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The Generator news service publishes articles on sustainable development, agriculture and energy as well as observations on current affairs. The news service is used on the weekly radio show, The Generator, as well as by a number of monthly and quarterly magazines. A podcast of the Generator news is also available.
As well as Giovanni’s articles it picks up the most pertinent articles from a range of other news services. You can publish the news feed on your website using RSS, free of charge.
 

  • Copenhagen: it’s time Europe started acting like it truly means what it says

     

    Europe was the first to invent the conditional target offering a 20% reduction by 2020 but a higher 30% cut in the event of an international deal. Australia and New Zealand quickly followed suit. The difference between the lower and upper end of the range of targets in Europe represents some 3 billion tonnes of emissions between 2013 and 2020. This is a significant sum. As leaked UN documents showed the gap between what countries are pledging to do over the next decade and what science demands is already worryingly large. If Europe decides to allow 3 billion tonnes more emissions to occur it will knowingly increase the global risk we face, locking in high emission technologies and making the task of catching up more difficult in the following decade.

    For the EU, which has long proclaimed its leadership in committing to action on climate change, the move to the higher target should be a no-brainer. The 20% target is now so weak as to be equivalent to business as usual. Compared to a 2005 baseline it will deliver less investment in solutions in the near term than the paltry US target, despite the fact that we have a head start, with the policies in place already to deliver the reductions. Recent studies have shown that hitting the 30% target will cost over €100 bn less than the 20% target would have cost pre the recession partly because of the huge volume of ‘hot air’ that has been generated under the weak caps set under the much vaunted ‘EU Emissions Trading System’.

    Tightening caps provides a highly cost effective way of meeting the higher target.

    For all these reasons Europe has to move to a higher ambition target and enter it into the accord – to do anything less would be an insult to all those vulnerable countries relying on leadership from developed countries and put us well behind in the race to develop a low carbon economy.

    But despite these compelling reasons the EU is prevaricating. The stated reason is that they want to wrest greater commitments from other countries before agreeing to move. But that strategy has clearly failed. Europe cannot now stay at its lower number when it knows that doing so will take us ever further from the goal of 2 degrees they claim they so vehemently support. They would do well to listen to other countries who were unequivocal about their intention to press ahead unilaterally.

    President Lula demonstrated real leadership when he passionately explained why Brazil would be taking on an ambitious target despite having no obligation to do so, Premier Wen Jiabao used his speech to list off China’s unconditional unilateral climate policies and Obama firmly stated the actions the US was preparing to take to protect their own self interest irrespective of what the rest of the world did. Only Europe persisted in its ineffective ‘I will if you will’ schoolyard strategy.

    Obviously the real reason for the EU temerity is the fact that countries such as Germany and Italy are under considerable pressure from industrial lobby groups who know well that a move to a higher target will result in tighter caps on their emissions. But we must persuade Europe’s leaders to move. These are the voices of old industry – the voices of the bright green companies that are emerging to challenge the old order are less clear but they must become more vocal join with NGOs and counter the negative lobbying.

    We have a month to turn the EU’s position around. All European NGOs interested in salvaging something positive from the flames of Copenhagen must address their efforts at securing this policy change. Three billions tonnes is worth fighting for – we cannot allow our leaders to knowingly allow this level of pollution. Its time Europe started acting like it truly meant what it said.

    • This article was shared by our content partner Sandbag.org.uk, part of the Guardian Environment Network

  • Preparing for the inevitable

     

    We have to make sure our own defences against climate change are in place before the seas rise and food supplies diminish. The most vulnerable are close to sea level, such as London and Melbourne and New York. They must be well prepared to rebuild and retreat in a humane way before the waters advance.

    Only our leaders, in business and government, have the clout to achieve this in time.

    We, the people, have to make them act NOW.

    Only the defence of our civilisation by people who can see the danger
    will ward off the chaos that may overtake us.

