CO2 Emissions // Current

U.S. to Propose Emissions Cuts Before Copenhagen

WASHINGTON — The United States will propose a near-term target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions before the United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen next month, a senior administration official said Monday. President Obama, the official said, will announce the specific target “in coming days.”

The announcement of a target will take the current legislative stalemate over a climate bill into account, the senior official said, and thus might present a range of possible reductions rather than a single figure.

The lack of consensus in Congress puts Mr. Obama in a tricky domestic and diplomatic bind. He cannot promise more than Congress may eventually deliver when it takes up climate change legislation next year. But if he does not offer some concrete pledge, the United States will bear the brunt of the blame for the lack of an international agreement.

The official also said the president would decide shortly whether and for how long he might attend the December climate meeting, which runs from Dec. 7 to Dec. 18. He repeated the president’s assertion that he would consider attending if his presence could be a useful impetus to a deal.

Paul Bledsoe of the bipartisan National Commission on Energy Policy said the president’s hands were tied by Congressional inaction. “The U.S. cannot negotiate at Copenhagen above the targets in domestic legislation without risking support for that legislation in the Senate,” Mr. Bledsoe said. “If European demands continue above the U.S. domestic targets, they set up an impossible dynamic for the administration.”

Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said Mr. Obama could credibly tell delegates to the climate conference that the United States intended to reduce its emissions by 17 percent to 20 percent, based on the legislation that has been approved by the House and the Senate environment committee.

“It’s important for the president to exert that leadership with consultation with Congress,” Mr. Kerry said in an interview late last week.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/science/earth/24climate.html?hpWASHINGTON — The United States will propose a near-term target for reducing... more

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Models Strip for Co2 Reduction

We need to get the CO2 levels to 350 right away! The video speaks for itself, enjoy.

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"Government climate change ad investigated after 350 complaints." Watch the ad.

What do you think of this UK ad about climate change? People complained to be... more

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Forest protection fails to bring about lower emissions:Greenpeace

More than a decade ago in the northeast corner of Bolivia, a group of polluters and environmentalists joined forces in the first large-scale experiment to curb climate change with a strategy that promised to suit their competing interests: compensating for greenhouse gas emissions by preserving forests.

The coalition of U.S. utility companies, two nonprofit groups and the Bolivian government had the common goal of making a dent in the worldwide deforestation that accounts for about 17 percent of greenhouse gas emissions each year. The outcome of that experiment is fueling debate over a key element in international climate strategy.

While the Noel Kempff Mercado Climate Action Project has succeeded in keeping a biologically rich preserve of more than 6,000 square miles free from logging, it has fallen far short of its goal of reducing emissions. The mix of pragmatism and idealism -- providing powerful financial incentives to encourage influential companies and poor countries to work together to slow global warming -- shows the complexity of a much-heralded approach that Democratic lawmakers and international negotiators are trying to write into law.

Preventing the clearing and burning of tropical forests, which help absorb carbon dioxide and provide habitat to an array of species, has become a critical objective for environmentalists.

"It doesn't matter who caused the problem. We are in it together," said Wangari Maathai, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her work on tree planting in Africa and appealed to President Obama in a meeting last week on the need to preserve forests overseas. "If forests can be kept standing, it would be good for developed nations, it would be good for the developing world."

It also gives the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases more affordable carbon credits under the cap-and-trade system Congress is now debating. Without international offsets, pollution allowances would be 89 percent more expensive under the climate bill authored by Democratic Reps. Henry A. Waxman (Calif.) and Edward J. Markey (Mass.), according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Sixty percent of the international offsets would come from tropical forests, the agency said.

"Including offsets from tropical forests in a climate bill is a key to affordability," said Nigel Purvis, executive director of the bipartisan Commission on Climate and Tropical Forests. "It would be geopolitically and economically foolish for us to push back on that."

