Africa Science News reports that “the World Growth report entitled, ‘The Real Climate Threat to Developing Countries – Early, Deep Cuts in Emissions’ demonstrates that Europe’s call for steep reductions in emissions to reduce world economic growth by one percent would cut economic growth in developing countries in Asia between 12 and 15 percent…The World Growth report assessed the cost of Stern’s claim that deep cuts would only shave one percent of annual economic growth in the world economy over time. It found Stern’s 1% cut in global GDP equated to a GDP loss of 15% in China, 12% in India, 12% for ASEAN economies and 4% in Brazil.”
William Yeatman
From his Cessna a mile above the southern Amazon, John Carter looks down on the destruction of the world's greatest ecological jewel. He watches men converting rain forest into cattle pastures and soybean fields with bulldozers and chains. He sees fires wiping out such gigantic swaths of jungle that scientists now debate the "savannization" of the Amazon. Brazil just announced that deforestation is on track to double this year; Carter, a Texas cowboy with all the subtlety of a chainsaw, says it's going to get worse fast. "It gives me goose bumps," says Carter, who founded a nonprofit to promote sustainable ranching on the Amazon frontier. "It's like witnessing a rape."
The Australian delegation to climate change talks in Bangkok has turned the clock back to the Howard era by failing to back binding greenhouse targets, environment group Greenpeace says.
The European Union's greenhouse-gas emissions from key industries rose 1.1% last year, despite its antipollution policies, demonstrating the difficulty in meeting international commitments to fight climate change.
The US Congress will not ratify any global climate change agreement if India is not a party to it.
Painstakingly tough negotiations on how to fight climate change are getting even harder as concerns mount that the global economy is heading into recession.
Even when the economic outlook looked brighter, the United States led criticism that the existing Kyoto Protocol's requirements on cutting greenhouse gases would prove too costly for rich countries.
Gregory Benford thinks Al Gore's a good guy and all, but he also thinks the star of "An Inconvenient Truth" is a little delusional. Driving a hybrid car, switching your bulbs to compact fluorescents and springing for recycled paper products are all well-meaning strategies in the fight against global warming. But as UC-Irvine physicist Benford sees it, there's a catch. Those do-gooder actions are not going to be effective enough to turn the temperature tide, and even incremental political changes like reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mining alternative fuel sources are not forward-thinking enough. "I never believed we were going to be able to thwart global warming through carbon restriction," Benford says. "Carbon restriction requires nations to subvert short- and midterm goals for a long-term goal they've read about online, and that's just not going to work."
The leader of the G-77 in the Bangkok talks has stinked up the place by insisting that the parties that undertook solemn commitments in the Kyoto Protocol to reduce their emissions should actually be required to meet their solemn commitments as a condition of further negotiations.
When: Friday, April 4th
Noon—1:15 PM
Where: Room 1324, Longworth House Office Building, Washington DC
The State of California has developed an array of demand-side energy policies over the past several decades. More recently, California’s legislature has passed legislation that mandates drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Key lawmakers are now promoting California’s energy and global warming policies as a model for the federal government and other States to follow. Thomas Tanton’s talk will review California’s policies and show that they have had significant costs as well as other detrimental effects and are likely to have even higher costs and even worse effects in the future. California’s policies have led to the highest electricity and gasoline prices in the continental U. S. and contributed to the de-industrialization of California. While per capita electricity consumption has remained flat, total electricity demand has increased 65% since 1980.
Mr. Tanton’s talk is based on his new White Paper for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, California Energy Policy: a Cautionary Tale for the Nation. Copies will be available at the event and online at www.cei.org.
Thomas Tanton is a Fellow in Environmental Studies at the Pacific Research Institute and an Adjunct Scholar at the Institute for Energy Research. He is also President of T2 & Associates, an energy technology consulting firm. Mr. Tanton has over 35 years’ experience in the energy, economy, and environmental fields. As the General Manager at the Electric Power Research Institute from 2000 to 2003, he was responsible for the overall management and direction of collaborative research and development programs in electric generation technologies, integrating technology, market infrastructure, and public policy.
Until 2000, Mr. Tanton was Principal Policy Advisor with the California Energy Commission, where he began his career in 1976. He developed and implemented policies and legislation on energy issues of importance to California, U.S., and international markets, including electric restructuring, gasoline and natural gas supply and pricing, energy facility siting and permitting, environmental issues, power plant siting, technology development, and transportation. He served as lead advisor on energy and infrastructure to California's task force on 21st Century development. He has testified before several state legislatures and Congress, and provided expert witness testimony in power plant siting cases.
The U.S. rejected a Chinese proposal that developed countries should contribute a percentage of their gross domestic product to mitigate the effects of climate change.
China, the world's second-biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, called for developed nations to provide financial support of 0.5 percent of their GDP a year to help it and other developing nations fight global warming.
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