Environment – Dec 4

December 3, 2005

Click on the headline (link) for the full text.

Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage



Protesters from 30 countries unite to fight global warming

Cahal Milmo, lndependent/UK via Common Dreams
Up to a million people will take to the streets of more than 100 cities in 30 countries today to demand greater action on tackling global warming.

The first worldwide demonstration on climate change will coincide with the opening of a key United Nations conference to set out the basis for the reduction of greenhouse gases after the Kyoto treaty expires in 2012.

Organizers of the protests warned that the world’s leading industrialized nations had failed to make an impact on climate change and some, in particular Britain, were backsliding on their environmental commitments.
(3 December 2005)


Global climate change – have a look at 2100 scenarios

Jerome a Paris, Daily Kos
The above map was published by Le Monde a couple of days ago. It shows the expected consequences of global warming by 2100.

See below for the translation and a few other pics.
(2 December 2005)


The climate in Montreal

Editorial, Washington Post
TO HEAR THEM talk, you would think that the Bush administration officials attending the international climate change conference in Montreal this week were deeply committed to cutting emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. One Associated Press story said that the lead Montreal negotiator claimed the president had committed to cutting greenhouse gases some 18 percent by 2012. Another State Department official in Montreal said that the United States had already cut greenhouse gas emissions by 0.8 percent between 2000 and 2003.

Unfortunately, neither of these figures stands up to examination. In fact, the president’s easily misunderstood 18 percent pledge referred not to reduction of actual emissions but to the reduction of “emissions intensity,” a number that reflects a country’s greenhouse gas emissions relative to its gross domestic product. “Emissions intensity,” so defined, has in fact been declining in this country for 20 years. If it were to decline by 18 percent between now and 2012, that would simply reflect business as usual. It would not necessarily require any environmental policy change, nor would it ensure any reduction in the amount of greenhouse gases that economic activity produces.
(2 December 2005)
Also see: US stand poses hurdle at environmental talks (Christian Science Monitor).


China urges U.S. to join Kyoto treaty

Beth Duff-Brown, Associated Press
MONTREAL — China _ one of the world’s major polluters _ urged the U.S. to join the Kyoto treaty Wednesday, rejecting arguments that the pact is flawed because it fails to restrict emissions by developing countries.

China’s Sun Guoshunis said his country was already cutting the polluting emmisions, adding it was unfair to expect China and India _ with the world’s largest populations _ to ask their impoverished people to cut back on energy consumption.

“We really feel pity that the U.S. has not yet, and is not going to join the Kyoto Protocol, not only because of the size of its total emissions, but also because of its higher per capita emissions,” Sun, director of the Department of Treaty and Law at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
(30 November 2005)