Gore Says Our Planet Is Burning Up

"The planet is burning up and the only way to save it from destruction is to act now - individuals must conserve energy and governments must change laws to reduce carbon emissions, former U.S. vice-president Al Gore told a Victoria audience today.

"The planet has a fever," Gore said. "We have a planetary emergency and we have to act."

The man once referred to as Gore the Bore, a failed U.S. presidential contender in 2000, is now a Hollywood star revered by his most enthusiastic fans as "The Goracle," after his 100-minute slide-show documentary An Inconvenient Truth about global warming released last year." |Read more|

Bush Seeks New Image on Global Warming

"President Bush's call on Friday for a new fund to reduce global warming fell flat with Europeans and environmentalists who say U.N.-mandated cuts in greenhouse gases are what's needed.

To show he meant business, Bush designated his treasury secretary to talk to other nations about getting worldwide contributions to the fund. The money would pay for clean-energy projects in poor countries.


"This here was a great step for the Americans and a small step for mankind," Germany's environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, said after Bush's speech at the State Department before representatives of the nations that are the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases. "In substance, we are still far apart."

In his speech, Bush acknowledged that climate change is real and that human activity is a factor.

"By setting this goal, we acknowledge there is a problem, and by setting this goal, we commit ourselves to doing something about it," he said. "We share a common responsibility: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while keeping our economies growing."

The president's speech capped two days of talks at a White House-sponsored climate conference that brought together the U.S. and developing nations such as China, India and Brazil that are not required to make cuts under the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N. treaty for reducing greenhouse gases that expires in 2012." | Read more |

Bush Outlines Proposal on Climate Change

"Seeking to dispel the widespread impression that his administration is isolated on the issue of global warming, President Bush said today that the world’s biggest polluters can limit damage to the atmosphere while still promoting prosperity.

“Our guiding principle is clear,” the president said at a conference on climate change and energy security. “We must lead the world to produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and we must do it in a way that does not undermine economic growth or prevent nations from delivering greater prosperity for their people.”

Mr. Bush proposed the creation of an “international clean technology fund,” to be supported by contributions from governments around the world, that would help finance clean-energy projects in developing countries. The president said Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. would lead discussions with other countries on starting that fund.

“No one country has all the answers, including mine,” Mr. Bush said. “The best way to tackle this problem is to think creatively and to learn from others’ experiences and to come together on a way to achieve the objectives we share. Together, our nations will pave the way for a new international approach on greenhouse emissions.”

The president’s calls for each country to decide for itself how to rein in pollution, and his refusal to embrace mandatory measures, have set the United States apart from other countries, and this morning’s appearance at the State Department conference probably did not do much to change that situation." |Read more|

Bush says Fight against Global Warming must not hinder Economies

"President Bush has called for action in the fight against global warming, but said it must be done in a way that does not hinder economic growth.

Mr. Bush made the comment Friday, on the final day of a two-day international conference on climate change at the U.S. State Department.

The meeting has brought together the world's largest polluters, including the United States, China and India.

President Bush described the Washington meeting as an "important step" in seeking solutions to reducing greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

The United States, China and India oppose mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases sought by most European countries and the United Nations." |Read more|

At its session on Warming, US seems to stand apart

"The White House convened a two-day conference of the world’s major greenhouse-gas-emitting nations here on Thursday that served to highlight how isolated the Bush administration is on the issue of global warming.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged that climate change was a real global problem, and that the United States was a major contributor. She said the United States was willing to lead the international effort to reduce emissions of gases that had led to the warming of the planet, with the attendant ill effects.

But she repeated President Bush’s insistence that the solution could not starve emerging economies of fuel or slow the growth of the advanced nations. “Every country will make its own decisions,” she said, “reflecting its own needs and interests.”

Mr. Bush is scheduled to address the meeting on Friday.

Many delegates from the 16 nations at the conference expressed skepticism about the administration’s motives, fearing that Mr. Bush was trying to derail a global emissions-reduction program managed by the United Nations." |Read more|

Bush Seeks New Image on Global Warming

"Myth: The president refuses to admit that climate change is real and that humans are a factor. Myth: The U.S. is doing nothing to address climate change. Myth: The United States refuses to engage internationally.

So begins a hand-sized handout, easy for reporters to pocket, issued at the State Department where President Bush on Friday was to cap two days of talks at a White House-sponsored climate change conference that is as much about salesmanship as it is about diplomacy.

Unwilling to cut U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases, which make up a fourth of the world's total output, Bush is turning to China, India and the other biggest polluters to swap green technology and other voluntary ways of doing something about global warming." |Read more|

Bush's Climate Goals Marked by Bureaucracy

"The United States is lining up with China, India and the world's other biggest polluters in opposition to mandatory cuts in Earth-warming greenhouse gases sought by the United Nations and European countries.

President Bush's two-day climate meeting, opening Thursday, will emphasize creating more processes to find a solution to global warming, rather than setting firm goals for reducing carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for heating up the atmosphere.

The nations summoned by Bush will "seek agreement on the process" and more work teams for nations to set their own strategies beyond 2012, when the U.N.-brokered Kyoto Protocol expires, according to a White House statement Wednesday." |Read more|

Many Pessimistic About the Environment

"People want their leaders to move boldly to help the environment but give them dismal grades for their actions so far, according to a poll released Wednesday that highlighted rampant pessimism on the issue.

Only about one in five voiced approval of how President Bush, Congress and U.S. businesses have been handling the environment. And while decisive majorities said they want strong public and private action, fewer than one in 10 said they had seen such steps in the past year, according to the poll by The Associated Press and Stanford University's Woods Institute for the Environment." |Read more|

UN Chief Sees Commitment to Climate Change

"U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said a one-day high-level meeting on climate change on Monday was a turning point in the battle against global warming.

"What I heard today is a major political commitment for a breakthrough in climate change in Bali," Ban said.
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A meeting scheduled in Bali, Indonesia, for December is aimed at jump-starting talks to find a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which seeks to curb climate-warming emissions.

"Science has spoken clearly," Ban said at a final news conference. "Now we need a political answer."

Calling Monday's gathering a "sea change in the response to climate change," Ban acknowledged that negotiations that will begin in Bali may be a long, difficult process.

Asked specifically what would happen if U.S. President George W. Bush continued to oppose mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions in favour of voluntary ones, Ban replied, "I have high expectations of all countries, including ... the United States."

Bush did not attend the climate meeting but dined later with Ban and representatives from countries that emit the most greenhouse gases, as well as those countries most at risk from climate change.

Before the dinner, Bush said he had discussed the issue with Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva and that he had agreed to attend a Washington meeting of the biggest emitting countries on Thursday and Friday." |Read more|

President Bush Tries To Block California's Climate Law

It appears that the White House is working against our fight to stop global warming.
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"President Bush's transportation secretary, Mary Peters, with White House approval, personally directed a lobbying campaign to urge governors and two dozen House members to block California's first-in-the-nation limits on greenhouse gases from cars and trucks, according to e-mails obtained by Congress.

The e-mails show Peters worked closely with the top opponents in Congress of California's emissions law and sought out governors from auto-producing states, who were seen as likely to oppose the state's request that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allow the new rules to go into effect.

"The administration is trying to stack the deck against California's efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions," House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, wrote Monday to the White House. "It suggests that political considerations - not the merits of the issue - will determine how EPA acts."" |Read on|

Wal-Mart Aims To Enlist Suppliers In "Green" Mission

"Wal-Mart announced yesterday that it will begin asking its suppliers to measure their carbon footprint and find ways to reduce it, part of an effort by the world's largest retailer to transform itself into a more environmentally friendly company.

Wal-Mart said it would start by looking at seven categories that are ubiquitous in its shoppers' lives: DVDs, toothpaste, soap, milk, beer, vacuum cleaners and soda. It will work with the Carbon Disclosure Project, a nonprofit group of 315 institutional investors that control $41 trillion in assets, to collect data on greenhouse gas emissions, emissions reduction targets and strategies for dealing with climate change for its suppliers in those product categories." |Read more|

At Summit, Tales Of Woe Are Personal

"More than 80 world leaders brought their own tales of the ravages of global warming to an unprecedented gathering yesterday at United Nations headquarters designed to spur international action on climate change.

Pakistani leaders said they are watching aghast as Himalayan glaciers recede faster than any others. Bulgarians are experiencing never-before-seen bouts of extreme weather. Greek leaders told of the suffering from raging wildfires that killed 65 people. Residents of Ghana face chronic food shortages from unwieldy cycles of floods and drought.

