Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
Carbon offsets ‘harm environment’
BBC
The current trend for “offsetting” carbon emissions by planting trees is doing more harm to the environment than good, MPs have been told. The public is being “seriously misled” by companies peddling carbon offset schemes, campaigner Jutta Kill told the environmental audit committee.
The schemes did not reduce emissions and simply gave industry a “licence to pollute” elsewhere, she argued. People should give money directly to climate charities instead, she said.
Under carbon offsetting schemes, air passengers pay to fund tree planting and other environmental projects in developing countries. The practice has become a badge of honour for politicians on all sides – amongst others – over the past year, as they compete to prove their green credentials.
But campaigners giving evidence to the Commons environmental audit committee, chaired by Tory MP Tim Yeo, questioned the value of offsetting as a way of tackling climate change.
(22 Feb 2007)
As earth warms, lawsuits mount
Eoin O’Carroll, Christian Science Monitor
But problems arise when it comes time to pin down those responsible for climate change.
—-
The growing scientific consensus on global warming may prompt more than high-level policy decisions. It could also trigger more lawsuits.
Earlier this month, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded it is “very likely,” that is, at least 90 percent probable, that human activity causes global warming. This percent is higher than the panel’s previous report, released in 2001, which had set it at 66 percent. The increased confidence gives accused greenhouse polluters less wiggle room, legal experts say.
“He said major emitters of greenhouse gases could no longer argue they were unaware of the risks….
” ‘Carrying on with business as usual could be viewed as negligent in future,’ he said. Until now, countries or firms could say there was doubt because the U.N. climate panel had been just 66 percent sure of a link to human activities.”
Several climate change lawsuits are in the works in the US
(22 Feb 2007)
How fast must we act on global warming?
Gregory M. Lamb, Christian Science Monitor
Despite broad agreement on climate change, economists are divided over how quickly to implement solutions.
—
…should the world’s fight to curb greenhouse-gas emissions start with modest steps or does humanity need a crash diet to curb climate change?
Economists have looked at the question for years and concluded that a gradual approach inflicts the lowest cost on society. But last October, an economic report prepared for the British government shifted the debate and argued for more aggressive action.
In his report to the British government, economist Sir Nicholas Stern tried to settle the question. His “Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change” calculated that failing to curb greenhouse-gas emissions would cut the world’s economic output (GDP) by 5 to 20 percent per year, risking economic disruption on a scale of the two world wars or the Great Depression. Without mitigation (efforts to slow CO2 emissions), temperatures could rise 5 degrees C (9 F.) by the end of the century.
Even before that temperature is reached, Mr. Stern contends that the lives of millions will be greatly disrupted through intensified droughts, coastal flooding, and stronger storms.
On the other hand, quick action to limit the worst effects of climate change would cost nations only about 1 percent of their GDP each year, the Stern report argues. The case that the cost of immediate action is less than the cost of inaction is “blindly obvious,” Stern says. The aim should be to stabilize greenhouse-gas levels (principally CO2) in the atmosphere to 450 to 550 parts per million (ppm). The current level is about 430 ppm.
While economists have praised the report as a milestone, not all are persuaded. So for the first time since the “Stern Review” was issued last fall, the former chief economist for the World Bank ventured across the Atlantic to make his case before Congress, the United Nations, and a panel of a half-dozen fellow economists at Yale’s Center for the Study of Globalization.
Reasonable people can disagree with conclusions in the report, but “reasonable people are obligated to have a serious discussion” about its findings, Stern said at Yale. Even if climate change turned out to be the biggest hoax in history, Stern argues, the world will still be better off with all the new technologies it will develop to combat it. The price of waiting for more evidence is too high, he says. “You’re playing with a planet here.”
(22 Feb 2007)
Corporate titans launch new climate change campaign
Agence France Presse
Heavyweight companies including General Electric and Citigroup joined forces in a high-profile campaign against global warming, demanding that governments mandate caps on greenhouse gases.
The three-year-old Global Roundtable on Climate Change launched a new strategy backed by over 85 companies and groups including Air France, metals giant Alcoa, German pharmaceuticals maker Bayer and insurer Allianz.
“Global businesses are assuming their just place as catalysts for action on climate change. But action by business alone is not enough,” GE chairman and chief executive Jeffrey Immelt said at the campaign’s launch.
Companies can apply new technologies to tackle the problem but governments “must step forward with equal force,” he said.
…In the European Union, environment ministers agreed Tuesday to plans for deep cuts in greenhouse gases of at least 20 percent by 2020, and as much as 30 percent if other developed economies agree to do the same.
(21 Feb 2007)
A Battle Over the Costs of Global Warming
David Leonhardt, NY Times
… once in a while there is an academic fight that really matters. The economics profession is engaged in one of those right now and, as luck would have it, it’s even more entertaining than most.
Last week, Sir Nicholas Stern, a top adviser to the British government, came to the United States to talk about climate change. In October, a commission he led released a 700-page report calling for “urgent action” against global warming to prevent economic damage that could rival that of the world wars and the Great Depression. Given its source and its tone, the Stern Review has nudged people to talk more seriously about climate change.
In the minds of a lot of American economists, however, the review is a badly flawed piece of work. These economists don’t doubt that earth is getting hotter, that human activity is the cause and that the results could be bad. But they think that Sir Nicholas may have exaggerated the likely speed of warming, among other things, and overstated the case for big, quick action.
The epicenter of the opposition has been here at Yale, and so last week, after stopping in Washington to testify before Congress, Sir Nicholas came to New Haven for a public debate with his critics. With a couple of hundred students and professors in the audience – and a sculpture of an angry Zeus-like figure looming above the stage – the two sides went at it in the dignified, vicious way that academics do.
(21 Feb 2007)