But a report Greenpeace will release Thursday questions the premise of using forest conservation overseas to compensate for U.S. pollution, noting that Noel Kempff envisioned keeping 55 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere over 30 years but has lowered that expectation to 5.8 million. The revised estimates do not take into account that logging may have moved to areas to the north, east and southwest of the project. And the report notes that the project's three corporate underwriters -- American Electric Power, BP America and PacifiCorp -- overestimated how much carbon the project kept from entering the atmosphere, telling the EPA it accounted for 7.4 million metric tons from 1997 to 2004.

"At this crucial time, with the [climate] negotiations in Copenhagen and U.S. legislation, can we afford to take a gamble on what the backers of these programs say haven't been as effective as they anticipated?" said Greenpeace spokesman Daniel Kessler.

American Electric Power chief executive Michael G. Morris said Greenpeace is naive to suggest the world should create a multibillion-dollar fund to preserve forests instead of letting corporations undertake these initiatives to meet their bottom line.

"When Greenpeace says the only reason American Electric Power wants to do this is because it doesn't want to shut down its coal plants, my answer is, 'You bet, because our coal plants serve our customers very cost-effectively.'More than a decade ago in the northeast corner of Bolivia, a group of polluters and... more

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Arctic seas turn to acid, putting vital food chain at risk

Carbon-dioxide emissions are turning the waters of the Arctic Ocean into acid at an unprecedented rate, scientists have discovered. Research carried out in the archipelago of Svalbard has shown in many regions around the north pole seawater is likely to reach corrosive levels within 10 years. The water will then start to dissolve the shells of mussels and other shellfish and cause major disruption to the food chain. By the end of the century, the entire Arctic Ocean will be corrosively acidic.

"This is extremely worrying," Professor Jean-Pierre Gattuso, of France's Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, told an international oceanography conference last week. "We knew that the seas were getting more acidic and this would disrupt the ability of shellfish – like mussels – to grow their shells. But now we realise the situation is much worse. The water will become so acidic it will actually dissolve the shells of living shellfish."

Just as an acid descaler breaks apart limescale inside a kettle, so the shells that protect molluscs and other creatures will be dissolved. "This will affect the whole food chain, including the North Atlantic salmon, which feeds on molluscs," said Gattuso, speaking at a European commission conference, Oceans of Tomorrow, in Barcelona last week. The oceanographer told delegates that the problem of ocean acidification was worse in high latitudes, in the Arctic and around Antarctica, than it was nearer the equator.

"More carbon dioxide can dissolve in cold water than warm," he said. "Hence the problem of acidification is worse in the Arctic than in the tropics, though we have only recently got round to studying the problem in detail."

About a quarter of the carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by factories, power stations and cars now ends up being absorbed by the oceans. That represents more than six million tonnes of carbon a day.

This carbon dioxide dissolves and is turned into carbonic acid, causing the oceans to become more acidic. "We knew the Arctic would be particularly badly affected when we started our studies but I did not anticipate the extent of the problem," said Gattuso.

His research suggests that 10% of the Arctic Ocean will be corrosively acidic by 2018; 50% by 2050; and 100% ocean by 2100. "Over the whole planet, there will be a threefold increase in the average acidity of the oceans, which is unprecedented during the past 20 million years. That level of acidification will cause immense damage to the ecosystem and the food chain, particularly in the Arctic," he added.

The tiny mollusc Limacina helicina, which is found in Arctic waters, will be particularly vulnerable, he said. The little shellfish is eaten by baleen whales, salmon, herring and various seabirds. Its disappearance would therefore have a major impact on the entire marine food chain. The deep-water coral Lophelia pertusa would also be extremely vulnerable to rising acidity. Reefs in high latitudes are constructed by only one or two types of coral – unlike tropical coral reefs which are built by a large variety of species. The loss of Lophelia pertusa would therefore devastate reefs off Norway and the coast of Scotland, removing underwater shelters that are exploited by dozens of species of fish and other creatures.

"Scientists have proposed all sorts of geo-engineering solutions to global warming," said Gattuso. "For instance, they have proposed spraying the upper atmosphere with aerosol particles that would reduce sunlight reaching the Earth, mitigating the warming caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide.