    For example, United Kingdom emissions have fallen 12% in the past ten years as coal has been replaced by natural gas, nuclear and renewables. Dupont has reduced its emissions by 72% since 1990. Government and business have found, often to their surprise, that this has saved money. Dupont in this instance saved more than $3bn.

    Being green makes both environmental and financial sense – and it is safer.

    In the end, government has to provide stable, long-term policies to unleash the innovation in our work, our homes, in technologies and lifestyles that is needed. This is how.

  • Plants and animals race for survival as climate change creeps across the globe

     

    “These are the conditions that will set the stage, whether species move or cope in place,” said Chris Field, director of the department of global ecology at the Carnegie Institution in the US, who worked on the project. “Expressed as velocities, climate change projections connect directly to survival prospects for plants and animals.”

    The study, by scientists at the Carnegie Institution, Stanford University, the California Academy of Sciences, and the University of California, Berkeley, combined information on current and projected future climate to calculate a “temperature velocity” for different parts of the world.

    They found that mountainous areas will have the lowest velocity of temperature change, meaning that animals will not need to move very far to stay in the temperature range of their natural habitat. However, much larger geographic displacements are required in flatter areas such as flooded grasslands, mangroves and deserts, in order for animals to keep pace with their climate zone. The researchers also found that most currently protected areas are not big enough to accommodate the displacements required.

    Healy Hamilton, director of the centre for applied biodiversity informatics at the California Academy of Sciences, said: “One of the most powerful aspects of this data is that it allows us to evaluate how our current protected area network will perform as we attempt to conserve biodiversity in the face of global climate change.”

    He added: “When we look at residence times for protected areas, which we define as the amount of time it will take current climate conditions to move across and out of a given protected area, only 8% of our current protected areas have residence times of more than 100 years. If we want to improve these numbers, we need to both reduce our carbon emissions and work quickly towards expanding and connecting our global network of protected areas.”

    The study found that global warming would have the lowest velocities in tropical and subtropical coniferous forests, where it would move at about 80 metres a year, and montane grasslands and shrublands – a biome with grass and shrubs at high elevations – with a projected velocity of about 110 metres each year.

    Global warming is expected to sweep more quickly across flatter areas, such as mangrove swamps and flooded grasslands and savannas, where it could have velocities above 1km a year. Across the world, the average velocity is 420 metres each year. The results are published in the journal Nature.

    Wildlife in areas with low projected climate change velocities are not necessarily better protected, the scientists point out. Habitats such as broadleaf forests are often small and fragmented, which makes it harder for species to move.

    The study examines the movement of climate zones, not species, the scientists stress, which means it is difficult to predict what the impacts may be on individual trees, insects and animals. Some are more tolerant to changing temperature than others, and the movement of species can be difficult to track. While trees are estimated to have spread northwards through a warming Europe after the end of the last ice age at a speed of about 1km per year, this could be down to dormant seeds reseeding the landscape, which would not be possible if species are forced to shift to new territories.

    The scientists say that global warming will cause temperatures to change so rapidly that almost a third of the globe could see climate velocities higher than even the most optimistic estimates of plant migration speeds.

    Some plants and animals may have to be physically moved by humans to help them cope, the scientists say, while protected areas must also be enlarged and joined together.

  • Marine mammals under threat from ocean noise pollution

    The findings, published by scientists from the University of Hawaii and the University of California, provide more evidence of the damage caused by ocean acidification.

    ‘This is a highly significant paper because attention has focused on the effects of ocean acidification on calcification [such as the dissolving of shellfish shells], but not on how it will completely change the acoustics of the oceans,’ said Dr Jason Hall-Spencer, a Lecturer in Marine Science and Engineering at the University of Plymouth.

    Noisier oceans

    According to data modelling by the lead author of the study, Dr Tatiana Ilyina from the University of Hawaii, sound absorption for low-frequency noise could fall by up to 60 per cent by 2100 in high-latitude, deep oceans if we do not significantly cut back carbon emissions.


