Greenhouse-gas emissions by industrialised countries at new high: UNFCCC

PARIS (AFP) — Emissions of greenhouse gases by industrialised countries have broken new records, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said on Tuesday ahead of a crucial forum on tackling global warming.

In 2005 -- the latest year for which the 40 industrialised countries which have signed and ratified the UNFCCC have reported data -- the total emissions of greenhouse gases by this group "rose to an all-time high," the UNFCCC said.

"The increases in emissions came from both the continued growth in highly industrialised countries and the revived economic growth in former East Bloc nations," it said. Transport accounted for the biggest growth in emissions of any sector.

The data released by the UNFCCC comes on the heels of a grim warning by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

At the weekend, the Nobel-winning IPCC issued a historic report that declared climate change was already visible and could wreak "abrupt or irreversible" damage if unchecked.

Publication of the figures also coincides with the runup to a UNFCCC meeting in Bali, Indonesia, running from December 3-14.

That conference is tasked with setting down a two-year strategy of negotiations leading to a new pact to deepen curbs on greenhouse gases beyond 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol's current pledges expire.

Under the Protocol, only industrialised countries that have signed and ratified it are required to make targeted cuts in their emissions. Developing countries do not have these pledges.

The United States -- the world's biggest carbon polluter in 2005 but widely tipped to be overtaken by China in 2007 -- remains outside the Kyoto Protocol.

It signed the pact in 1997 but has refused to ratify it, although it remains a member of Kyoto's parent treaty, the UNFCCC.

The new emissions data, as encapsulated in a press release by the UNFCCC, did not give the raw figures for the pollution reported by the industrialised economies (the so-called "Annex 1" countries) in 2005, or give a percentage comparison against 2004.

But a graph indicated that these emissions were higher than at any time since in the previous 14 years, due to a relentless rise in the West and a pickup in the old Soviet Bloc, whose command economies crashed in the early 1990s.

Here are the main points from the report:

-- By the end of 2005, the United States emitted 16.3 percent more greenhouse gases than in 1990. Australia, the other industrialised Kyoto holdout, was 25.6 percent above the 1990 benchmark.

-- Overall, Kyoto's Annex 1 countries are projected to achieve reductions of 10.8 percent by 2012 over 1990 levels. Under the Protocol, the Annex 1 group is committed to a five percent cut as a whole.

-- However, this 10.8-percent cut will only be achieved if the Annex 1 countries implement all the policies and measures they have promised and the collapse of carbon-spewing industries in Central and Eastern Europe is factored in. Green groups contest this latter calculation as an accountancy trick.

-- Within the European Union (EU), which is Kyoto's big champion, only four countries of the pre-enlargement EU-15 (Britain, France, Germany and Sweden) are on course for meeting their 2012 targets without additional measures. On the other hand, Portugal, Ireland, Austria, Italy and Spain were already as much as three times over their Kyoto ceiling in 2005.

The UNFCCC said there were some grounds for optimism.

It noted a surge of activity in 2006 in two Kyoto innovations -- the market in carbon emissions, launched by the EU, and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), in which rich countries get carbon "credits" if they offset pollution in poorer countries.

UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer said a mix of tools was needed as countries shaped a post-2012 deal for tackling global warming.

"A future, ambitious UN climate-change regime needs to continue and expand the central elements of the Kyoto Protocol, whilst making use of other policy tools, such as carbon taxes and other effective policy packages," he said.

Source : http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5ieRGtoj-Y5skYLaX3Ny7CGY5tCYw

Fact and fiction of global warming

November 20, 2007

Since you have published so many letters blaming global warming on the actions of humanity, I feel impelled to present the other side of the discussion. It is hard to separate the fact of global warming from the fiction that this is due to human actions. Most of the false conclusions come from looking at too short a time scale.

Yes, if we look back 100 years, we find that the temperature of the earth has been increasing, with a faster rate during the last 50. However, if we look back 1,000 years, we find the Vikings raising wheat and grazing cattle in Greenland (which was truly a green land) and Vineland (the Eastern coast of Nova Scotia), a prolific grape-growing region, for several generations. The average temperature was at least 10 degrees warmer than it is now. But, as they say on television: Wait! There's more.

If we look back 100,000 years, we find the great Laurentian ice sheet covering North America, more than a mile thick. This started to melt about 50,000 years ago, with human settlement following the edge of the retreating ice and reaching our area about 20,000 years ago.

The average temperature of the Earth was at least 10 degrees, and maybe as much as 20 degrees, colder than it is now, and this warming is continuing to this day. But, again, there's more.

If we look back 150,000 years, we find elephants and sabertooth tigers roaming the grassy plains of Siberia and northern Canada. Average temperatures were maybe 20 degrees warmer than now. And as we look back farther, we see continuous warming and cooling. These periodic major temperature changes cannot possibly be due to human actions.

In conclusion, there is a strong argument to be made that the global warming we are now experiencing is part of a natural cycle whose causes are not understood.

This does not demean efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. Everything along this line of effort is good and useful.

But those who are politicizing this subject are those who blame it all on industrial development, and on the U.S. in particular.

Jerome V. White

Amherst

Source : http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071120/OPINION02/311200058/-1/news

Experiencing the Earth's glories and stings, all in 1 ride

New River Journal

By Michael Abraham

On the last perfect day, a glorious autumn sun shone through leaf-dappled forests, vivid shadows painted traffic-free leaf-flecked country roads.

