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28/03/07 Climate zones to disappear , James Randerson, London, Guardianp; Andes, Indonesia ; Brazil; African Rift Mountains, Zambian and Angolan highlands, South African Cape region, south-east Australia, Himalayas and the Arctic.
16/03/07 Planet 'hotter than ever' ; Reuters; Europe, Asia, western Africa, southeastern Brazil ;Saudi Arabia; United States
16/03/07 Tokyo's record late, late snow KYODO Japan
15/03/07 Haze reaches 'danger' level in Thailand, AP Digital Thailand
14/03/07 ENVIRONMENT-THAILAND:Smog Hits Emergency Levels, Marwaan Macan-Markar, IPS; Thailand
15/03/07 GM urges govt investment in batteries, Reuters US
13/03/07 US waste specialist warns against nuclear energy ABC News On-line Australia US
10/03/07 Climate change activists feel heat , Marc Moncrief, The Age SWISS RE
07/03/07 Battle over EU energy targets, Dan Bilefsky' Brussels, NEW YORK TIMES, REUTERS; Europe
07/03/07 Green energy target eludes EU, Brussels, REUTERS Europe
01/03/07 Gore's inconvenient truth: a whopping power bill, Ed Pilkington, GUARDIAN; US
James Randerson, London, Guardian
March 28, 2007
UP TO two-fifths of the Earth will have a hotter climate by the end of the century, according to a study that predicts the effects of global warming.
The changes which will have a devastating effect on biodiversity in areas such as the Amazon and Indonesian rainforests will wipe out numerous animals that are unable to move to stay within their preferred climate range. They will have to evolve rapidly or die out.
Lead author John Williams, of the University of Wisconsin, said: "How do you conserve the biological diversity of these entire systems if the physical environment is changing and potentially disappearing?"
Studies already suggest that animals are shifting towards the poles at six kilometres a decade.
Professor Williams' team used emissions scenarios set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to predict changes in temperature and precipitation.
The team predicts that as the planet warms, climate zones will move towards the poles. To work out the significance of these changes, it compared them with the natural climate variation. It attached greater weight to changes in relatively stable areas. This suggests that some of the worst impacts will be in tropical and sub-tropical regions as they shift to new climatic conditions.
"The tropics have very little variability from year to year in temperature, they are a very stable climatic zone. So species that live in those climates expect a limited degree of variability," Professor Williams said.
Other studies have suggested the Amazon basin will have an increased risk of forest fires because of its hotter, drier climate.
"One of the things that comes from our paper is that because the species that live in the tropics are adapted or have evolved for a reduced range of variability, it may be that a two to three-degree temperature change in the tropics may be more significant than say a five to eight-degree change in high latitudes," he said.
Up to now, much of the focus of the impact of global warming has been on polar regions because this is where the climate is changing fastest.
The climate model predicts climates will be lost mainly from tropical mountains and the edges of continents nearest the poles.
As the Earth warms, these climate regions have nowhere to go. Some of the losers are the tropical Andes, the African Rift Mountains, the Zambian and Angolan highlands, the South African Cape region, south-east Australia, parts of the Himalayas and the Arctic.
The team reports in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that by 2100, 12 to 39 per cent of the land surface of the Earth will have a new climate, while the combination of climatic conditions on 10 to 48 per cent of the planet will have disappeared altogether. This is using one of the climate change panel's business-as-usual global development scenarios. Using a different scenario that assumes more environmentally friendly development, the corresponding predictions are 4 to 20 per cent.
GUARDIAN
March 16, 2007 - 1:14PM, Reuters
The world has just experienced the hottest three months since records began more than a century ago, according to the US Government agency that tracks weather.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the combined global land and ocean surface temperature from December until the end of February was the highest since records began in 1880.
The period included the hottest January on record.
"Contributing factors were the long-term trend toward warmer temperatures as well as a moderate El Nino in the Pacific," Jay Lawrimore of NOAA's National Climatic Data Center said.
The next-warmest corresponding period was in 2004, and the third warmest in 1998, Mr Lawrimore said.
The 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 1995.
"We don't say this (northern) winter is evidence of the influence of greenhouse gases," Mr Lawrimore said.