"But these ideas miss the point. They will still allow carbon dioxide emissions to continue to increase – and thus the oceans to become more and more acidic. There is only one way to stop the devastation the oceans are now facing and that is to limit carbon-dioxide emissions as a matter of urgency."Carbon-dioxide emissions are turning the waters of the Arctic Ocean into acid at an... more

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Waste Reduction and Recycling Can Cut CO2 by 345 Million Tons Year

When it comes to reducing CO2, we almost always talk about power plants and vehicles.... more

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Current Total Greenhouse Gas Emissions Pledges Leave Climate Targets In The Red

The 2 Degree target looks less likely of success says new study. Total greenhouse... more

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Artificial Trees To Cut Carbon Emissions

They look like giant fly-swatters but could this be how technology will save our asses... more

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US State Dept. OKs pipeline from Canada's tarsands to U.S.

So much for any Co2 emissions caps in any climate bill or this government having any... more

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Canadian First Nations to join London Climate Camp to protest tar sands

Native Americans are to join the Climate Camp protests in the City of London this week in an attempt to draw attention to corporate Britain's "criminal" involvement in the tar sands of Canada.

The oil sands extraction process requires top soil to be removed, is highly energy-intensive and releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide. Five representatives from the Cree First Nations are coming to co-ordinate their campaign against key players in the carbon-heavy energy sector with British environmentalists.

Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, from Fort Chipewyan, a centre of Alberta's tar sands schemes, said: "British companies such as BP and Royal Bank of Scotland in partnership with dozens of other companies are driving this project, which is having such devastating effects on our environment and communities.

"It is destroying the ancient boreal forest, spreading open-pit mining across our territories, contaminating our food and water with toxins, disrupting local wildlife and threatening our way of life," she said.

It showed British companies were complicit in "the biggest environmental crime on the planet" and yet very few people in Britain even knew it was happening, said Deranger. She was speaking ahead of an annual Climate Camp that will be held for one week somewhere in Greater London from this Thursday.

The exact site of the camp has not been revealed as green organisers are worried that the police might move to thwart their plans if they are notified in advance.

BP and Shell are two of the major oil companies extracting oil from the tar sands. The thick and sticky oil can only be removed from the sands by using a lot of water and power as well as producing far heavier CO2 emissions.

RBS, now partly owned by the British government after its financial rescue, is also a target of environmentalists and aboriginals because it is seen as a major funder of such schemes.

The Climate Camp concept started with a protest outside the Drax coal-fired power station in North Yorkshire and was followed up by similar protests at Heathrow - against the proposed third runway - and Kingsnorth in Kent, where E.ON wants to construct a new coal-fired power station.

There was also a Climate Camp in April at Bishopsgate inside the City of London, which became linked with bad policing after a bystander died following a clash with a constable.

The tar sands are seen by many as a particularly dangerous project providing enough carbon to be released in total to tip the world into unstoppable climate change. Shell was the first major European oil company to invest in the Canadian-based operations but BP followed under its chief executive, Tony Hayward.

end of excerptNative Americans are to join the Climate Camp protests in the City of London this week... more

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Vast expanses of Arctic ice melt in summer heat

The Arctic Ocean has given up tens of thousands more square miles (square kilometers) of ice on Sunday in a relentless summer of melt, with scientists watching through satellite eyes for a possible record low polar ice cap.

From the barren Arctic shore of this village in Canada's far northwest, 1,500 miles (2,414 kilometers) north of Seattle, veteran observer Eddie Gruben has seen the summer ice retreating more each decade as the world has warmed. By this weekend the ice edge lay some 80 miles (128 kilometers) at sea.

"Forty years ago, it was 40 miles (64 kilometers) out," said Gruben, 89, patriarch of a local contracting business.

Global average temperatures rose 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.6 degree Celsius) in the past century, but Arctic temperatures rose twice as much or even faster, almost certainly in good part because of manmade greenhouse gases, researchers say.

In late July the mercury soared to almost 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) in this settlement of 900 Inuvialuit, the name for western Arctic Eskimos.

"The water was really warm," Gruben said. "The kids were swimming in the ocean."

