News Roundup
BEIJING Reuters – China must press ahead with new ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions for the world to have hope of containing global warming, a U.S. energy official said, urging cooperation to end distrust between the two biggest emitters.
via U.S. seeks tougher climate steps from China | Green Business | Reuters.
‘BEIJING — China said Tuesday that it was committed to making this year's Copenhagen climate change conference a success, sounding a positive note at the close of a two-day visit to Beijing by President Barack Obama's global warming envoy.’
‘Countries in poorer parts of the world like China and India are demanding that wealthier regions like the European Union and North America finance their efforts at developing clean energy technologies and help them adapt to the effects of climate change caused largely by accumulated emissions from the industrialized West.’
via How Much Should Poor Countries Be Paid to Fight Climate Change? – Green Inc. Blog – NYTimes.com.
‘WASHINGTON — For months the United States and China, by far the world’s two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, have been warily circling each other in hopes of breaking a long impasse on global warming policy.’
via China and U.S. Seek a Truce on Greenhouse Gases – NYTimes.com.
Bonn, Germany – A coalition of youth, environmental groups, NGOs, Indigenous Peoples organizations and women’s groups delivered a plea to negotiators asking them to ensure a strong climate deal and warning them that they will put our survival at risk if they do not act immediately to halt deforestation and the industrial logging of the world’s primary forests (forest degradation).
“Survival is not negotiable. The climate deal signed in Copenhagen needs to ensure the survival of all countries and people. The immediate protection of the world’s forests is no longer just an option, it is essential to ensure a safe climate for us and our kids,” stated youth spokesperson Gemma Tillack.
The coalitions’ plea asks delegates to ensure that any climate deal:
–Immediately ends deforestation, industrial scale logging in primary
forests and the conversion of forests to monoculture tree crops, plantations;
–Protects the world’s biodiverse forests including primary forests in
developed countries (e.g. Australia, Canada and Russia) and tropical forests in developing countries;
–Respects the rights of women, Indigenous peoples and local communities and allow them to lead healthy and sustainable lives whilst stopping deforestation and industrial logging of primary forests in their country; and
–Does not allow developed countries to use forest protection and the avoiding deforestation and industrial scale logging of primary forests in other countries as an offset mechanism for their own emissions.
‘BEIJING (Reuters) – Global warming is fast rising in the pile of crises facing China as it pursues the unshakeable goal of economic growth while grappling with international pressure to curb its greenhouse gas output.’
via China wrestles climate quandary: growth versus CO2 | Green Business | Reuters.
‘LONDON (Reuters) – New investment in clean energy will total $95 to $115 billion in 2009, representing a drop of 26-39 percent from last year's total of $155 billion, data published by research group New Energy Finance showed on Friday.’
via New clean energy 2009 investment seen sharply down | Green Business | Reuters.
‘Frank Mitloehner, a University of California, Davis, professor who places cows in air-tight tent enclosures and measures what he calls their “eruptions,” says the average cow expels — through burps mostly, but some flatulence — 200 to 400 pounds of methane a year.
More broadly, with worldwide production of milk and beef expected to double in the next 30 years, the United Nations has called livestock one of the most serious near-term threats to the global climate. In a 2006 report that looked at the environmental impact of cows worldwide, including forest-clearing activity to create pasture land, it estimated that cows might be more dangerous to Earth’s atmosphere than trucks and cars combined.’
via Greening the Herds – Trying to Limit Cows’ ‘Emissions’ – NYTimes.com.
‘As we’ve detailed, nuclear waste is an expensive problem in the United States. The government is liable to utilities for billions of dollars, due to a failure to produce a central, national location for storing waste.’
‘SAN FRANCISCO — The vast $320 million desalination plant approved this week by San Diego’s regional water authorities is likely to serve as a test case for whether such a large project can meet its goals while safeguarding its Pacific environment.
Environmentalists have battled the project in lawsuits, raising concerns about the amount of fish that will be killed by the pumping process and about potential change to the aquatic ecosystem when leftover brine is returned to the sea. So far they have not won any victories.’
via In California, Desalination of Seawater as a Test Case – NYTimes.com.