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Flannery discusses greenhouse gas levels (Video and transcript)
Tony Jones, Lateline, Australian Broadcasting Corporation
TONY JONES: Well, one leading proponent of wind power is Professor Tim Flannery, the author of The Weather Makers, he’s also the current Australian of the Year. And as we said earlier, he has new information on global greenhouse gases which will likely add a fresh urgency to the debate on clean power. And he’s with me now in our Sydney studio.
… TONY JONES: Let’s start with this IPCC report, due out in November on the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. I gather you’ve seen the figures and they make for rather sobering reading?
TIM FLANNERY: Yes, they do. What the report establishes is that the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is already above the threshold that could potentially cause dangerous climate change. So I guess if I was trying to summarise it, what it says is that we already stand an unacceptable risk of dangerous climate change and the need for action is ever more urgent.
TONY JONES: So, where does it put us in terms of where we thought we were? For example, I know that if we have exceeded that threshold, that threshold wasn’t meant to come for some years, was it?
TIM FLANNERY: That’s right. We thought we’d be at that threshold within about a decade, we thought we had that much time. But the new data indicates that in about mid 2005 we crossed that threshold. So as of mid 2005, there was about 455 parts per million of what’s called carbon dioxide equivalent. And that’s a figure that’s gathered by taking the potential of all of the 30 greenhouse gases and converting them into carbon dioxide potential, so we call it CO2 equivalent.
TONY JONES: What is this synthesis report, exactly? Why haven’t we heard about or known about these figures before now?
TIM FLANNERY: Well, the IPCC’s been releasing their fourth assessment report through the year in various bits, and the synthesis reports the big overview. So all of the figures are sort of buried in those earlier bits and pieces. But in the November report they’ll be there for everyone to see.
(10 October 2007)
Related: Greenhouse gas emissions hit danger mark
All eyes on Calif. climate-change fight
John Ritter, USA TODAY
SAN FRANCISCO – Make big-rig trucks more aerodynamic. Allow docked ships to shut off engines and plug into electrical outlets. Require oil-change technicians to check tire pressure.
Those measures and six more that California regulators will consider this month are among early actions in what will be a long, fiercely debated and politically perilous battle against global warming.
Sleeker trucks, ships that don’t idle in port and proper tire inflation don’t seem earthshaking, but each would be a small step toward reaching California’s ambitious goal – spelled out in its landmark 2006 law – of producing fewer greenhouse gases, which most scientists believe cause the planet to warm.
California, whose economy is larger than Canada’s, is the only state that has ordered mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases. With no federal action yet on climate change, the process here is being closely watched across the country and worldwide.
California will pioneer many solutions to cutting greenhouse gases, says James Sweeney, director of Stanford University’s Precourt Institute for Energy Efficiency. “The significance of what California is doing is we’re helping the whole United States at least figure out how to move forward,” he says.
(9 October 2007)
New site: climate change and the media
Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media
The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media is an online publication and forum to foster dialogue on climate change among scientists, journalists, policymakers, and the public. The Yale Forum is an initiative of the Yale Project on Climate Change, directed by Dr. Anthony Leiserowitz of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
Edited by veteran environmental journalist and journalism educator Bud Ward, The Yale Forum seeks to provide print, broadcasting, and online reporters and editors timely and credible information on one of the most important and complicated issues of our time. The Yale Forum will include useful media resources on climate change causes, consequences, and solutions. It will also analyze and discuss the process by which climate change is communicated through traditional and new media.
(1 October 2007)
Chancellor announces new green tax on flights
Hilary Osborne, Guardian Unlimited
Airlines will be encouraged to fill their planes before taking off, with green taxes to be levied on flights rather than passengers under plans announced by the chancellor in today’s pre-budget report.
Alistair Darling said it was important to recognise the impact of flights on the environment, and that as well as levying a charge on flights he would pursue plans to include airlines in the European emissions trading scheme.
The new tax on flights, which was previously proposed by the Conservatives and some members of the airline industry, would come into effect on November 1, 2009. In the meantime, air passenger duty tax will stay at its current level of £10 on short-haul flights and £40 on long-haul flights
(9 October 2007)
Related at the Guardian: Lack of initiatives leaves green groups disappointed
RFF panel analyzes alternative proposals for post-Kyoto strategy
E&ETV
How should a post-2012 international climate policy be structured? During today’s E&ETV Event Coverage of a recent Resources for the Future discussion, panelists analyze alternative strategies to a post-Kyoto policy.
Participants include Joseph Aldy, a fellow at Resources for the Future, Robert Stavins, director of the Harvard University Environmental Economics Program, and Todd Stern, vice chair of the Public Policy and Strategy Practice at WilmerHale.
They focus on six alternative international strategies that are featured in Aldy and Stavins’ new book, “Architectures for Agreement: Addressing Global Climate Change in the Post-Kyoto World,” and give key highlights of the book’s analysis.
(10 October 2007)