As of Thursday, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center reported, the polar ice cap extended over 2.61 million square miles (6.75 million square kilometers) after having shrunk an average 41,000 square miles (106,000 square kilometers) a day in July -- equivalent to one Indiana or three Belgiums daily.

The rate of melt was similar to that of July 2007, the year when the ice cap dwindled to a record low minimum extent of 1.7 million square miles (4.3 million square kilometers) in September.

In its latest analysis, the Colorado-based NSIDC said Arctic atmospheric conditions this summer have been similar to those of the summer of 2007, including a high-pressure ridge that produced clear skies and strong melt in the Beaufort Sea, the arm of the Arctic Ocean off northern Alaska and northwestern Canada.

In July, "we saw acceleration in loss of ice," the U.S. center's Walt Meier told The Associated Press. In recent days the pace has slowed, making a record-breaking final minimum "less likely but still possible," he said.

Scientists say the makeup of the frozen polar sea has shifted significantly the past few years, as thick multiyear ice has given way as the Arctic's dominant form to thin ice that comes and goes with each winter and summer.

The past few years have "signaled a fundamental change in the character of the ice and the Arctic climate," Meier said.

Ironically, the summer melts since 2007 appear to have allowed disintegrating but still thick multiyear ice to drift this year into the relatively narrow channels of the Northwest Passage, the east-west water route through Canada's Arctic islands. Usually impassable channels had been relatively ice-free the past two summers.The Arctic Ocean has given up tens of thousands more square miles (square kilometers)... more

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Satellite imagery shows increasing Amazon deforestation

Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest in June was four times more devastating... more

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La “visione” della Régie per un futuro Zev - Verso la mobilità a zero emissioni

Lo abbiamo scritto più volte: Renault, insieme al partner Nissan, appare al momento... more

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US officials confident of greater clean energy ties with China

Top US trade and energy officials said Thursday they were confident China and the... more

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Africa needs agroforestry to cut forest emissions

The conflict between conserving environments and improving livelihoods is constricting efforts for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) in Sub-Saharan Africa. But agroforestry — managing trees with agricultural production — could help.

The Financial Times calls the carbon market the world's fastest growing commodity market — with agriculture, forestry and other land use playing an increasingly important role. The idea behind REDD is simple — pay countries to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation and degraded lands.

But working out practical solutions that meet key Millennium Development Goals — namely, to end extreme poverty and hunger, and ensure environmental sustainability — remains difficult.

More trees, better livelihoods

Developing countries' quest for food security through agricultural expansion often leads to deforestation and forest degradation. The main challenge for much of Sub-Saharan Africa is how to design agricultural landscapes to resolve livelihood-environment conflict and maintain forests' ecosystem benefits such as water storage, erosion control, biodiversity conservation and soil rehabilitation.

The way forward is to integrate climate and livelihood, adaptation and mitigation, REDD and agriculture. Agroforestry should be a key component of this approach. Integrating trees into agricultural landscapes on a massive scale would create an effective carbon sink while ensuring sustainable food production, and would help adapt to climate change in other ways too.

Tree-based systems are much better at accumulating carbon, above and below ground, than pure agriculture. A 'green investment' project in India has demonstrated how to harness tree planting for carbon off-setting (see Growing money on trees?). Tree and carbon experts from the World Agroforestry Centre suggest that a billion hectares of farmland (much of it in developing countries) could be turned into carbon-rich agricultural landscapes, potentially sequestering 50 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide — a third of the carbon reduction challenge.

Of course, saving carbon is not usually the top priority for small-holder farmers— but agroforestry can contribute many of the other benefits farmers want too. For example, a meta-analysis of 94 scientific publications — conducted by World Agroforestry Centre researchers and published in Plant and Soil in 2008 — indicates that using 'fertiliser trees' that capture nitrogen from the air and transfer it to the soil can reduce the need for commercial nitrogen fertilisers by 75 per cent while doubling crop yields. If combined with other soil fertility management, such as conservation agriculture, fertiliser trees can significantly boost sustainable soil health and increase food security. A diverse tree cover can also increase agroecosystems' resilience towards drought, pest and disease and other threats on food production induced by climate change.

more at the link.The conflict between conserving environments and improving livelihoods is constricting... more

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Coral reefs in danger of dying out in next 20 years

The world's coral reefs are in danger of dying in the next 20 years unless the world... more

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"What if there were no STOP signs...,

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You're going to hate this one....