    Whales and dolphins were likely to be affected worst, principally by being frightened away.

    This is a particular problem for specific species of dolphin or whale that are endemic to certain habitats. Dr Hall-Spencer said that the construction of an airport in Hong Kong had had a negative impact on the pink dolphins there that were specific to that region.


    However, in some cases the damage to mammals could be worse.

    ‘The most extreme effects reported are tissue damage or mass stranding of whales associated with military tests of active acoustic systems,’ said Dr Ilyina.

    Marine species have been known to adapt to low-level manmade noise such as from shipping, which are dominated by natural sources of sound such as breaking waves and rain. But Dr Ilyina said more research was needed on the impacts of noisier seas on marine mammals.

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  • Amazon Forest in Critical Danger

     

    By the end of the third year the trees had released more than two-thirds of the carbon dioxide they had stored during the whole of their lives, accelerating climate change. This study shows that Amazonia cannot withstand more than two consecutive years of drought without breaking down.

    This immense forest contains 90 billion tons of carbon, enough to increase
    the rate of global warming by 50 per cent.

    In 2006 the Amazon appears to be entering its second successive year of drought, raising the possibility that if the drought continues it could start dying next year. Mega-fires are expected to rapidly sweep across the drying jungle. With the trees gone, the soil will bake in the sun and the rainforest could turn into desert. This would spread drought into the northern hemisphere, including Britain, and could massively accelerate global warming with incalculable consequences. Spinning out of control this process could end in the world becoming uninhabitable – for the Amazon is the earth’s largest CO2 sink.

    Dr Deborah Clark from the University of Missouri, one of the world’s top forest ecologists, says that “the lock has broken” on the Amazon ecosystem. She adds: the Amazon is “headed in a terrible direction”.

    In the current drought the Amazon rainforest has begun releasing more carbon than it is absorbing. As in Europe after the 2003 heat wave that killed 35,000 people, the woodlands are being damaged. This causes them to release more carbon dioxide than they sequester – exactly the opposite of the assumptions built into most climate computer models, which treat forests as sponges that sop up excess carbon.

    After carbon emissions caused by humans, deforestation is the second principle cause of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Deforestation is responsible for 25% of all carbon emissions entering the atmosphere, by the burning and cutting of about 34 million acres of trees each year, equivalent to the area of Italy.

    YOU can prevent further warming NOW
    Personally and Politically

    Every item of information comes from the most recent and reputable scientific sources and published dialogues. As citations would impede the text, and as most may be looked up on the web, we decided not to fill the text with them.

  • Gulf Stream Collapse

     

    One scenario presented recently to the Pentagon posits that a Gulf Stream collapse could begin in a few years. That massive current of warm water would no longer reach far into the North Atlantic. This would seriously disrupt the temperate climate of Europe and the east coast of North America. The probable outcome would be that the climate of the UK that is now 8°C warmer than the same latitudes in other parts of the world would become closer to that in Russia.

    The lesser impact would be a 500mm ocean rise as water heats up.

    It is not clear what type of weather would follow a collapse. Some forecasters believe the globe would continue to heat, others predict a new ice age or a global drought. The best models suggest there would be a 5°F drop over Asia and North America and up to 6°F in Europe. On the other hand there would be an increase by up to 4°F in Australia, South America, and south Africa.

    Winter storms and cyclonic winds would intensify, amplifying the impact of the changes. Average annual rainfall in Europe and China could decrease by nearly 30%. Europe’s climate would then become more like Siberia’s bringing harsh conditions for agriculture.

    No chance then for a reduction in heating loads, and so
    CO2 emissions would increase further.

    YOU can prevent further warming NOW
    Personally     and Politically

     

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    Every item of information comes from the most recent and reputable scientific sources and published dialogues. As citations would impede the text, and as most may be looked up on the web, we decided not to fill the text with them.