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Norway aims for zero-carbon status with all emissions offset by 2050
John Vidal, The Guardian
· PM’s plan relies heavily on buying greenhouse credits
· Oil exports undermine plan, says Greenpeace
Norway plans to be the first country in the world to become “carbon neutral” and cut its net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050. The prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, has proposed the move, expected to encourage other rich countries to act further and faster on climate change.
In a speech to the Labour party, Mr Stoltenberg said the greenhouse effect was the world’s most dangerous environmental problem and that Norway had a responsibility to act urgently.
“By 2050 greenhouse gas emissions will have to be reduced drastically. Rich countries should become carbon neutral. This does not mean no emissions from the countries in question. But it does mean that each tonne of greenhouse gases emitted is to be offset by an equivalent reduction elsewhere. This adds up to zero emissions,” he said.
“Norway will be at the forefront of international climate effort. I propose that in the period up to 2050 Norway will undertake to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 100% of our own emissions.” He said the government would “sharpen” measures to meet its existing obligations under the Kyoto protocol by 10% in the period up to 2012, and had agreed to a 30% cut in emissions by 2030.
The prime minister’s proposal propels Norway to the top of the international carbon cutting league. Britain has legally committed itself to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60% up to 2050, California has proposed 80%, and both Sweden and Iceland have pledged where possible to stop all oil imports by then. Europe says it intends to cut emissions by 20% by 2020 and by 30% if others make similar cuts.
(21 April 2007)
Related: Annan: Climate change threat to humanity
The greatest threat facing humanity is climate change, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Friday, and praised a Norwegian initiative to reduce the country’s net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050.
China Says Global Warming Threatens Development
Chris Buckley, Reuters via Planet Ark
Global warming could devastate China’s development, the nation’s first official survey of climate change warns, while insisting economic growth must come before greenhouse gas cuts.
Hotter average global temperatures fueled by greenhouse gases mean that different regions of China are likely to suffer spreading deserts, worsening droughts and floods, shrinking glaciers and rising seas, the National Climate Change Assessment states.
This environmental upheaval could derail the ruling Communist Party’s plans for sustainable development, a copy of the report obtained by Reuters says.
“Climatic warming may have serious consequences for our environment of survival as China’s economic sectors, such as agriculture and coastal regions, suffer grave negative effects,” the report states.
…But underscoring China’s commitment to achieving prosperity even as it braces for climate change, the report rejects emissions limits as unfair and economically dangerous, citing what it says are uncertainties about global warming.
“If we prematurely assume responsibilities for mandatory greenhouse gas emissions reductions, the direct consequence will be to constrain China’s current energy and manufacturing industries and weaken the competitiveness of Chinese products in international and even domestic markets,” it says.
The 400-page report was written over several years by experts and officials from dozens of ministries and agencies, representing China’s first official response to global warming.
(23 April 2007)
Six steps to hell
Mark Lynas, The Guardian
By the end of the century, the Earth could be more than 6C hotter than it is today, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We know that would be bad news – but just how bad? How big a rise will it take for the Alps to melt, the oceans to die and desert to conquer Europe and the Americas? Mark Lynas sifted through thousands of scientific papers for his new book on global warming. This is what the research told him
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Nebraska isn’t at the top of most tourists’ to-do lists. However, this dreary expanse of impossibly flat plains sits in the middle of one of the most productive agricultural systems on Earth. Beef and corn dominate the economy, and the Sand Hills region – where low, grassy hillocks rise up from the flatlands – has some of the best cattle ranching in the whole US.
But scratch beneath the grass and you will find, as the name suggests, not soil but sand. These innocuous-looking hills were once desert, part of an immense system of sand dunes that spread across the Great Plains from Texas in the south to the Canadian prairies in the north. Six thousand years ago, when temperatures were about 1C warmer than today in the US, these deserts may have looked much as the Sahara does today. As global warming bites, the western US could once again be plagued by perennial drought – devastating agriculture and driving out human inhabitants on a scale far larger than the 1930s “Dustbowl” exodus.
Mark Lynas’s Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet is published by Fourth Estate,
(23 April 2007)
Beach protest spelt out
Emily Power, Herald Sun (Australia)
ABOUT 2500 protesters braved chilly bayside weather to turn a Sandringham beach into a poster against global warming.
Pupils and teachers from 14 bayside schools joined hundreds of other protesters to use their bodies to spell out their anger at lack of urgent action on climate change.
It took organisers — the Bayside Climate Change Action Group — about 45 minutes to mould the crowd into the right shape; to get everyone to sit on markers put in the sand.
The shivering group then patiently stayed put as a helicopter flew over them to photograph their giant sign.
To practise what they preach, the organisers — a non-political group of bayside parents — wanted to make the event as car-free as possible.
To do this they persuaded Connex to put on two extra trains to Sandringham.
The group’s co-president, Coni Forcey, said the members met monthly to decipher scientific babble and agree on simple, green strategies for the home.
“We disseminate information from environmental groups and scientists, like the CSIRO, and put it into a format people can understand — families are incredibly busy,” she said.
The group is also campaigning for junk-mail bans in bayside suburbs. Mrs Forcey, a Sandringham resident for 21 years, said the climate crisis had inspired Australians to return to “nanna technology” — to a waste-not-want-not attitude, to using fewer chemicals, growing their vegetables, and bucketing water.
(23 April 2007)
See original for an aerial photo of the spelled-out message on the beach.
