News From Around The World
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan aims to expand the "green business" market and create up to 1 million new jobs, the environment ministry said on Wednesday, to simultaneously fight climate change and boost the economy amid a global downturn.
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Climate change and rising sea levels pose one of the biggest threats to security in the Pacific and may also spark a global conflict over energy reserves under melting Arctic ice, according to Australia's military.
The Territory Opposition is calling for the Government to pressure the Federal Environment Minister to quickly resolve the future of the McArthur River mine.
The dirt in this town on the fringes of Dakar, Senegal's capital, is laced with lead left over from years of extracting it from old car batteries. And it is poisoning children.
World Business Council for Sustainable Development
MEPs formally approved an unprecedented package of six new climate and energy laws in Strasbourg on Wednesday. A year of intense negotiations was wrapped up in a mere twenty minutes of voting. Over 550 MEPs backed the package, while fewer than 100 voted against. The package is designed to cut EU greenhouse gas emissions by twenty per cent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels, as pledged by European leaders at their spring summit in 2007. The EU will aim for a 30 per cent cut if other industrialised countries take on equivalent commitments in a new international climate treaty to be agreed at UN talks in Copenhagen next December.
Global Warming is Real
There’s a lot of negative news regarding the costs of government efforts to reduce global warming. But scientists in Europe have published research which shows that by focusing on lowering temperatures, rather than on reducing CO2 emissions, sizable cost benefits are achieved. The researchers, from Germany and the Netherlands, published an article in The Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) in which they say they're confident that global governments stand a 90 percent chance of limiting temperature rises to 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures if they invest 2 percent of the global gross domestic product (GDP) in climate mitigation packages from 2005 until the year 2100.
Energy-starved Nicaragua is turning to wind as it tries to reduce its dependence on oil-based power.
The growth of coral in the Great Barrier Reef has slowed to the most sluggish rate in at least 400 years and signs point to manmade greenhouse gas emissions as the culprit, according to a new study.
BBC
Economist Lord Stern has said he is optimistic a global deal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions will be struck under Barack Obama's US presidency. Lord Stern, who was behind the first detailed economic assessment of the impact of climate change, said US and Chinese agreement to a cut was crucial.
