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U.N. Climate Change Report Says Worst Scenarios Can Still Be Avoided

A United Nations report suggests that governments can still avert the more serious consequences of climate change provided they act quickly and aggressively to cut the accelerating pace of greenhouse-gas emissions. According to the report, global greenhouse-gas emissions have risen more rapidly between 2000 and 2010 than in each of the three previous decades. The global economic crisis of 2007 and 2008 temporarily reduced emissions but didn’t change the trend, the report says. The report is of major interest to policy makers because it focuses on various scenarios for mitigating global warming. Presented on Sunday in Berlin, it is the third installment in a comprehensive four-part report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Climate Efforts Falling Short, U.N. Panel Says

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rose almost twice as fast in the first decade of this century. BERLIN — Delivering the latest stark news about climate change on Sunday, a United Nations panel warned that governments are not doing enough to avert profound risks in coming decades. But the experts found a silver lining: Not only is there still time to head off the worst, but the political will to do so seems to be rising around the world. In a report unveiled here, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that decades of foot-dragging by political leaders had propelled humanity into a critical situation, with greenhouse emissions rising faster than ever. Though it remains technically possible to keep planetary warming to a tolerable level, only an intensive push over the next 15 years to bring […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Oil industry now Canada’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions

  An environmental analyst says the rise of oil and gas production as Canada’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions adds further weight to calls for the federal government to bring in long-promised regulations for the oil industry. The Environment Canada report quietly released Friday reveals the energy sector has now surpassed transportation as the largest generator of the climate-change causing gases. The report, covering the period from 1990 to 2012, states that oil and gas now account for one-quarter of Canada’s greenhouse emissions, narrowly edging out transportation. Analyst P.J. Partington with eco think-tank the Pembina Institute said the oil industry becoming Canada’s biggest source of emissions underscores the need for the Harper government to make good on a longstanding pledge to bring in rules cutting the oil patch’s climate impact. “We can’t hide from the challenge of regulating that sector. If Canada’s going to play its role […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Peak Oil And Global Warming A Question Of Culture

In The Beginning Was the Word Certainly for the last 20 years these two themes have tunneled into political consciousness, but there are huge differences. Peak Oil was never “official”, but Global Warming or at least anthropogenic global warming quickly became official, in the UN system, EU28 countries, the US, Japan, Canada and Australia, and some other developed countries. Today, in the cases of Japan, Canada and Australia the political commitment has already gone, and the downstream financial spinoff from the global warming theme, which enabled market operators to concoct and play with climate credit default swaps and a host of other all-new paper assets, has seriously ebbed. Outside of these countries, in the G20 and Russia, global warming always had a much tougher ride. Yet another stark Russia-versus-the West split occurred on this issue. Russia has a long and tortuous politically-charged obsession with a coming Ice Age – […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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California drought gives boost to anti-fracking movement

California is known for the twin threat of natural disasters from drought and earthquakes, with both phenomena certain to give many residents serious concern. But there is one group that is starting to reap serendipitous marketing ammunition from the state’s current historic drought and the ever-present worry of ground-shaking tremors: the anti-fracking movement . “California faces two interlinked crises, a water crisis and a climate crisis, and fracking makes both of these problems worse,” said Kassie Siegel, senior counsel for the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit conservation group. Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing — a method of high-pressure injection of substances to extract oil from rock formations — has become a hugely controversial subject across the United States . Defenders of the process, especially the oil and gas industry, hail it as a solution to America’s energy woes. Critics say it is highly pollutive and contributes to climate change […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Cars Become Biggest Driver of Greenhouse-Gas Increases

The greatest emerging threat to the global climate may rest in the side pocket of your trousers — or wherever you keep the car keys. Emissions from transportation may rise at the fastest rate of all major sources through 2050, the United Nations will say in a report due April 13. Heat-trapping gases from vehicles may surge 71 percent from 2010 levels, mainly from emerging economies, according to a leaked draft of the most comprehensive UN study to date on the causes of climate change. Rising incomes in nations like China, India and Brazil have produced explosive demand for cars and for consumer goods that must be delivered by highway, rail, ship or air. The new pollution, measured in millions of tons of greenhouse gases, may exceed all of the savings achieved through initiatives like subsidies for public transport and fuel efficiency. Cutting back on transportation gases “will be […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Germany Amends Green-Energy Regime to Curb Rise in Prices

The German government has amended renewable-energy laws meant to help make the country nuclear-free but that have sent power prices rocketing—squeezing consumers and the country’s formidable export machine. The cabinet approved amendments on Tuesday that it said would contain soaring electricity costs while seeking to protect German jobs in the industrial sector. The changes include less ambitious targets for wind power and a cut in subsidies for certain forms of green energy. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s "energy transformation," a bold and initially popular experiment to make Germany the first major industrial economy to run largely on green energy, has met strong resistance from companies and households faced with steep rises in power costs. The project revolves around subsidies that are financed by end users via a levy and meant to encourage a buildup in renewable energy capacity. Overall, the government expects such subsidies to reach €24 billion ($33 billion) this […]

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Noted Scholar Vaclav Smil Says What We Produce and Use Depends on Where We Are

If you want to understand the future of energy, says Vaclav Smil, you need to think locally—and skeptically. There are no easy fixes or pat global answers in the slog to add energy while reducing carbon emissions—only hard choices, notably about getting people to use energy more wisely, the wide-ranging author and scholar at the University of Manitoba told Wall Street Journal contributing editor Jeffrey Ball. Bill Gates recently wrote this about Mr. Smil, who has penned some three dozen books, writing on subjects as varied as energy, food and the decline of U.S. manufacturing: "There is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil." Mr. Smil explored what he sees as the limits of wind and solar power; the profligate use of energy in China; the even more profligate use of energy in the U.S.; and the admirable energy efficiency of Japan. Here are […]

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Exxon Is Behind The Landmark Climate Report You Didn’t Hear About

Climate change is already impacting all continents. But it isn’t yet impacting all companies. The latest installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report released on Monday confirmed the former. A report released by Exxon Mobil the same day about how greenhouse gas emissions and climate change factor into its business model found that climate change, and specifically global climate policies, are “highly unlikely” to stop it from selling fossil fuels for decades to come. Exxon is the first major oil and gas producer to publish a Carbon Asset Risk report to address investor concerns over how market forces and environmental regulations might impact the production of some of its reserves. The company agreed to publish the report several weeks ago after Arjuna Capital, a sustainable wealth management platform, and As You Sow, a non-profit promoting environmental corporate responsibility, agreed to drop a shareholder resolution on […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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California Drought Persists, Snowpack Shows

Recent wet weather has failed to break California’s worst drought in decades, according to measurements showing the state’s snowpack stands at about one-third of its normal average. That could result in higher prices nationally for some produce grown in the state, such as nuts, according to food-industry experts. California has seen more precipitation since February, and in recent days storms have blanketed the state’s mountains in several feet of snow. Still, Tuesday’s surveys by the Department of Water Resources showed the there at 32% of normal. While that is a big jump from a reading of 12% at the end of January, state officials say that with the wet season about to wind down, it isn’t enough to end a drought that has prompted mandatory rationing and water cutbacks to farms and cities. "We can hope that conditions improve, but time is running out and conservation is the only […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple