Climate

A global deal on a pact to succeed the U.N.'s main climate agreement is still within reach but will not be struck this year, with the pace of talks still far too slow, New Zealand's top climate negotiator said today.

Inevitably, there would be a gap after the Kyoto Protocol's first period expires in 2012, Minister of Climate Change Negotiations Tim Groser said in an interview after delegates from 35 nations attended two days of climate talks in Auckland.

Disputes between rich and poor on sharing curbs in greenhouse gases mean gridlock over the Kyoto Protocol, … Read more

The United States demanded today that the European Union exempt U.S. airlines from an EU law widening carbon permits to aviation, hardening a standoff over a scheme due to start in 2012.

After talks in Oslo, the European Union insisted it would not back down on its unilateral plan to penalize greenhouse gas emissions from planes taking off and landing in the European Union as part of efforts to slow climate change.

"We clearly stated our strong objections to the EU plans on both legal and policy grounds," a U.S. administration official told a telephone news conference after talks between EU and U.S. negotiators.

In the strongest public criticism of the EU carbon scheme to date by President Barack Obama's administration, Washington said U.S. airlines should be exempt from greenhouse gas penalties.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity like all other delegates, said the EU was using "the wrong way to pursue the right objective" of slowing global warming that is predicted to cause more droughts, floods, and rising sea levels.

The European Commission said there were no plans to back down, echoing… Read more

The Supreme Court today rejected a global warming lawsuit against five big power companies, its most important environmental ruling since 2007 and a victory for the utilities and the Obama administration.

The justices unanimously overturned a U.S. appeals court ruling that the lawsuit now involving six states can proceed in an effort to force the coal-burning plants to cut emissions of gases that contribute to climate change.

In a defeat for environmentalists, the Supreme Court agreed with the companies that regulating greenhouse gases should be left to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the clean air laws.… Read more

A recent scientific study suggests that bees are significantly disturbed when mobile phones are used in close proximity to the furry critters. The study may shed light on why the bee population is in decline globally.

As bees can communicate through sound, the experiment at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology observed any changes to the noises the insects made when active mobile phones were placed in their hive. The results were quite worrying.

Read more of "Cell phones causing decline in bee numbers?" at Crave UK.

Renewable sources such as solar, wind, and hydropower could fulfill almost 80 percent of the world's energy demand by 2050 with the right policies, according to a U.N. report which won backing from governments today.

The 26-page study, by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), broadly matched a draft written by scientists. It was approved by government delegates at talks in Abu Dhabi.

Environmental groups hailed the report as a guide to the shift from fossil fuels to combat climate change, a process set to cost trillions of dollars. But they said some draft … Read more

Republicans in the House of Representatives introduced a bill today that would permanently stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating emissions blamed for warming the planet.

President Barack Obama would veto a bill that permanently blocks the agency from tackling climate change, administration officials have said. Obama has pledged to the world the United States will cut greenhouse gases to about 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, introduced the bill, called the Energy Tax Prevention Act.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a climate skeptic who is writing … Read more

Ten eastern states in a greenhouse gas reduction program have invested more than half of their carbon permit auction proceeds, or about $404 million, in energy efficiency, the group said today.

New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, and seven other states on the East Coast belong to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, which aims to trim carbon dioxide output from the area's power plants 10 percent by the end of 2018.

To meet that goal, RGGI holds quarterly auctions of permits that let the plants emit carbon dioxide. Some investors also buy the credits in the cap-and-trade program, believing … Read more

Governments are looking at ways to keep the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol going beyond 2012 in some form to defuse a standoff between rich and poor nations that threatens efforts to tackle global warming.

Negotiators from almost 200 nations will meet in Bangkok from March 3-8, after side-stepping the Kyoto issue at their last meeting in Mexico in December.

"There is some creative thinking going on" about Kyoto's future, said Jennifer Morgan, director of the climate and energy program of the Washington-based World Resources Institute.

The Kyoto Protocol obliges almost 40 industrialized nations to cut greenhouse … Read more

SINGAPORE--The outcome of U.N. climate talks in Mexico held this month should boost steps in Asia to curb greenhouse gas emissions, with China a likely bright spot in 2011, a senior analyst at a leading U.S. think tank said.

The talks helped put the troubled U.N. negotiations back on track but failed to agree on a broader pact meant to avert every more extreme droughts, floods, heat waves, and rising sea levels.

Across the region, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Taiwan are working on myriad policy steps to put a price on carbon emissions, drive … Read more