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Scotland to cut emissions 42% by 2020

Hello USA. Not politically feasible?

excerpt:

'As developed nations juggle with the numbers attempting to dodge the issue of agreement on ambitious carbon emissions cuts, the Scottish government has unveiled plans to cut the country’s carbon emissions by a staggering 42 percent, more than the 40 percent recommendation given by IPCC.

This is the most ambitious emissions reduction goal adopted by any country thus far, Germany has plans to 40 its emissions by 40 percent while Britain formally adopted a 34 percent reduction goal this April. Scotland, with its strong renewable energy infrastructure and bold plans to expand the same, has raised the bar even further.

In the recent weeks the developed countries have been in the line of fire of the green groups as they proposed disappointing emission reduction goals. Completely ignoring the IPCC recommendations of 25-40 percent reductions by 2020, Japan and Russia proposed cutting their respective emissions by merely 8 and 10-15 percent. These are only just better than the Kyoto Protocol goals which bind them to cut their emissions by 5-6 percent by 2012 from 1990 levels.

The driving engine behind this highly ambitious goal is the strong renewable energy infrastructure of Scotland. The Scottish government has unveiled numerous clean energy projects in the recent years which has helped the nation make the transition from fossil fuels to clean fuels.

Scotland’s geographic position is a blessing as it harnesses the high speed winds coming from the North Sea to generate electricity through offshore as well as onshore wind energy farms. The total wind energy potential is estimated to be 25 GW. Scotland has quite a few wind farms including one which is the largest onshore farm in Europe.

Last year the Scottish government announced a three fold increase in subsidies on small scale wind and solar energy systems for home owners and small businesses. This shows that the government is serious about promoting renewable sources as reliable sources of energy. Similar efforts from other countries are essential if we want to replace fossil fuels as the major source of power generation around the world.

Scotland has also taken some innovative initiatives in order to conserve and produce energy in a clean manner. The Glasgow City Council was provided with blueprint of a revolutionary idea of harnessing solar power. The plan, developed by Glasgow-based ZM Architecture, calls for deployment of floating lily-shaped solar panels in the Clyde river which will generate electricity & supply directly to the national grid. The company hopes that the city council would approve a pilot project which could eventually result in a large scale implementation of the project.'

end of excerpt.

This is what REAL political will looks like.Hello USA. Not politically feasible? excerpt: 'As developed nations juggle with... more

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Rising temperatures already hurting US agriculture

And without a doubt the main culprit is industrial agriculture. The proliferation of... more

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tagged w/ CO2 Emissions

U.S. to Propose Emissions Cuts Before Copenhagen

Models Strip for Co2 Reduction

"Government climate change ad investigated after 350 complaints." Watch the ad.

Forest protection fails to bring about lower emissions:Greenpeace

Arctic seas turn to acid, putting vital food chain at risk

Waste Reduction and Recycling Can Cut CO2 by 345 Million Tons Year

Current Total Greenhouse Gas Emissions Pledges Leave Climate Targets In The Red

Artificial Trees To Cut Carbon Emissions

US State Dept. OKs pipeline from Canada's tarsands to U.S.

Canadian First Nations to join London Climate Camp to protest tar sands

Vast expanses of Arctic ice melt in summer heat

Satellite imagery shows increasing Amazon deforestation

La “visione” della Régie per un futuro Zev - Verso la mobilità a zero emissioni

US officials confident of greater clean energy ties with China

Africa needs agroforestry to cut forest emissions

Coral reefs in danger of dying out in next 20 years

"What if there were no STOP signs...,

You're going to hate this one....

Scotland to cut emissions 42% by 2020

Rising temperatures already hurting US agriculture

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