However, he noted that his centre's work was part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change process, which released a report on global warming last month that found climate change was occurring and that human activities quite likely play a role in the change.
"So we know as a part of that, the conclusions have been reached and the warming trend is due in part to rises in greenhouse gas emissions," Mr Lawrimore said. "By looking at long-term trends and long-term changes, we are able to better understand natural and anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change."
The combined temperature for the December-February period was 1.3 degrees F (0.72 degree C) above the 20th century mean, the agency said. Mr Lawrimore did not give an absolute temperature for the three-month period, and said the deviation from the mean was what was important. He did not provide the 20th century mean temperature.
Temperatures were above average for these months in Europe, Asia, western Africa, southeastern Brazil and the northeast half of the United States, with cooler-than-average conditions in parts of Saudi Arabia and the central United States.
Global temperature on land surface during the northern hemisphere winter was also the warmest on record, while the ocean-surface temperature tied for second warmest after the winter of 1997-98.
Over the past century, global surface temperatures have increased by about 0.11 degree F (0.06 degree C) per decade, but the rate of increase has been three times larger since 1976 - around 0.32 degree F (0.18 degree C) per decade, with some of the biggest temperature rises in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.
REUTERS
March 16, 2007 - 1:06PM
Snow fell in central Tokyo today. Nothing remarkable in that, except that it's the first snow in the city since December 1, a record late arrival for the first snowfall since winter started.
Central Tokyo observed its latest ever first snowfall this morning, the Japan Meteorological Agency.
The snow, recorded at 7am in the capital's Otemachi area, came 73 days later than in an average year and more than a month later than the previous record of February 10 in 1960, the agency said today.
It also came 95 days later than last year and was so insignificant it did not cover the ground.
The weather agency said it was the first time since 1876 that no snow had fallen in Tokyo from December to February, the period defined as winter in Japan.
KYODO
March 15, 2007 - 6:44AM, AP Digital
The density of a thick haze in northern Thailand caused by forest fires has reached a level considered dangerous to health, medical authorities say.
The haze was the worst since it began March 1, with the level of tiny dust particles as high as 383 micrograms per cubic metre Wednesday. According to the Pollution Control Department, anything over 300 is considered "dangerous."
The haze in Chiang Mai province has been caused by forest fires as well as intentional burning of fields for cultivation and waste disposal.
Firefighting airplanes and attempts to induce rain by cloud-seeding have so far failed to extinguish the fires in the area, where the eye-stinging, throat-burning haze has turned from an annoyance to a crisis.
The government warned that the haze could persist until April and instructed officials to monitor the situation closely until June, said government spokesman Yongyuth Maiyalarb.
The country's northernmost province of Chiang Rai, adjoining Chiang Mai, was declared a disaster zone Wednesday, said provincial Governor Amornpan Nimapan.
The Public Health Ministry has asked 100,000 volunteers in the region to help distribute 300,000 masks door-to-door. People suffering from allergies, asthma, lung and heart diseases have been especially urged to wear masks.
Among symptoms afflicting the residents in the area are coughs, respiratory problems, eye irritation and lightheadedness, according to a statement from the ministry.
Area residents have already been barred from burning their garbage, a common practice outside urban areas, said Prachon Panchakul, chief of the disaster prevention and mitigation centre in Chiang Mai province. They have recommended burying instead of burning dry leaves and garbage.
ENVIRONMENT-THAILAND:
Smog Hits Emergency Levels
Marwaan Macan-Markar, IPS
BANGKOK, Mar 14 (IPS) - By declaring one northern province a disaster zone, the Thai government confirmed Wednesday the growing threat that millions of people face from thick smoke from out-of-control forest and brush fires.
Chiang Rai, which shares a border with Burma and Laos, is one of five provinces in the hilly stretches of Thailand that have been engulfed by smog for nearly two weeks, prompting residents to wear masks and forcing airlines to cancel flights due to poor visibility. The other affected provinces are Chiang Mai, Mae Hong Son, Nan and Lampang.
'It is hard to breathe; we can feel the air is thick and not clean when out on the streets,'' Kingkan Kaewfun, a resident of Chiang Mai, told IPS over the telephone. 'You feel scratchy in the throat, as if something is stuck in it. It's very irritating.''
