Global Emissions Goals

"G8 leaders to set emissions goals
By Roger Harrabin
Environment analyst, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8135261.stm
The G8 leaders are set this week to deliver their strongest statement so far on global warming.
They are likely to agree that the world ought to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2050 - with rich nations reducing them by 80%.
The group will probably also say that any human-induced temperature rise should be held to 2C - a level considered to be a danger threshold.
The US has previously objected to such a clause.
But it looks as though the G8 will fall short of agreeing the short-term targets scientists say are essential to ensure that the 2C threshold is not breached.
Environmental campaigners accuse the G8 of willing the ends on climate change but not willing the means.
***
On Thursday, US President Barack Obama chairs a meeting of the G8 members with the leaders of the emerging economies, including India and China, under a process known as the Major Economies Forum (MEF).
That meeting will produce a declaration separate from the G8. Opinions among the emerging economies vary widely. India opposes commitments on cutting emissions. It has millions living in poverty and considers that the problem should be solved by rich nations. India is suspicious of signing up to the 2C warming threshold because it implicitly puts a cap on Indian growth.
China is committed to achieving a low-carbon economy, but slowly so as to cause minimum social and economic upheaval.
"We have to persuade China that it is in China's interests to move quickly to a low-carbon economy - that will be be key," a western diplomatic source said.
Brazil is the most significant of the emerging nations to sign up to the 2C threshold. "This is extremely significant," said the source. "It is an acknowledgement from political leaders to their peoples that there are scientific limits to how far we can push the planet."
***
A group of 22 leading climate scientists has written to G8 and MEF leaders calling for policies that would see global emissions peak by 2020, and shrink by at least 50% by 2050.
"Unless the burden of poverty in developing nations is alleviated by significant financial support for mitigation, adaptation, and the reduction of deforestation, the ability of developing countries to pursue sustainable development is likely to diminish, to the economic and environmental detriment of all," the scientists said.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/8135261.stm
Published: 2009/07/06 01:18:02 GMT
© BBC MMIX"

We've got the technology, a technology that will create jobs, not emissions. We want everyone everywhere to benefit. For more information, please see www.terrahumanafoundation.org.

Economy, Environment, and Energy

"Conservation groups feel the strain
Richard Black 15:17 UK time, Monday, 15 June 2009
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/
About nine months ago, I spent a fascinating (and very agreeable) week on a research boat in the Canary Islands, attempting to study the elusive family of beaked whales.
Lucky for me it happened last year; because the boat in question, Song of the Whale, is now being taken off such operations, for at least a couple of years, for financial reasons.
The group that runs Song of the Whale, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw), appears to have been hit particularly hard by the world's financial troubles. Mothballing the boat's research is one of several cuts it's had to make, including staff cutbacks.
Ifaw is certainly not alone. According to the head of one major UK conservation charity, most organisations in the field are feeling the pinch.
Over the past year, I'm told, UK green groups have seen their income fall by an average of 10-20% - some by more.
You might assume this was down to people withdrawing their membership or being less generous with their gift donations.
These trends are real; but they are regarded as minor compared with declining legacy income and adverse foreign currency movements.
The main component of a legacy donation is often the sale of a house; and often the legacy is worded along the lines of "person X gets so much and person Y so much, with the remainder going to charity Z" - in which case a fairly small dip in house prices can have a large proportional impact on the amount going to the charity.
It shouldn't come as any surprise to find the global financial situation impacting conservation groups - why should they be exempt from the general mayhem? - but it's worth having a quick think about what it might mean.
True, there's a strong propaganda element to much that environmental groups do, and you might either bemoan or applaud a decline in its intensity, depending on your political stance.
But projects such as Song of the Whale generate data that could prove important in understanding - and thus protecting - little-known species.
In developing countries, wildlife protection regimes often struggle for money and resources, certainly when compared to the poachers of valuable species and the industrialists who would expand the human footprint without restraint.
I came across a particularly stark example this week from India - wardens in tiger reserves working without simple equipment such as torches, without proper shoes, with meagre salaries often paid in arrears.
It's a common tale. And sometimes, Western-based groups fill this kind of funding gap, paying the human costs without which there can be no effective conservation.
The links between the world's ecological crisis and its economic woes are manifold and complex; and you can certainly argue that any slowing in the breakneck pace of human economic development is good news if it retards the rise in greenhouse gas emissions, the expansion of human habitat into areas occupied by other species, and the depletion of shared resources such as water.
But conservation projects such as Song of the Whale will be casualties; and in a world where we are often struggling to understand what is already on the verge of being destroyed, they are losses we can ill afford."

