Enviro-News - 1

Five snippets of environment related news this week - all gleaned for the most part from a new blog I found today - CELSIAS: Cooling the planet one project at a time.

1. Business as usual ...on the one hand, Al Gore rings the bells of doom once again during his Nobel prize acceptance speech and on the other hand, the US (and Canada and Japan!) maintain their "steadfast commitment to avoid binding greenhouse gas emissions reductions" at the UN's Bali Climate Convention! Read more about the U.S./Canada/Japan Blockade in this dispatch at Celsias.

Previous dispatches at Celias from Bali: Day One and A Look on the Bright Side

So much for UN's pre-conference warming to world leaders:

The world has less than a decade to change course to avoid irreversible ecological catastrophe, the UN warned today.The stark warning from the UN’s Human Development report came just ahead of next month’s climate summit in Bali, Indonesia, to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto protocol…. “The world lacks neither the financial resources nor the technological capabilities to act,” the UN report said. “What is missing is a sense of urgency, human solidarity and collective interest.” - Guardian

or the declaration from the scientists.

Based on current scientific understanding, this requires that global greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by at least 50% below their 1990 levels by the year 2050. In the long run, greenhouse gas concentrations need to be stabilised at a level well below 450 ppm (parts per million; measured in CO2-equivalent concentration). In order to stay below 2 ºC, global emissions must peak and decline in the next 10 to 15 years, so there is no time to lose.

As scientists, we urge the negotiators to reach an agreement that takes these targets as a minimum requirement for a fair and effective global climate agreement.

Update: Once again, US's stance makes an entire meet useless and makes any further progress on this matter difficult.

Bitter divisions at climate talks
Amid growing frustration with the United States over deadlocked negotiations at a United Nations conference on global warming, the European Union threatened Thursday to boycott separate talks proposed by the Bush administration in Hawaii next month.

Humberto Rosa, the chief delegate from Portugal, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, said the discussions next month would be meaningless if there were no deal at the conference here this week on the resort island of Bali.

Germany's environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, told reporters, "No result in Bali means no Major Economies Meeting." He was referring to the formal name of the proposed American-sponsored talks.

The goal of the Bali meeting, which is being attended by delegates from 190 countries and which is scheduled to end Friday, is to reach agreement on a plan for a future deal to reduce greenhouse gases.

The escalating bitterness between the European Union and the United States came as former Vice President Al Gore told delegates in a speech that "My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali."

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Greenpeace has convinced John Gormley, Ireland's Environment Minister, to outright ban energy-wasting light bulbs by the year 2009. According to Greenpeace this “will be in effect the EU’s first ban on energy-wasting incandescent light bulbs.”

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Little to celebrate on the Kyoto protocol's tenth birthday yesterday. This blog post at the Celias takes a look at the reasons why Kyoto, if it were a person, would not be celebrating the last 10 years:

• All day long, his entire family (190 nations) has been arguing with increasing anger and frustration. Remind you of your own family get-togethers?
• His favorite uncles and aunts, the European Union, who have supported him the most throughout the years, are spending his birthday trying to create a replacement for him in Bali
• His richest uncle, the United States, refuses to give up any of its prosperity in order to help him mature and make something of himself, when in fact he might be able to support Kyoto without nearly as much economic harm as he thinks
• Even his birth-parents, the Japanese (he was born in Kyoto, after all), are admitting he didn’t come out quite as planned: “The Kyoto Protocol targets are proving to be difficult to achieve not only for Japan, for other countries as well.” - Ichiro Kamoshita, Japan’s Environment minister
• Imagine being told unprovoked by your parents that you are “difficult” on your birthday: “It’s only 10 years old…and we have worked hard to raise a child. Still, at the age of 10, children can be quite difficult, and so the Kyoto Protocol too,” - again, Ichiro Kamoshita, Japan’s Environment minister
• Already, very few family members believe in him. As Kimiko Hirata of the Kiko Network, a Japanese NGO put it, “The spirit of Kyoto is dying” (Nature)

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Electric Car Tesla's founder ousted from his own company last week..

"I thought it was a strange notion to kick the founder out of the company anyway, where there wasn’t a big ideological difference on the board where we wanted to go,” Eberhad says. “For all Elon’s character and personality, he’s trying to solve same problem as I am. “

He should schedule a meeting with Steve Jobs to talk about it for therapy :)

Previous blog posts by me about the Tesla and one about Cars that pay.

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And last but not least... not current news but read about natural capitalism at this Celias blog post or for more details read the recent book Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution.