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Rupert Murdoch may own a hybrid car but he’s found an even more carbon-neutral way of getting to work: walking. Plenty of footprints, none of them carbon. He walked to work, even if it was only a short stroll from Fifth Avenue to Sixth, where News Corp headquarters are located, on the day he announced Continue Reading →
The UN has warned that greenhouse gas emissions will have to start falling by 2015 (Reuters) |
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Nations must get greenhouse gases to start declining by 2015 to avoid the most destructive effects of climate change, United Nations experts say in a new set of global warming recommendations.
The report came after a week of marathon negotiations in Bangkok, as countries haggled over recommendations on how to tackle global warming, with China leading efforts to blame rich nations for the crisis.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN’s leading authority on the subject, said greenhouse gas emissions should peak in 2015 and then fall by 50 to 85 per cent below 2000 levels.
That would limit global warming to 2.0-2.4 degrees Celsius, generally recognised by experts as the threshold at which some of the most extreme impacts of climate change will begin.
Science Daily — Arctic sea ice that has been dwindling for several decades may have reached a tipping point that could trigger a cascade of climate change reaching into Earth’s temperate regions, says a new University of Colorado at Boulder study.
Mark Serreze, a senior research scientist at CU-Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Center who led the study synthesizing results from recent research, said the Arctic sea-ice extent trend has been negative in every month since 1979, when concerted satellite record keeping efforts began. The team attributed the loss of ice, about 38,000 square miles annually as measured each September, to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases and strong natural variability in Arctic sea ice.
"When the ice thins to a vulnerable state, the bottom will drop out and we may quickly move into a new, seasonally ice-free state of the Arctic," Serreze said. "I think there is some evidence that we may have reached that tipping point, and the impacts will not be confined to the Arctic region."
Lachlan Murdoch and Noel Pearson in Howard govt taskforce to examine how to shift nation’s food bowl from drought-ravaged south to northern Australia
According to The Australian, (02/05/2007, p.6), Lachlan Murdoch, a director of News Corporation, owner of The Australian, and Noel Pearson, an indigenous leader and director of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership were among other prominent figures appointed to a Howard government taskforce charged with examining how to shift the nation’s food bowl from the drought-ravaged south to northern Australia.
Taskforce on land and water development: Howard had appointed a Northern Australia Land and Water Taskforce – headed by his close associate, Senator Bill Heffernan – to examine opportunities to develop further land and water development in a more heavily populated deep north. The taskforce will advise the Government on all water sources in northern Australia, including the Fitzroy River catchment and Gulf of Carpentaria drainage area.
To identify opportunities for future agri development: The taskforce has been asked to identify opportunities "with particular emphasis on the identification of the capacity of the north to play a role in future agricultural development".
Final report by March 2009: The public and interested groups will be able to make submissions to the inquiry, due to complete an interim report before the end of the year and a final report by March 2009.
MP Tollner and Nats’ Ron Boswell also included: Other members include tourism and hotel leader David Baffsky as well as Country Liberal Party MP Dave Tollner and Nationals Senate leader Ron Boswell.
Great Moments in International Diplomacy:
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki: "Mr. Bush, tear down this wall!"
U.S. President George W. Bush: "Pound sand, raghead!"
That just about covers the developments of the past 24 hours, from Maliki’s bold declaration that he had ordered a halt to the American construction of a wall around the recalcitrant Adhamiya district of Baghdad to the American response: an announcement in the Washington Post that American forces are going to build not one but at least ten "gated communities" across the city.
The announcement of this plan (which we noted here last week and followed up here) is of course in direct contradiction to what the Pentagon asserted just a few days ago: that the Adhamiya wall was a one-time special project, and certainly not an integral part of the vaunted "surge" strategy. "Dividing up the entire city with barriers is not part of the plan," Lt. Col. Christopher Garver told the Independent after Robert Fisk had rumbled the scheme. But now, lo and behold, Bush brass have told the Beltway’s house organ, the Post, that the encasement of Iraqi citizens in walled ghettos under armed guard is "part of the two-month-old U.S. and Iraqi counterinsurgency plan to calm sectarian strife."
TOKYO, April 11 (Reuters) – Japan and China will take part in negotiations on a framework for limiting global warming after 2012, the two countries said in joint statement on Wednesday following a summit meeting between their leaders.
In the statement issued after a meeting between visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the two sides expressed "political will" to work towards resolving the climate change issue through international cooperation.
"The two sides will…actively participate in the process on building an effective framework from 2013 and beyond," they said in the document.
The U.N. Kyoto Protocol, the present framework for capping greenhouse gas emissions, is in effect up to 2012. China, which could become the world’s biggest carbon emitter within the year surpassing the United States, is not subject to binding emissions targets under the Kyoto agreement.
Participation by major emitters such as China, India and the United States is essential if any post-Kyoto agreement is to be effective, experts have said.