but also backed nuclear power and drilling
Barack Obama put himself firmly behind the effort to get a climate change bill through Congress last night – but said it must include a new generation of nuclear power.
The brief passage on energy and climate in Obama’s state of the union address did deliver the signal Congress and much of the world had been seeking that the White House is ready to throw itself into the effort to pass legislation.
The unwillingness of scientists at the University of East Anglia to release climate data to people who choose not to believe in climate change was a mistake. Science advances through openness, through the ability of others to replicate the same findings or demonstrate error in discovery and interpretation. Reluctance to disclose – revealed last week in the wake of the release of private email exchanges between climate researchers – invites suspicion. The hacked email exchanges were an embarrassment, and the refusal to disclose data was a bad call, but neither episode casts much doubt upon the science of global warming. The evidence for climate change driven by man-made discharges of greenhouse gases is now decades old, has been independently confirmed by researchers all over the world, and is – as the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, said yesterday – overwhelming.