Individual stories relayed by dozens of leaders hammered home the point the effects of climate change are being felt worldwide. It also heralded an emerging political will to take action, leaders said." |Read more|

Gore Wants Regular Summits On Global Warming

"The world's top leaders should meet every three months, starting next year, until a plan is drawn up to reduce emissions blamed for global warming, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore said on Monday.

Gore, who has made climate change his signature issue since leaving the White House, told a U.N. meeting that presidents and prime ministers should go to Bali this year for talks on a follow-up pact to the Kyoto Protocol, which runs out in 2012.

Traditionally, environment ministers or lower-level negotiators attend the annual U.N. climate change talks, but Gore said leaders should go from now on and then have follow-up meetings." |Read more|

California Governor Urges The United Nations To Move On Global Warming

"California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, speaking to the United Nations' General Assembly, today called on world leaders to move beyond recrimination over the causes of global warming and concentrate on finding solutions.

Schwarzenegger drew an unspoken but clear distinction between California's leadership on the issue and the reluctance of the Bush administration to fully recognize climate change as a looming crisis by opening the U.N. summit on global warming with a speech urging aggressive action on limiting greenhouse gas emissions." |Read more|

Treaty In Russia Could Allow Hunters To "Kill Polar Bears"

A new Russia-U.S. treaty could allow hunters in Russia to kill polar bears, a species already under threat from global warming, WWF said on Monday.

Russian and U.S. scientists and authorities drew up the treaty to improve cooperation and standardize treatment of polar bears living across the Bering Strait -- which stretches from Russia's Chukotka region to Alaska in the United States.

But it may force Russia to reintroduce polar bear hunting, 50 years after the Soviet Union banned it, to match legislation in Alaska, said Viktor Nikiforov, WWF Russia's polar bear expert.

"It's not a treaty about hunting, it's about cooperation and management but on the negative side it is a potential gate for the reintroduction of hunting into Russia," he said of the treaty enforced on Sunday but drawn up seven years ago when global warming was less topical." |Read more|

Rising Seas Will Likely Flood U.S. History

"Ultimately, rising seas will likely swamp the first American settlement in Jamestown, Va., as well as the Florida launch pad that sent the first American into orbit, many climate scientists are predicting.

In about a century, some of the places that make America what it is may be slowly erased.

Global warming — through a combination of melting glaciers, disappearing ice sheets and warmer waters expanding — is expected to cause oceans to rise by one meter, or about 39 inches. It will happen regardless of any future actions to curb greenhouse gases, several leading scientists say. And it will reshape the nation." |Read more|

Many of the World's Largest Companies are Addressing "Climate Change"

"A majority of the world's 500 largest publicly traded companies have implemented greenhouse-gas emission reduction plans, according to a study released Monday.


The yearly report, issued by a group of investors called the Carbon Disclosure Project, looks at the effect of climate change on company value and gauges what companies are doing to manage the associated risks." |Read more|

President Bush "Bails Out" On Talks To Fight Global Warming

"Dozens of world leaders are to gather at the United Nations on Monday for a full agenda of talks on how to fight global warming, and President Bush is skipping all the day’s events but the dinner.

His focus instead is on his own gathering of leaders in Washington later this week, a meeting with the same stated goal, a reduction in the emissions blamed for climate change, but a fundamentally different idea of how to achieve it.

Mr. Bush’s aides say that the parallel meeting does not compete against the United Nations’ process — hijacking it, as his critics charge. They say that Mr. Bush hopes to persuade the nations that produce 90 percent of the world’s emissions to come to a consensus that would allow each, including the United States, to set its own policies rather than having limits imposed by binding international treaty." |Read more|

Global Warming - "Coastal Nibbling"

"Global warming -- through melting glaciers, disappearing ice sheets and warmer waters expanding -- is expected to cause oceans to rise by 1 meter, or about 39 inches.

That's the troubling outlook projected by coastal maps created by scientists at the University of Arizona with data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Some scientists believe that it will happen in 50 years, others in 100, still others in 150.

But on this they agree: "We're going to get a meter, and there's nothing we can do about it," said University of Victoria climatologist Andrew Weaver, a lead author of the February report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, held in Paris. "The question is when."

How would some of the best-known U.S. places look?