I was smarting at the time from what I perceived as a snub. The town of Blacksburg, in conjunction with Virginia Tech, was organizing a Sustainability Week. I had offered to present a lecture about the threat of peak oil, the point where the world's wells can no longer keep pace with our insatiable demand and go into permanent decline.

After being repeatedly told I would provide a valuable addition to the mix of viewpoints, I had been informed there was no slot available for me. My friend Dave Roper attended the meeting where this was decided. His e-mail said, "The feeling was that we are trying to get people to do what they can do to reduce global warming and that the peak oil truth might discourage them from trying."

Some time later, the situation would change, and I did give my presentation. But that particular day, as I often do when disappointed, I sought the refuge of the road, the soothing passing of asphalt under my motorcycle tires. My wife, Jane, came along, and we rode the brilliant Honda VFR Interceptor sport bike to Peppers Ferry Road, Fairlawn and Dublin.

The day had crystalline air and a luminous sun; Draper Mountain stood in bold definition. The trees were beginning to shed their summer cloak of green, allowing Hokie orange and maroon to burst forth. Over Cloyds Mountain, we left the upright riding of the improved highways for a state route and entered the natural habitat of the VFR, the sinuous roads that used the fringes of its rounded tires.

We stopped on the bridge over the New River in Eggleston to soak in the view, one of Jane's favorites. With the persistent drought, the river was low, eschewing its former banks. An unnatural green pool of subsurface plants gleamed in the sunlight. The cliffs were bold, framed in autumn's colors.

Riding along Sinking Creek Road, I pondered the notions of permanence and sustainability. In much of this tight, shaded valley, Sinking Creek is sunken, drought or no. There's a jumble of rocks where the stream belongs, but the water is subterranean.

We typically think of sustainability with regards to a particular resource; using it so as to not deplete or permanently damage it. But in a grander way, unsustainability means an activity or a lifestyle that has no future. If something is unsustainable, someday we'll have to stop doing it, and we're doing lots of unsustainable things.

The day was becoming unnaturally hot for early October; 86 degrees on the VFR's dashboard thermometer. I purposefully aimed to Doe Creek Road, often called the "Backside of Mountain Lake Road," to escape the valley heat. I've bicycled this road once, its steepness unrelenting, excruciating. The VFR, even with a passenger, climbs briskly and effortlessly, its efficient V-4 engine turning the concentrated energy of gasoline into motive force.

The hypocrisy in our actions was not by any means lost on me. Here we were, avidly wasting gasoline for purely recreational purposes, riding a high-powered motorcycle through Appalachian hill and dale. The motorcycles of even a generation ago were incapable of the power and grace of the VFR. If peak oil theorists prove prescient, the energy produced by petroleum won't be matched by any other source once the wells run dry. The era of sport bike riding may prove to be a short one. By consuming these two gallons of gasoline to propel us these 80 miles, we rob our progeny the chance to a similar thrill.

As we pass Mountain Lake, I notice that it is a ghost of its former self, its clear waters in recent years retreating into the limestone bowels of the earth. I envisioned the metaphor of the Earth's waters as its blood, its vital fluid carrying its nutrients to the living cells of natural flora and fauna. The water of the earth's hillsides, streams and aquifers is the liquid of our blood. With our rivers and lakes evanescing, it seemed as if the Earth were reclaiming it, siphoning it from we the living.

The effects of global warming are being felt the world over. Polar bear numbers are plummeting, as are various songbirds such as evening grosbeaks, pintail and scaup ducks and shrikes. But all changes in the environment produce winners and losers. Global warming winners may include mosquitoes, poison oak and wasps.

We began our descent into the summerlike heat of the valley below. Both the preceding months had been near the record for the warmest ever, and we were sweltering now in October. "Even though I like warm weather," Jane said, "It's time for fall."

A half-mile from the Lake I brushed away from my neck what I thought was a fallen leaf. Instead, it was evidently a wasp, which stung me painfully. It hurt to distraction the remainder of the ride.

Michael Abraham lives in Blacksburg.

Source : http://www.roanoke.com/news/nrv/columns/journal/wb/140440

Gore urges TV community to spread climate message

PTI

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

NEW YORK: Former Vice-President Al Gore urged the global television community to help get the word out about the climate crisis before it is too late as he accepted a special honour at the 35th International Emmy Awards.

British TV productions dominated the awards ceremony, winning seven of the nine categories, with BBC One's "The Street" enjoying a double win for drama series and best actor.

Actor-director Robert De Niro introduced Gore at the Monday night awards gala as this year's recipient of the International Emmy Founders Award for his efforts to promote "our common humanity."

De Niro wryly noted in his introduction that Gore has "devoted his life to public service" and continued to do so "after he was elected president in 2000 and voted out of office by the Supreme Court."

"He has used his prominence as a concerned world leader to wield enormous influence," De Niro said. "When you see an international figure or head of state coming out in support of the fight against global warming look closely, you may see Al Gore behind him, pushing him."

Gore had a special message for the audience of television executives, producers and performers from around the world who gathered in the grand ballroom of the Hilton New York Hotel for the awards ceremony presented by The International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

"The climate crisis is by far the most serious challenge human civilization has ever faced," said Gore, who has already won an Oscar for his global warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" and will be traveling to Oslo, Norway, next month to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. "We really do now confront a true planetary emergency."

Source : http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1134281