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Stern upbeat over climate action
BBC
Economist Sir Nicholas Stern has told MPs he is encouraged by the progress being made around the world to tackle climate change.
India and China had to be persuaded to do more but the scientific arguments were gaining ground in the US.
And the EU had set more ambitious targets for carbon reduction than expected, he added.
Sir Nicholas suggested in a report last year that global warming could shrink the global economy by 20%.
But taking action now would cost just 1% of the world’s gross domestic product every year, his 700-page study said.
Asked if action being taken around the world was urgent enough. the former chief economist of the World Bank said: “I think it is moving strongly in the right direction.”
But he added: “Whether it will get far enough, soon enough I don’t know.”
He told the Commons environmental audit committee it did not matter “whether you are optimistic or pessimistic” about climate change, the “crucial thing” was to have the right policies in place.
He stressed the importance of international action but said Britain had a role to play in persuading other countries to cut emissions.
(16 Jan 2007)
Related:
Stern’s short reply to his critics (PDF)
Summary of Stern’s reply
Science and faith join forces
Rodrique Ngowi, Associated Press
Some leading scientists and evangelical Christian leaders have agreed to put aside their fierce differences over the origin of life and work together to fight global warming.
Representatives met recently in Georgia and agreed on the need for urgent action. Details on the talks will be disclosed in Washington on Wednesday.
“Whether God created the Earth in a millisecond or whether it evolved over billions of years, the issue we agree on is that it needs to be cared for today,” said Rich Cizik, vice president of government relations for the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents 45,000 churches.
Eric Chivian, director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, agreed, saying: “Scientists and evangelicals have discovered that we share a deeply felt common concern and sense of urgency about threats to life on Earth and that we must speak with one voice to protect it.”
(15 Jan 2007)
Exxon Mobil softens its climate-change stance
Jeffrey Ball, The Wall Street Journal
In one of the strongest signs yet that U.S. industry anticipates government curbs on global-warming emissions, Exxon Mobil Corp., long a leading opponent of such rules, is starting to talk about how it would like them to be structured.
Exxon, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company by market value, long has been a lightning rod in the global-warming debate. Its top executives have openly questioned the scientific validity of claims that fossil-fuel emissions are warming the planet, and it has funded outside groups that have challenged such claims in language sometimes stronger than the company itself has used. Those actions have prompted criticism of the company by environmentalists and by Democrats in the U.S., who now control the Congress.
Now, Exxon has cut off funding to a handful of those outside groups. It says climate-science models that link greenhouse-gas concentrations to global warming are getting more reliable. And it is meeting in Washington with officials of other large corporations to discuss what form the companies would prefer a possible U.S. carbon regulation to take.
The changes in Exxon’s words and actions are nuanced. The oil giant continues to note uncertainties in climate science. It continues to oppose the Kyoto Protocol, the international global-warming treaty that limits emissions from industrialized countries that have ratified it. It also stresses that any future carbon policy should include developing countries, where emissions are rising fastest.
Still, the company’s subtle softening is significant and reflects a gathering trend among much of U.S. industry, from utilities to auto makers.
(11 Jan 2007)
Chrysler questions climate change
Steve Schifferes, BBC
Chrysler’s chief economist Van Jolissaint has attacked European attitudes to global warming, describing climate change as “way, way in the future, with a high degree of uncertainty”.
He was particularly critical of the recent Stern Report on climate change, which was commissioned by the UK government and calls for urgent action to tackle the problem.
His words are in sharp contrast to the green image that the US car companies have been trying to promote at this year’s Detroit motor show.
Mr Jolissaint was speaking at a private breakfast where the chief economists of the “Big Three” US car firms presented their forecasts for auto industry sales this year.
Most of the audience – which was mainly made up of parts suppliers – seemed to nod in agreement with Mr Jolissaint.
(10 Jan 2007)
Environment ministers lack clout on global warming
Alister Doyle, Reuters
Environment ministers lack power to lead a fight against global warming at a time when ever more governments portray climate change as one of the biggest threats to the planet, experts say.
Environment ministers are sometimes rising stars — German Chancellor Angela Merkel had a stint in the 1990s — but are often far less experienced than cabinet colleagues in charge of issues such as defense, health or education.
“I don’t think they are too junior to get things done but the portfolio doesn’t cover all of the essential issues” such as energy or competition policy, Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Secretariat, told Reuters.
He met U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in New York on Monday to press his call for a summit of about 20 world leaders to spur stalled talks on widening the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol on curbing global warming beyond a first period ending in 2012.
“Heads of state and government…are in a position to say ‘this is the direction in which things should go’,” he said.
…”The excessive exploitation of natural resources is upsetting the climate and will endanger mankind, if we don’t react right now,” French President Jacques Chirac, for instance, said in a New Year address.
(16 Jan 2007)
Cutbacks Impede Climate Studies
Marc Kaufman, Washington Pos
The government’s ability to understand and predict hurricanes, drought and climate changes of all kinds is in danger because of deep cuts facing many Earth satellite programs and major delays in launching some of its most important new instruments, a panel of experts has concluded.
The two-year study by the National Academy of Sciences, released yesterday, determined that NASA’s earth science budget has declined 30 percent since 2000. It stands to fall further as funding shifts to plans for a manned mission to the moon and Mars. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, meanwhile, has experienced enormous cost overruns and schedule delays with its premier weather and climate mission.
As a result, the panel said, the United States will not have the scientific information it needs in the years ahead to analyze severe storms and changes in Earth’s climate unless programs are restored and funding made available.
(16 Jan 2007)
Canada can get rich by going green, Dion says
CBC
In what he called his first major speech as Liberal leader, Stéphane Dion told a Toronto business audience Tuesday that Canadians can make enormous profits fighting climate change.
“Yes, Canada will cut megatonnes of emissions, but we will also make megatonnes of money,” he told a joint breakfast meeting of the Toronto Board of Trade and the Economic Club of Toronto.
At the same time, he expressed skepticism about expanding nuclear power – which some see as a way to reduce heat-trapping carbon emissions – because he has no answer to the problem of radioactive waste.
…The trick in getting rich on climate change, he said, is to be a leader in reducing greenhouse gas output and creating technologies for doing so.
(16 Jan 2007)
Is Good Weather Bad for Sustainable Energy?
Michael Vickerman, RENEW Wisconsin
To the extent that human-induced climate change is responsible for winter’s late arrival to many parts of the Northern Hemisphere, there is a peculiar irony at work: warmer weather means less energy going to heat homes and buildings. In a season when stockpiles of heating oil traditionally are drawn down, reduced demand has left inventories brimming with unused fuel. This anomalous weather is “confusing” not only the flora and fauna in our hemisphere, but also the strangely detached subspecies of humanity known as energy traders. The way they look at the situation, there’s way too much oil on the market, and they’re bailing out of long positions as fast as they can. Spot market prices have nosedived in the last two weeks, leaving the per barrel price of oil hovering just above the $50 mark. Such low prices cannot last.
…As a result of this balmy stretch, several troubling thoughts have taken root in my brain: what if people come to regard climate change as something that could save energy in the long run? Could expectations of warmer winters lull Americans into a false sense of security? How many homeowners will put off valuable insulation projects and installations of solar water heaters because they’re not feeling any pain from utility bills? And the kicker: can we make any progress toward a sustainable energy future if the weather doesn’t cooperate?
(13 Jan 2007)
