Skip to main content

Home/ Geopolitics Weekly/ Group items tagged 2030

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | UK | Global crisis 'to strike by 2030' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7951838.stm

Food Water Energy 2030 Climate Change

shared by Argos Media on 19 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Growing world population will cause a "perfect storm" of food, energy and water shortages by 2030, the UK government chief scientist is warning.
  • Demand for food and energy will jump 50% by 2030 and for fresh water by 30%, as the population tops 8.3 billion, he is due to tell a conference in London. Climate change will exacerbate matters in unpredictable ways, he will add.
  • "It's a perfect storm," Prof Beddington will tell the Sustainable Development UK 09 conference. "There's not going to be a complete collapse, but things will start getting really worrying if we don't tackle these problems."
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The United Nations Environment Programme predicts widespread water shortages across Africa, Europe and Asia by 2025.
  • Improving agricultural productivity globally is one way to tackle the problem, he adds. At present, 30-40% of all crops are lost due to pest and disease before they are harvested. Professor Beddington says: "We have to address that. We need more disease-resistant and pest-resistant plants and better practices, better harvesting procedures. "Genetically-modified food could also be part of the solution. We need plants that are resistant to drought and salinity - a mixture of genetic modification and conventional plant breeding.
Pedro Gonçalves

Putin prepares the Russian empire to strike back | Simon Tisdall | Comment is free | Th... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...putin-prepares-russian-empire

Russia Putin

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 12 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • As president, potentially until 2024, Putin has one overriding objective: the creation of a third, post-tsarist, post-Soviet Russian empire.
  • Elements of Putin's strategy to make Russia great again are slowly coming into focus. Much of the plan is defined by Russia's opposition to the US, the traditional foe. Thus the Kremlin announced last week that it would renounce the strategic arms reduction treaty (known as New Start) agreed with Washington two years ago if the US did not abandon its European missile defence plans.
  • unveiling of a new Russian missile base in Kaliningrad on Nato's doorstep
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Putin is busy reviving the idea of a remodelled union embracing the former Soviet republics of central Asia, an arrangement that prospectively boosts Russian political and military influence. "Russia will begin this new iteration of a Russian empire by creating a union with former Soviet states based on Moscow's current associations, such as the customs union and the collective security treaty organisation. This will allow the 'EuU' [a Eurasia union] to strategically encompass both the economic and security spheres … Putin is creating a union in which Moscow would influence foreign policy and security but would not be responsible for most of the inner workings of each country," said Lauren Goodrich in a Stratfor paper.
  • Following last month's Gazprom deal with Belarus, industry analysts suggest up to 50% of Europe's natural gas could be controlled by Russia by 2030.
Argos Media

China considers setting targets for carbon emissions | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...china-environment-kyoto

Climate Change China Hu Angang

shared by Argos Media on 20 Apr 09 - Cached
  • The Chinese government is for the first time considering setting targets for carbon emissions, a significant development that could help negotiations on a Kyoto successor treaty at Copenhagen later this year
  • Su Wei, a leading figure in China's climate change negotiating team, said that officials were considering introducing a national target that would limit emissions relative to economic growth in the country's next five-year plan from 2011.
  • "It is an option. We can very easily translate our [existing] energy reduction targets to carbon dioxide limitation" said Su. "China hasn't reached the stage where we can reduce overall emissions, but we can reduce energy intensity and carbon intensity."
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • A second government adviser, Hu Angang, has said China should start cutting overall emissions from 2020.
  • While that is a minority view and final decisions are some way off, the proposals are striking because they are at odds with China's official negotiating stance.
  • Beijing has hitherto rejected carbon emission caps or cuts, arguing that its priority is to improve its people's living standards – and that the west caused the global warming problem and should fix it. But developed nations argue that they cannot commit to deep cuts and to substantial funding for developing nations to fight climate change unless those countries embrace emissions targets.
  • Environmental groups and foreign diplomats said a carbon intensity target would be a significant step forward. Any move by China, the world's fastest expanding major economy, biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and most influential developing nation, would have an enormous impact on the outcome of the Copenhagen summit in December."It would be a significant step for China to set a target that directly links carbon emissions to economic growth for the first time," said Yang Ailun of Greenpeace."This is a green shoot of pragmatism that should be nurtured," said one European diplomat.
  • Hu, an influential economist and advocate of "green revolution", is pressing the government to take a leadership role in Copenhagen by making a public commitment to reduce emissions, and last week submitted the proposal to set a new carbon dioxide goal.He is one of 37 members of an elite body that advised the premier, Wen Jiabao, to include ambitious targets of a 20% improvement in energy efficiency and 10% reduction of pollution in the 2006-2010 plan. With government figures suggesting the country is on course to approach or exceed those goals, Hu suggests they be extended for the next plan with the addition of the carbon dioxide target.
  • If his proposal is accepted, Hu believes China will be able to make an international pledge this year to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from 2020.
  • the debate on China's role in greenhouse gas reductions is widening. Last month, the Chinese Academy of Science reported that the country's carbon dioxide emissions relative to GDP should be reduced by 50% by 2020, and that total CO2 emissions should peak between 2030 and 2040 if the country introduced more stringent energy-saving policies and received more financial support and technology from overseas.
  • Citing new figures from the state bureau of energy, Hu said China overtook the US last year as the world's biggest energy producer with 2.6bn tonnes of standard coal equivalent, seven years ahead of expectations. "If we can't succeed in reducing energy consumption, then no one can. I tell the government that a 1% failure in China is a 100% failure for the world," said Hu. "We must satisfy our national interest and match it with the interest of humanity."
1 - 3 of 3
Showing 20▼ items per page