We can have economic development without the rise in carbon and greenhouse emissions, without hurting wildlife and plantlife, and without using up resources. There is an alternative, totally green energy source. For more information, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.

Truce Alternative Because of Emissions Alternative

"China and U.S. Seek a Truce on Greenhouse Gases
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/world/08treaty.html?ref=world By JOHN M. BRODER and JONATHAN ANSFIELD Published: June 7, 2009
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.
*****
Both sides are demanding mutually assured reductions of emissions that are, in the current jargon, “measurable, verifiable and reportable.” In the background hover threats of great retaliation in the form of tariffs or other trade barriers if one nation does not agree to ceilings on emissions.
*****
But there is cause for profound skepticism as well. The Chinese continue to resist mandatory ceilings on their emissions and are making financial and environmental demands on the United States that are political roadblocks.
The United States, despite optimistic words from the White House and Congress, has yet to enact any binding targets on greenhouse gas emissions. The energy bill now before Congress proposes emissions targets that are far short of what China and other nations say they expect of the United States.
Compounding the difficulty is the fact that both countries are struggling economically and the Chinese and American publics appear far more interested in jobs than in tackling environmental problems, a task that would necessarily be costly. ****"

But there's an alternative, an alternative which would eleminate the need for worry about emissions because there would be no emissions. The alternative is also less expensive, and would create jobs. For more in formation, please see www.campaignforgreen.com.

Climate Deals--Please Act Soon

"Ban Ki-moon calls for "green deal", says time short 21 May 2009 22:14:47 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Megan Davies (Edited by Philip Barbara)
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N21352527.htm
UNITED NATIONS, May 21 (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for a "green new deal" on climate change on Thursday and urged for a final push in negotiations ahead of a key summit to be held in Copenhagen in December.
"We absolutely must reach an agreement to reduce greenhouse gases and help millions of families adapt to climate change -- before our time runs out," Ban told an audience at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, according to a transcript made available at the United Nations."

But we really can't wait 'til December. Something needs to be done now. And something can be done now. Please see www.campaignforgreen.com.

Personal Carbon Footprint Worries Unnecessary

"http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/Carbon: How much is enough?
Richard Black 18:49 GMT, Thursday, 26 March 2009

On my last entry, TandF1 posted a comment about a subject I've been planning to write about for a while - so what better time than now to delve into it? The issue is this: how much carbon dioxide should each person on Earth be "allowed" to emit?
Put another way: if emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases are to be limited, at some target date, to a figure that science suggests can stave off "dangerous" climate change, then how does that figure break down at the personal level, when shared out among the world's citizens?""

With no-emissions energy, individuals would not have a carbon footprint to worry about. Yes, it's possible--just cf. www.campaignforgreen.com.

Just Now?

The EPA is just now requiring companies to report the amount of their greenhouse gas emissions. Just now? Strange.
(EPA looks to require reporting of greenhouse gases, Tuesday March 10, 12:15 pm ET, By Dina Cappiello, Associated Press Writer, http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/090310/epa_greenhouse_gases.html)

Why Green Energy? . . . first in a series

Last summer, world leaders chose to focus on reducing carbon emissions to more than 80% for the G8 countries and encouraged developing countries to work toward 25-40% emissions below 1990 levels by the year 2020 (BBC News 2008/07/08 12:35 GMT).

On 12 December, European Union leaders discussed a 20% carbon emissions reduction by 2020, rather than the 25-40% scientists deem necessary (BBC News 1008/12/12).
The goals themselves reduced between July and December.

But carbon emissions don't. And neither do greenhouse gases.

In 2007, global carbon dioxide emissions increased by 3.1% (www.mnp.nl). Between 1970 and 2007, global greenhouse gases rose 75% (www.mnp.nl). In the United States alone, power plant greenhouse gas emissions had their "biggest single year increase" in 2007 (www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2008/2008-03-18-04.asp).

Why not raise the bar for higher reduction goals? And set the deadline sooner? But there's something much better: total elimination of carbon dioxide emissions and greenhouse gases.
It can be done. See www.campaignforgreen.com.