GENEVA - U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon told a meeting of some 150 governments on Thursday that time is running out for a new climate deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The Copenhagen talks in December are looming and little real negotiating time is left "to resolve some of the most complex issues," the U.N. secretary general told the World Climate Conference. "We need rapid progress."
Only limited progress in the climate talks has been made for the meeting to hammer out a new accord to replace the 1997 Kyoto Proto
Meanwhile, climate change is advancing.
Until a few months ago, government
targets for cutting greenhouse gases at least had the virtue of being
wrong. They were the wrong targets, by the wrong dates, and they bore
no relationship to the stated aim of preventing more than 2C of global
warming. But they used a methodology that even their sternest critics
(myself included) believed could be improved until it delivered the
right results: the cuts just needed to be raised and accelerated.
Environmental activists based at the Climate Camp in London blockaded the local headquarters of Royal Bank of Scotland today, supergluing themselves together on the bank's trading floor as part of a series of direct-action protests around the City.
WASHINGTON - Carbon dioxide will soon be declared a dangerous pollutant - a move that could help propel slow-moving climate-change legislation on Capitol Hill, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Monday.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told reporters that a formal "endangerment finding," which would trigger federal regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, probably would "happen in the next months."
Researchers say this could be evidence of a predicted positive feedback effect of climate change.
As
temperatures rise, the sea-bed grows warmer and frozen water crystals
in the sediment break down, allowing methane trapped inside them to
escape.
The research team found that more than 250 plumes of methane bubbles are rising from the sea-bed off Norway.
The world faces a new
period of record-breaking temperatures as the sun's activity increases,
leading the planet to heat up significantly faster than scientists had
predicted over the next five years, according to a new study.
The hottest year on record was 1998, and the relatively cool years since have led to some global-warming sceptics claiming that temperatures have levelled off or started to decline. However, the new research firmly rejects that argument.
A report by the charity said Pacific Islanders were already feeling the effects of global warming, including food and water shortages, rising cases of malaria and more frequent flooding and storms. Some had already been forced from their homes and the number of displaced people was rising, it warned.
Well, at least
that clears up the mystery. Over the past year I've been fretting over
an intractable contradiction. The government has promised spectacular
cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. It is also pushing through new roads
and runways, approving coal-burning power stations, bailing out car
manufacturers and ditching regulations for low-carbon homes. How can
these policies be reconciled?
It didn't take long for the counterfeit climate bill known as
Waxman-Markey to push back against President Obama's agenda. As the
president was arriving in Italy for his first Group of Eight summit,
the New York Times was reporting that efforts to close ranks on global warming between the G-8 and the emerging economies had already tanked:
ROME - Environmentalists broke into power stations across Italy and shed their clothes in downtown Rome on Wednesday as world leaders discussed a new deal to combat global warming.
Dozens of activists from 18 countries scaled smokestacks and occupied four Italian coal-fired power plants, hanging banners that called on the Group of Eight summit in central Italy to take the lead in fighting climate change, Greenpeace said.
