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Recession ‘threatens UK effort to tackle global warming’ • Investment in green housing, power and transport at risk, says government committee• Millions of new electric cars plus rescue of carbon trading schemes among proposed measures David Adam, Environment correspondent guardian.co.uk, Monday 12 October 2009 Article history Europe is relying on carbon trading between polluters to Continue Reading →
Aid agencies fear global disaster as support for World Food Programme hits 20-year low
A woman and a child suffering from Acute Water Diarrhea in the Wanleweyn district, southern Somalia, April 5, 2009. Photograph: Abdurashid Abikar/AFP/Getty Images
Tens of millions of the world’s poor will have their food rations cut or cancelled in the next few weeks because rich countries have slashed aid funding.
The result, says Josette Sheeran, head of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), could be the “loss of a generation” of children to malnutrition, food riots and political destabilisation. “We are facing a silent tsunami,” said Sheeran in an exclusive interview with the Observer. “A humanitarian disaster is unrolling.” The WFP feeds nearly 100 million people a year.
A few worthwhile points on the alleged pause in global warming. From RealClimate, part of the Guardian Environment Network
The blogosphere (and not only that) has been full of the “global warming is taking a break” meme lately. Although we have discussed this topic repeatedly, it is perhaps worthwhile reiterating two key points about the alleged pause here.
(1) This discussion focuses on just a short time period – starting 1998 or later – covering at most 11 years. Even under conditions of anthropogenic global warming (which would contribute a temperature rise of about 0.2 ºC over this period) a flat period or even cooling trend over such a short time span is nothing special and has happened repeatedly before (see 1987-1996). That simply is due to the fact that short-term natural variability has a similar magnitude (i.e. ~0.2 ºC) and can thus compensate for the anthropogenic effects. Of course, the warming trend keeps going up whilst natural variability just oscillates irregularly up and down, so over longer periods the warming trend wins and natural variability cancels out.
A new report says worldwide production of conventionally extracted oil could peak in the next decade
Peak oil could lead to more investment in the most polluting forms of oil extraction, such as tar sands like these at the Albian Sands mine near Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada. Photograph: Jeff McIntosh/AP
There is a “significant risk” that global oil production could begin to decline in the next decade, researchers said today.
Protocol seen as basis for Copenhagen negotiations but America refuses to be ‘stuck with agreement 20 years old’
More on the climate talks in Bangkok
Workers build a sea wall defence in southern Thailand as climate negotiators discuss a replacement to the Kyoto protocol in Bangkok. Photograph: VINAI DITHAJOHN/EPA
The US threatened to derail a deal on global climate change today in a public showdown with China by expressing deep opposition to the existing Kyoto protocol. The US team also urged other rich countries to join it in setting up a new legal agreement which would, unlike Kyoto, force all countries to reduce emissions.
As the international community focuses on climate change as the great challenge of our era, it is ignoring another looming problem – the global crisis in land use. From Yale Environment 360, part of the Guardian Environment Network
It’s taken a long time, but the issue of global climate change is finally getting the attention it deserves. While enormous technical, policy, and economic issues remain to be solved, there is now widespread acceptance of the need to confront the twin challenges of energy security and climate change. Collectively, we are beginning to acknowledge that our long addiction to fossil fuels — which has been harming our national security, our economy and our environment for decades — must end. The question today is no longer why, but how. The die is cast, and our relationship to energy will never be the same.