Climate

But fewer than 20 countries account for more than 80% of global GHG emissions; they can be plunked down at a single conference table, as long as it’s at tropical resort. That’s the idea behind the Hawaii Conference. Similarly, California and the 16 states who planned to copy its legislation together make up about half the U.S. population.

Today, the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) released its much-anticipated Global Corporate Climate Change Report (CDP5). This is the fifth annual report by the CDP tracking carbon disclosure and attitudes toward climate change in the world's largest companies. The CDP additionally this year launched the Climate Disclosure Leadership Index (CDLI), an honor roll for companies who are best addressing climate change issues.

Any answers to these questions would be purely speculative, but if the industry had continued expanding at its previous rate, then instead of the current 104 reactors, we might easily have 200, contributing 40% of our total electricity supplies. Coal-fired power plants would supply only 32% of our power needs, instead of 50%, and we'd emit roughly 650 million tons less CO2 per year.

Advocates of Planet Relief finally relented after viewers said that they wanted intelligent programmes about climate change instead of lectures from hypocritical pop stars and celebrities.

Peter Horrocks, head of BBC television news, added: We should be giving people information, not leading them.” The BBC has now scrapped the concept. Negative reaction to this summer’s flop Live Earth concert, promoted by Al Gore, was cited as a factor. Audience feedback found that viewers wanted serious, informed programmes about the planet’s future.

However critics have attacked the lack of binding emissions targets for the 21 APEC nations, describing the summit as a missed opportunity.

The Guidelines for Quantifying GHG Reductions from Grid-Connected Electricity Projects ( 3 MB) is a publication released by the GHG Protocol Initiative.

Much to the chagrin of green groups, non-environmentalist Howard burnished his legacy with a "Sydney Declaration," signing up APEC members to an "aspirational target" for cutting greenhouse gases.

The ability of Toyota and BMW to gain market share while cutting emissions is a clear example of innovative design paying off for the bottom line and the environment

President Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard had a lot to agree about at this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Sydney, where the 21 member economies, including China and Russia, met for discussions.

With several international climate change meetings scheduled in the coming months, the debate continues over how best to sculpt a post-Kyoto approach to addressing climate change. During today's OnPoint, Nobel Prize winner Thomas Schelling explains why a voluntary approach would be most successful -- but why President Bush's plan for setting "aspirational" goals will not work. Schelling, currently a professor at the University of Maryland, explains how the Marshall Plan model can provide a structure for an international emissions agreement. He also talks about the need for the United States to pass its own climate legislation in order to facilitate the post-Kyoto process.

Sharon Begley’s article about “the denial machine,” as frightening as it was, misses a crucial aspect of the problem. It is not just that well-heeled corporations are buying up politicians or promoting science-as-they-want-it-to-be. It is that our society is more than happy to accept spin and cant because we have come to believe that all expertise is bias, that all knowledge is opinion, that every judgment is relative. I see this daily in my university classroom. Many of even my best students seem to have lost the ability to think critically about the world. They do not believe in the transformative power of knowledge because they do not believe in knowledge itself. Begley decries the tactic of making the scientists appear divided, but the corporations didn’t have to invent this tactic. It is built into our carefully balanced political “debates,” into our news shows with equal time given to pundits from each side and into the “fairness” we try to teach in our schools. We need not be surprised that people have become consumers who demand the right to choose as they wish between the two equally questionable sides of every story. Neither global warming nor any other serious problem can be addressed by a society that equates willful ignorance with freedom of thought.

The measures of the deal should lead to a 36% cut of Germany’s carbon emissions by 2020 (compared to 1990).

The TED Blog has a look at Bjorn Lomborg's new book "Cool It" and recommends not following the advice of the skeptical "environmentalist" / political scientist.

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The main finding is that even moderate climate change will affect economic activity and employment in Europe, with some regions and economic sectors being particularly vulnerable. Increased warming will be likely to have very damaging consequences.

In fact, it was ten years ago today that the Senate unanimously instructed the Clinton-Gore administration to not go to Kyoto and agree to that pact

The first one addresses "Coal-CO2 versus Oil-CO2":

Researchers at Resources for the Future have prepared a detailed comparison of major market-based climate change proposals currently under consideration in the 110th Congress.