Global warming

Google Earth and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Wednesday that Google is developing a tool to map out disturbing scenarios of how California can be affected by climate change.

The project comes out of a collaboration with the California Natural Resources Agency, Schwarzenegger, and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), an organization funded by the California Energy Commission and Google.org.

"There is a serious bottleneck in delivering relevant information, much of which is map-based, to decisionmakers in a manner that allows them to turn climate change research results into effective climate change adaptation decisions and policies," according to … Read more

When you're the host city for international climate change negotiations, using energy-efficient LED lights on the Christmas tree apparently isn't enough.

The traditional Christmas tree in Copenhagen's City Hall Square will be powered by people, rather than a distant power plant. The square has been equipped with 15 bicycles which, when pedaled, light up the 700 LED bulbs on the tree.

The 17-meter-high tree went up on Sunday during an opening ceremony in which Saint Nicholas climbed a fire truck ladder to the top of the tree and lit fireworks. Even during the ceremony, the lights were … Read more

LONDON--The head of the U.N.'s panel of climate experts rejected accusations of bias on Thursday, saying a "Climategate" row in no way undermined evidence that humans are to blame for global warming.

Climate change skeptics have seized on a series of e-mails written by specialists in the field, accusing them of colluding to suppress data which might have undermined their arguments.

The e-mails, some written as long as 13 years ago, were stolen from a British university by unknown hackers and spread rapidly across the Internet.

But Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate … Read more

OSLO--Promises of greenhouse gas curbs by China and the United States brighten prospects for next month's U.N. climate summit but leave big tangles over cash, rich nations' emissions cuts, and how to tie down a legal treaty.

"This is clearly some progress on the Copenhagen road," Frank Jotzo, deputy director of the Australian National University's Climate Change Institute, said of pledges by the world's top two emitters to tackle global warming.

But he noted China's goal of slowing its rising emissions by 2020 was voluntary and President Barack Obama's plan to cut … Read more

California on Tuesday released draft rules for its landmark greenhouse gas cap-and-trade plan that will be the most ambitious U.S. effort to use the market to address global warming.

State law requires California to cut its carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Measures will range from clean vehicle and building rules to the cap-and-trade system that lets factories and power companies trade credits to emit gases that heat up the earth.

Federal rules under debate by Congress could eclipse and preempt regional plans, but California and other local governments see themselves as the … Read more

U.S. Senator John Kerry said on Tuesday he will try to "outline" a compromise climate control bill before December's international global warming conference and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon gave an upbeat assessment of Washington's intentions.

"From what I heard today, there is great support in the Senate for action on climate change," Ban told reporters following a meeting with a small group of senators in the U.S. Capitol to encourage them on.

Ban repeated a prediction that the December 7-18 U.N. global warming summit in Copenhagen will not produce a final deal … Read more

The world faces a surge in energy costs, as well as in planet-warming carbon emissions, unless it can swiftly agree a climate change deal, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday.

Arguing strongly for a global deal at the U.N. Climate Change summit in Copenhagen in December, the IEA said use of fossil fuels will increase quickly if policies remained unchanged.

Without an international agreement on climate change, the ratio of energy spending to gross domestic product for the largest consumer countries would double by 2030.

The world would have to spend an extra $500 billion to cut carbon emissions … Read more

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Al Gore, a self-described "wanna-be geek," is on the road talking about solutions to multiple problems.

The former vice president gave a speech at the First Parish Cambridge Unitarian Universalist church here on Saturday to promote his latest book, "Our Choice." Whereas "An Inconvenient Truth" documented the reasons for global warming, his latest book is focused almost entirely on ways to address climate change, Gore said.

But don't expect only a discussion of solar, wind and biofuels. In outlining the contents of "Our Choice" on Saturday, Gore said he … Read more

WASHINGTON--A key U.S. Senate environment committee approved a Democratic climate change bill on Thursday that would require industry to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases 20 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels.

The bill approved by the Environment and Public Works Committee will now become one of several initiatives in the Senate aimed at attacking global warming. But they are unlikely to produce legislation that would be voted on by the full Senate until next year at the earliest.

With Republicans boycotting the environment panel's measure, saying more analysis of the legislation was needed, 10 … Read more