Date Posted: 17-May-2008

BRAZIL RAINFORESTS CAN BE SAVED

Brazil?s man in charge of managing the Amazon rainforest says deforestation can only be stopped if the region's 25 million people are given economic opportunities.

The Amazon's planning minister, Roberto Mangabeira Ungar, said the government authority was fully committed to preserving the rainforest, despite the resignation this week of Brazil's environment minister over the issue.

He said there was a middle way between preserving the forest as a sanctuary and sustainable development.

"Our fundamental commitment to sustainable development in the Amazon remains unshaken," he said. "We are determined to go forward now and demonstrate to the world how preservation, defence and development can, in fact, be reconciled in the Amazon.

Date Posted: 16-May-2008

NASA WANTS AN EMISSIONS MISSION

NASA has called for an "Apollo-type moon mission" to overcome the looming crisis of imploding climate change caused by human-made carbon emissions. 

NASA and US Air Force are co-ordinating a gathering of the world's top scientists to come up with green fuels to combat global warming.

Governments, academics, big business and environmental groups are being urged to come together and collaborate on a multibillion-dollar effort to calculate precisely the greenhouse gas emissions of all fossil fuels.

The priority objective is to calculate the overall carbon footprint of the world's energy sources, according William Anderson, an assistant secretary of the Air Force.

"To get serious on greenhouse gas emissions we have to first figure out where they're coming from," Anderson told Daily Planet Media.

Anderson said a combined research was already under way across the world, and governments and companies were being encouraged to contribute billions of dollars to fund the research.

The Air Force is looking at switching its aircraft to a synthetic liquid fuel made from coal. "As oil starts to diminish, coal is going to play big," said Anderson. Environmental campaigners have criticized coal fuels claiming that carbon emissions from coal are double those from oil.

Meanwhile US officials have met with the Royal Air Force and French Air force to discuss ways to make their activities more environmentally friendly. Another meeting has been scheduled for Paris in June.

Date Posted: 15-May-2008

LAKES ARE FEELING THE HEAT

The world's lakes are feeling the heat of global warming and are vulnerable to climate change, according to Marianne Moore, a biology professor at Wellesley College (Massachusetts).

Commenting on the latest research that showed Siberia's giant Lake Baikal was heating faster than rising global air temperatures, Moore said changes in the food cycle on the world's lakes were already occurring.

Scientific research endorsed by leading Russian and US scientists found that Bailka, the world's largest lake, had warmed C1.21 degrees since 1946 due to climate change - almost three times faster than global air temperatures.

And the study further revealed that the amount of ice cover had fallen an average of 18 days over the last 100 years and could drop by a further two weeks by the end of the century. The icy lake, which holds 20 percent of the world's freshwater, boasts 2,500 species, most of them found nowhere else. 

Research had shown the number of diatoms - that live under the ice and provide a food source for a variety of organisms living in the lake's depths - were falling due to ice recession.

Already changes in the food cycle had been observed with the multicellular zooplankton, which normally live in warmer waters, multiplying by 335 percent since 1946.

Date Posted: 14-May-2008

CLIMATE PACT GATHERS MOMENTUM

CHINA FOLLOWS JAPAN ON CO2 CUTS

China and Japan have agreed on an historic greenhouse strategy to slash emissions by more than 50% by the year 2050.

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Japan's Prime Minister, Yasuo Fukuda in Tokyo finalized the framework for the post-Kyoto greenhouse strategy during Ju Jintao's first visit to Japan.

China has overtaken the US as the world's biggest CO2 emitter, but has been reluctant to engage any binding cutback in emissions that would adversely affect economic development.

The Kyoto emissions agreement expires in 2012 and Japan is pushing China to support a UN brokered worldwide climate pact that would be framed next year for full implementation as a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

Japan will host the July G8 summit in Tokyo and will push the world's richest countries to endorse binding emissions cuts as a prelude to a climate pact that will take effect later next year.

The US,  Japan, Australia and the EU countries all agree that the next global agreement must contain greenhouse-reduction commitments from China and India - the world's fastest growing economies.

Japan has been seeking China's support for a "sectoral approach" to emissions cuts that would target carbon-intensive industries, such as steelmaking and thermal power generation.

Date Posted: 13-May-2008

A NEW ERA FOR SUPER CYCLONES

More powerful and frequent cyclones are a sign of what's to come, according to Indian Meteorological Department director-general Ajit Tyagi of the Indian advocacy group that monitors climate change in Asia.

Tropical Asia can expect more intense weather due to global warming that's impacting on climate change, Tyagi told Daily Planet Media.

Meanwhile India's influential Centre for Science and Environment has warned that destructive cyclones were likely to occur more often unless nations sped up their efforts to curtail the emission of greenhouse gases.

"Nargis is a sign of things to come. Last year, Bangladesh was devastated by the tropical cyclone Sidr," CSE director Sunita Narain stated.

"The victims of these cyclones are climate change victims and their plight should remind the rich world that it is doing too little to contain its greenhouse gas emissions."

The U.N Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, headed by Indian Rajendra Pachauri, last year concluded that cyclones would increase in their intensity as a result of global warming.

Ms Narain contended that the lifestyles in rich nations "are now spelling doom for countries like Burma and Bangladesh.

She said the big polluters of the world cannot escape their responsibility in the 'dance of death' of tropical cyclones like Nargis that has devastated Burma.

Date Posted: 12-May-2008

NORTH POLE IN RECORD MELTDOWN

ICE COVER LOWEST IN RECORDED HISTORY Latest satellite data and temperature records forecast a 59 percent chance the annual minimum Artic sea ice record would be broken again this year.

Over the past decade the Arctic sea ice has declined by 10 percent with a record drop in 2007.

The present ice cover is thinner and younger than at any previous time in recorded history.

Climate researcher Sheldon Drobot of the University of Colorado at Boulder described the Arctic sea meltdown as a compelling and obvious signs of climate change.

Arctic sea ice helps cool the planet with its usually reliable stores of white, sun-reflecting sea ice. If Arctic sea ice keeps melting it could result in the extinction of polar bears, walruses and seals.

The Arctic ice cap is melting due to warming temperatures and the spread of younger, thinner, less hardy ice in the region.

Date Posted: 11-May-2008

CLIMATE CHANGE TO SPUR CONFLICTS

If climate change is not slowed - and critical environmental thresholds are exceeded - then the situation will become a primary driver of world conflicts, according to a report from the British Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

Towards 2050, over the next three decades, the implosion of climate change will drive a significant change in the strategic security environment on the planet, environment expert Nick Mabey told Daily Planet Media.

"If uncontrolled, climate change will have security implications of similar magnitude to the World Wars, but which will last for centuries," Mabey said while referring to an open paper prepared for forums on defense and security issues.

The RUSI report said the world's response to climate change had been "slow and inadequate" and, while conflicts over natural resources had been a regular feature of history, the changing climatic conditions would exacerbate the problems with hundreds of millions of people displaced by droughts, floods and famines.