The 29-year-old graduate student at Chiang Mai University describes the scale of polluted air that has descended on Chiang Mai, the country's largest city in the north, as unprecedented. 'I have never experienced something like this before.''
There were also fears that Chiang Mai, one of Thailand's tourist hotspots, would see a drop in the several million tourists that visit the province each year.
According to the pollution control department, the level of dust particles in the air is more than twice the normal average in places like Chiang Mai. The level of dust particles smaller than 10 microns (suspended particulate matter) had reached 284 micrograms per cubic metre, as against the accepted standard of 120 micrograms per cubic metre, reports The Nation,' a local English-language daily.
Wednesday's decision by the military-appointed government of Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont to give Chiang Rai special powers to douse the spreading fires comes amidst a troubling forecast. Officials warn that the hazardous smoke could lead to all 17 northern provinces in this South-east Asian nation being declared environmental emergency zones.
The smog that has blanketed the five northern provinces is a regular feature at this time of the year, during the country's dry season, which spreads from February through March. Hardly new, too, are the places where the smoke rises from, such as agricultural lands that are set on fire as part of the region's slash-and-burn culture and forest fires.
'Fires are normal in that area at this time of the year,'' says Anond Snidvongs, a professor in the science faculty at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. 'There are hills where I saw land used for agriculture and leaves in forests burning.''
What has exacerbated the situation is a steady current of cold air blowing down from China at night, he told IPS. 'The weather patterns have been unusual this year. There is a cool wind from China that has made the air more thick at night in places like Chiang Mai, making it difficult for the smoke to rise and spread out.''
Thailand, however, is not the only nation affected by this spreading cloud of pollution. There are similar scenarios in the northern borders of Burma and Laos, where the cold air currents from China have combined with fires on agricultural lands and bone-dry forests in north-eastern Burma and north-western Laos to blanket communities and the terrain in thick smoke.
This trans-boundary hazard has already prompted calls from the international environment group Greenpeace for a regional deal to stem its spread in the coming years. 'The (Thai) government should assess the environmental and economic damage caused by these forest fires and work out a collective forest fire prevention plan together with neighbouring countries, especially Laos, Myanmar (or Burma), Cambodia and China to avoid a repetition of this episode in the future,'' the global environmental lobby said in a statement this week.
With the exception of China, the other countries do not have to look far for a model to follow, Tara Buakamsir, climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace South-east Asia, said in an interview. 'ASEAN has a good document on controlling haze that is worth following,'' he said, referring to this region's premier economic and political bloc, the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN).
The grouping, which marks its 40th anniversary this year, includes Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
The annual haze problem from August through September has become a contentious issue, ever since major forest fires in the 1997-98 period affected the ASEAN nations located at its southern end. The past decade has seen a familiar pattern during these months, when hazardous smoke from forests burnt in the Indonesian islands of Borneo and Sumatra for agricultural purposes drift across Malaysia, Singapore and southern Thailand.
But the beginning of this month saw a breakthrough, when ASEAN agreed on a plan that will pool Indonesian, Malaysian and Singaporean resources to clear the air of the annual smog and haze. In addition, the group seeks to raise 500,000 US dollars for a new fund to control trans-boundary haze.
The groundwork for this success was prepared at a meeting of ASEAN environment ministers late last year, where the principle aim was to aid Indonesia deal with the endless forest fires in its backyard.
Previous attempts to get Jakarta to solve this environment hazard were met with a stock response -- that Indonesia lacked resources and technical knowledge to contain the fires across its vast land mass. (END/2007)
March 15, 2007 - 7:04AM, Reuters
The US government should invest heavily in new battery technology to power electric cars and lower gasoline use, the chairman and chief executive of General Motors Corp. says.
Rick Wagoner also told a House of Representatives Energy and Commerce subcommittee in written testimony that biofuels production and infrastructure should be significantly expanded and that government incentives for flex fuel vehicles should continue.
Wagoner said consumer tax credits should focus on technologies with the "greatest potential" to reduce oil consumption and provide support for manufacturers and suppliers to retool their operations.
Last Update: Tuesday, March 13, 2007. 11:31am (AEDT)
Last Update:
Tuesday, March 13, 2007. 11:31am (AEDT)ABC News On-lineAn American anti-nuclear watchdog warns nuclear energy would be too expensive and take too long to establish to play a genuine role in reducing Australia's carbon emissions.
US nuclear waste specialist Kevin Kamps began a national tour yesterday with a forum in Mackay, in north Queensland, warning of the health risks and waste disposal obligations associated with nuclear energy.
Mr Kamps says in the the US the nuclear energy industry is propped up by billion-dollar government subsidies and renewable energy industries such as wind power are growing quickly.
"Wind is the fastest growing new source of electricity in the United States," he said.
"You can put up wind turbines in a matter of months, where it takes years and years [for a nuclear reactor], the last built reactor in the United States cost $7 billion and took 23 years to build and we need to act in the near term to address the climate crisis - we can't wait for nuclear power."
Marc Moncrief, The Age
March 10, 2007
CLIMATE change activists are asking global warming fence-sitters not to be put off by figures that show losses related to natural disasters fell in 2006.
Swiss Re, the world's largest reinsurer, said insured losses were $US15.9 billion($A20.46 billion) last year. Accounting for inflation, only 1997 and 1988 have been cheaper.
But Insurance Australia Group executive, culture and reputation, Sam Mostyn named by chief executive Michael Hawker as a guiding figure in IAG's global warming campaign said single years or events should not be held up as conclusive evidence for or against global warming.
"Climate modelling and the impact of climate change must be analysed over the long term," Ms Mostyn said. "IAG's research confirms the view that the effects of climate change will increase over time and so IAG supports the case for early action."
Swiss Re's sigma study showed 349 natural catastrophes and man-made disasters claimed more than 31,000 lives around the world.
But most disastrous events were in developing countries, resulting in "comparatively light economic losses" of $US48 billion ($A61.56 billion).
"Low insurance penetration in developing countries also meant that only one-third of these economic losses in 2006 was actually covered by insurance," Swiss Re said.
"Over the past decades, insured losses have shown a rising trend, due mainly to weather-related catastrophes. This also reflects an increasing concentration of property values and urban encroachment into highly exposed regions."
Dan Bilefsky' Brussels, NEW YORK TIMES, REUTERS
March 10, 2007
DIVISIONS on how to fight global warming threatened to overshadow a summit meeting aimed at making the European Union the world leader in the battle against climate change.
European leaders were expected overnight to approve plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 as part of an effort to reduce the bloc's dependency on oil and gas exports. But governments of the union's 27 member countries are at odds over other issues, including whether renewable energy targets should be binding and whether nuclear energy should be supported.
After the first working session of a two-day summit, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said the 27 leaders had agreed in principle to set a mandatory target for renewable sources such as wind, solar and hydro-electric power, and allocate the burden among member states later.
"We have agreed that we need a target for renewable energy supply and that it will be binding, but it will follow a discussion on what that means for each member state," Mr Reinfeldt said. He said EU president Germany would draft a compromise including the word "binding" to be put to leaders.
The executive European Commission has proposed an EU-wide binding objective that 20 per cent of energy consumption come from renewable fuels by 2020.
European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said governments from Washington to Moscow to Beijing were watching events in Brussels. Both he and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed hope that ambitious environmental targets from Europe would help spur similar action from the world's biggest polluters like China, India and the US.
But at least a dozen countries, including Poland, the Czech Republic and France, have expressed opposition to such targets, saying they are unrealistic and could prove too costly.
Dr Merkel said there was an urgent need to use more renewable sources.
"It's not five minutes to midnight," she said. "It's five minutes after midnight."
Adding to the difficulty of clinching an agreement is an effort by countries such as France to get the union to reclassify renewable energy to include no-carbon alternatives like nuclear energy. The move has met stiff resistance from Austria, Denmark and Ireland, where nuclear energy is regarded with deep suspicion.
French President Jacques Chirac told the leaders that nuclear power must also play a role in Europe's drive to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Speaking at his last European Union summit in Brussels, the veteran French leader said he could accept a binding renewables target for the EU if it acknowledged nuclear energy, which accounts for 70 per cent of French power but is not classed as a renewable source.
The summit outcome will form the basis of the EU's position in international talks to find a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. NEW YORK TIMES, REUTERS
Brussels, March 7, 2007, REUTERS
EUROPEAN Union foreign ministers have failed to agree on whether to set binding targets for use of renewable energy sources, setting up a potential clash when EU leaders meet this week.
Diplomats said almost half the 27 member states opposed a drive by the EU's president, Germany, to fix a mandatory goal for solar, wind and hydro-electric power to back Europe's ambition to lead the world in fighting climate change.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said ministers had narrowed differences on other points but "the central point of difference is on the binding nature of the target for renewables".
"This point remained open and will be decided at the summit on (Thursday and) Friday," he said.
Only Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Britain, Spain and Italy voiced strong support for a binding target of 20 per cent of energy consumption from renewables by 2020, diplomats said.
France, heavily dependent on nuclear power, proposed setting a binding objective for "non-carbon and low-carbon energy", of which the renewables target would be just a part.
Dr Steinmeier said there was no agreement on that idea. Spanish European Affairs Minister Alberto Navarro said: "We think these are two different issues."
Ministers endorsed an EU commitment to a 20 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions, rising to 30 per cent if other major industrialised and emerging powers join in.
France and some other states are wary of binding renewables targets that would impinge on national strategies.
Some EU diplomats believe French President Jacques Chirac may yield in exchange for some recognition that France's nuclear power program helps cut carbon dioxide emissions.
But endorsement of nuclear energy is hugely sensitive in countries such as Germany, which plans to phase it out, and Austria, which is nuclear-free.
A possible compromise, diplomats said, could be to make the 20 per cent renewables target binding on the EU as a whole but not on individual states and negotiate burden-sharing later.
Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said the EU should aim for something stronger than vague guidelines.
Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik said binding targets would be a sign that the EU was serious. "Europe has to become greener and credibly so. So benchmarking and setting ourselves goals and ambitions explicitly is a reasonable instrument," Dr Plassnik said.
Underlining the difficulties, an independent audit of British climate change policies said Britain will fall short of a 30 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2020, not reaching that level till 2050, The Guardian reported.
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett played down the differences on renewables and stressed the significance of the overall EU energy strategy. "It will be a huge turning point for the European Union if we get an agreement and a huge turning point for the world community," she said.
REUTERS
The Nashville home of Al Gore used 221,000 kWh of electricity last year.
Photo: AP
Ed Pilkington, GUARDIAN
March 1, 2007
AL GORE stood alongside fellow eco-warrior Leonardo DiCaprio on Sunday night in front of the world's cameras and proclaimed the ceremony the first in the Academy Awards' history to be run on "environmentally intelligent" lines.
Twenty-four hours later, Mr Gore found himself back in the eye of the storm.
A little-known group based in his home state, the Tennessee Centre for Policy Research, looked up Mr Gore's energy bills for his large home in Nashville to see whether he practised what he preached.
The headline figures, released under federal freedom of information rules, were striking. Last year, the Gore household consumed 221,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity more than 20 times the national annual average. His household's consumption of energy rose between 2005 and 2006 from 16,200 kWh a month to 18,400 kWh last year. In addition, he averaged $US1080 ($A1362) a month on natural gas. Combined, his electricity and gas bills reached $US30,000.
The group's president, Drew Johnson, said he had no objection to someone spending that sum to light and heat a multimillion-dollar house. "I only have a problem with that person telling us what light-bulbs to buy and that we should get a new low-energy refrigerator," he said. "That's hypocrisy and I'm proud to have exposed it."
By yesterday the news was flying around the internet. Liberal blogs led by the Huffington Post tried to discredit the report by describing it as a typical smear campaign timed for the Oscars by a group that had no official status and had connections with right-wing groups funded by ExxonMobil.
Mr Johnson denied the oil industry link and said he had been motivated by a desire to hold public figures to account.
His group, which is registered as a non-profit organisation, describes itself as an independent think tank.
By yesterday morning, Mr Gore's team was pulled into the controversy. His environmental adviser, Kalee Kreider, said Mr Gore's fuel bills failed to tell the whole picture. All the energy used for the Nashville home came from a green-power provider to the Tennessee Valley that drew its energy from solar, wind-power and methane gas supplies, among other sources.
The Gores were installing solar panels on the roof of their home, Ms Kreider added, and Mr Gore had adopted a "carbon-neutral" life.
GUARDIAN