Part two of Chancellor Merkel's ambitious package of measures aimed at reducing German greenhouse gas emissions may be in trouble. Originally set for passage on Tuesday, many of the law proposals are under attack.
Billions of pounds are being wasted in paying industries in developing countries to reduce climate change emissions, according to two analyses of the UN's carbon offsetting programme.
Environment ministers from the world's top industrial powers called Monday for more effort to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, but little headway was seen in setting more immediate goals.
The Group of Eight rich nations will likely agree to an "aspirational" target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 but shun mid-term goals at a July summit, the top U.N. climate official said on Sunday.
I was watching the Big Oil execs testifying before Congress. That was my first mistake. If memory serves, there was lesbian mud wrestling over on Channel 137, and on the whole that’s less rigged. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz knew the routine: “I can’t say that there is evidence that you are manipulating the price, but I believe that you probably are. So prove to me that you are not.”
Environment ministers from Group of Eight rich nations and other major greenhouse gas emitters will meet in Japan's western city of Kobe from May 24 to 26 to try to build momentum for talks on issues including long-term targets to reduce the emissions that cause global warming.
Air pollution regulators in the San Francisco Bay area voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to approve new rules that impose fees on businesses for emitting greenhouse gasses.
The pain caused by the global food crisis has led many people to belatedly realize that we have prioritized growing crops to feed cars instead of people. That is only a small part of the real problem.
Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch
After reading "Skeptical Environmentalist" Bjorn Lomborg's opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal today, it's clear that he hasn't digested the "people are bad" global warming alarmism memo. Explaining the "Copenhagen Consensus" economic analysis, he gives examples of how other investments could do more to address pressing problems in the world other than global warming:
Heart disease represents more than a quarter of the death toll in poor countries. Developed nations treat acute heart attacks with inexpensive drugs. Spending $200 million getting these cheap drugs to poor countries would avert 300,000 deaths in a year.
Poor water or sanitation affects more than two billion people and will claim millions of lives this year. One targeted solution would be to build large, multipurpose dams in Africa.
Building new dams may not be politically correct, but there are massive differences between the U.S. and Europe – where there are sound environmental arguments to halt the construction of large dams and even to decommission some – and countries like Ethiopia which have no water storage facilities, great variability in rainfall, and where dams could be built with relatively few environmental side effects. A single reservoir located in the scarcely inhabited Blue Nile gorge in Ethiopia would cost a breathtaking $3.3 billion. But it would produce large amounts of desperately needed power for Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt, combat the regional water shortage in times of drought, and expand irrigation. All these benefits would be at least two-and-a-half times as high as the costs.
In each of these areas – and in the areas of air pollution, education and trade barriers – the world's scarce resources could be used to achieve massive amounts of benefits.
If Lomborg is trying to get his message across to the likes of Sierra Club members, he is missing the point, as saving lives is the problem in their eyes:
What We Should Do
Stabilizing population growth worldwide and reducing excessive fuel consumption in the U.S. and other industrialized nations are vital components of slowing, and eventually stopping, global warming. When women have access to education, economic opportunities, family planning and reproductive health services, they have fewer children and increase the spacing between each child. Getting a handle on population growth at home and abroad, and helping low-income nations develop cleanly, are vital steps toward a cleaner, more sustainable future….
Tell our leaders to increase funds for family planning and reproductive health projects at home and abroad, as well as for women's empowerment projects.
The President of the Czech Republic, that is. President Vaclav Klaus is probably the soundest Head of State in Europe, a good friend to the United States and a former professor of economics, which means he gives short shrift to environmental alarmism.
So little, in fact, that he has written a book on the subject, "Blue Planet in Green Shackles," that he will be launching in English at the National Press Club next Wednesday. CEI was honored to be chosen by the President to publish the book.
In the book, Klaus writes: "The largest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy, and prosperity at the end of the 20th and at the beginning of the 21st century is no longer socialism. It is, instead, the ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous ideology of environmentalism."
The luncheon begins promptly at 12:30 p.m. in the Ballroom at the National Press Club, on the 13th floor of the National Press Building at 14th and F Streets NW in Washington DC. Remarks start at 1 p.m., followed by a question-and-answer session. For advance ticket reservations, call (202) 662-7501, or email reservations@press.org. Admission is $16 for National Press Club members, $28 for NPC guests, and $35 for general admission.
Everyone who attends will be given a complimentary copy of the book, and President Klaus will be staying on to sign copies for those who would like it.
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