Galveston

Galveston Island survived the 1900 hurricane, which killed 6,000 people and is the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. But a sea level rise of 3 feet could bring a new form of fear to this sturdy little beach city of 57,000.

Water would cut Galveston off from the Texas mainland by submerging Interstate 45, and it would cover large portions of the bay side. In addition to flooding tourist shops and restaurants, water would make a mess of the University of Texas Medical Branch, future home of a U.S. lab for some of the world's most dangerous germs.

New Orleans

If the levees broke again and the nation gave up the fight to save the lowest parts of New Orleans, the Big Easy would be reduced to a sliver of land along the Mississippi River, leaving only the French Quarter and the oldest neighborhoods dry.

"It would be to a large extent the city of the mid-19th century," said Robert Tannen, an urban planner. "The original marsh and cypress groves of the city would perhaps prevail again.""

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New Ozone Deal Is A Boost To Fighting "Climate Change"

"A deal by 191 nations to eliminate ozone-depleting substances 10 years ahead of schedule is a "pivotal moment" in the fight against global warming, Canadian environment minister John Baird said yesterday.

Delegates at a UN conference in Montreal struck the deal late on Friday. The agreement will phase out production and use of hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) for developed countries to 2020 from 2030 and to 2030 from 2040 for developing nations.

The United Nations also hailed the deal, saying it could cut billions of tons in greenhouse gas emissions." |Read more|

Firms Feel Heat On Climate Change

"Here's a weather forecast for boards of directors and executives at publicly traded companies: Climate change is coming. Get ready.

Pretty soon boards and CEOs may be talking publicly about the impact of global warming on their businesses in the same way they now disclose facts about a new chief financial officer or a pending acquisition.

The premise is that climate change isn't just an environmental, or, more broadly, a human issue for the multitudes fretting about what sort of planet we are leaving our children and grandchildren.

It's a here-and-now investment issue, the argument goes, because climate change is "material" to public companies and so related issues have to be disclosed more broadly and systematically. And it's not just about power generators and other energy companies." |Read more|

Silicon Valley Executives Join Push For Hybrid Cars

"By early next year, 100 Silicon Valley business executives will be driving high-mileage plug-in hybrids, a testament to the seriousness of global warming and the earnestness of local leaders to help fight it.

One hundred might sound like a small number, but it's actually a huge step: It would more than double the number of plug-ins, which get more power from electricity than a typical hybrid, on North American roads.

The Silicon Valley Leadership Group and its chief executive, Carl Guardino, who organized the plug-in push, see the plug-ins as a starting point for their broader mission: to make the region a leader in conservation, in the use of alternative fuels and in reducing global warming; and to exert the valley's influence when it comes to pushing governments and big corporations to act to solve these problems.

That is a key part of the group's 11th annual projections report, due to be released Monday. The 52-page document, titled "Clean & Green," also suggests that if 3 percent of light-duty vehicles were replaced locally by plug-ins, about 2,000 tons of carbon dioxide would be eliminated each day. Getting rid of older vehicles, increasing transit ridership and encouraging more people to walk or bike might eliminate an additional 6,000 tons of pollution daily." |Read more|

President Bush To Be Active On Climate Front

"Amid a mounting sense of urgency about the need for action to slow climate change, President Bush this week will be playing what is, for him, an unusually prominent role in high-level diplomatic meetings on how to confront global warming.

What he will not do, officials said, is chart any shift in policies that have put him at odds with much of the world on the issue.

Monday, at a private dinner on climate change held by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Bush will join about two dozen other heads of state, several from countries most vulnerable to higher temperatures and rising seas. On Thursday, he will address a White House-hosted climate change conference that will include senior officials from rapidly developing nations such as China, India and Brazil, which have been reluctant to divert economic resources to curb their rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Top Bush administration officials said the president is not planning to alter his opposition to mandatory limits on greenhouse gases or to stray from his emphasis on promoting new technologies, especially for nuclear power and for the storage of carbon dioxide produced by coal plants." |Read more|

Global Warming Could Mean More "Heart Problems"

"Global warming may be melting glaciers and forcing polar bears onto land, but doctors warn it could also affect your heart.

"If it really is a few degrees warmer in the next 50 years, we could definitely have more cardiovascular disease," said Dr. Karin Schenck-Gustafsson, of the department of cardiology at Sweden's Karolinska Institute." |Read more|