[Top News] from [REUTERS]
[Environment News]
U.N. climate summit in close range of a deal: report
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - The world is within striking distance of a U.N. deal to curb greenhouse gas emissions enough to avoid the worst effects of global warming, a U.N. report said on Sunday as delegates gathered for climate talks in Copenhagen.
COPENHAGEN
Sun Dec 6, 2009 12:40pm EST
Green Business
"For those who claim that a deal in Copenhagen is impossible: they are simply wrong," Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), said as delegates gathered for December 7-18 talks on a new deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.
"We are in closing range of a deal." he told a news conference ahead of the 190-nation talks.
UNEP and British climate change expert Nicholas Stern said in a report adding up commitments to date that the gap between countries' strongest proposed greenhouse gas cuts and what is needed may be only a few billion metric tones.
The report said the world should aim for maximum emissions of 44 billion metric tones a year in 2020 to have a chance of limiting a rise in world temperatures to a widely accepted benchmark of no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times.
Current promised curbs on emissions proposed by developed and developing nations would be enough to limit emissions to 46 billion metric tones by 2020, if fully implemented.
In recent days and weeks, countries including the United States, China, India, Brazil and Indonesia have laid out new targets mean to slow climate change that may bring more droughts, floods, heat waves and rising sea levels.
The report said that current world emissions are about 47 billion metric tones a year. Without any curbs, emissions would rise to the mid-50s or higher by 2020, the study said.
By contrast, many experts say pledges made so far are not enough to reach the benchmarks that have been set for averting the worst of climate change, such as ensuring that global emissions fall after 2020.
Steiner said that further use of emissions cuts on aviation and shipping or wider use of forests to soak up emissions could help close the gap.
Steiner said the gap between scientists' views on what must be done and what is on the table in Copenhagen had narrowed significantly. "There is still a significant gap but people overestimate the impossibility of actually closing that gap."
"You could say that we are within a few gigatonnes of actually having a deal in Copenhagen in terms of the target for 44 gigatonnes by 2020," he said.
He said a realistic figure for the current gap between the 190 nations' pledges and where they needed to be at the of the conference was probably around 2 gigatonnes, with a range in the report of between 1 and 5 gigatonnes.
"This signals ... that if leaders want to negotiate a deal, they have the means to do so, and to do so in a way that would allow an agreement at the end of Copenhagen."
(Reporting by Alister Doyle and Anna Ringstrom)
[Environment News]
World concerns about climate change dwindle: survey
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - World concern about climate change has fallen in the past two years, according to an opinion poll on Sunday, the eve of 190-nation talks in Copenhagen meant to agree a U.N. deal to fight global warming.
COPENHAGEN
Sun Dec 6, 2009 3:02am EST
Green Business
The Nielsen/Oxford University survey showed that 37 percent of more than 27,000 Internet users in 54 countries said they were "very concerned" about climate change, down from 41 percent in a similar poll two years ago.
"Global concern for climate change cools off," the Nielsen Co. said of the poll, taken in October. It linked the decline to the world economic slowdown.
In the United States, the number two emitter after China and the only industrialized nation outside the U.N.'s existing Kyoto Protocol for curbing emissions, the number of those very concerned fell to 25 percent from 34.
President Barack Obama wants to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, and plans to join more than 100 world leaders in Copenhagen at the end of the December 7-18 meeting to try to reach a new U.N. deal.
China, the top emitter of greenhouse gases, was among few nations surveyed where the number of people very concerned rose, to 36 from 30 percent.
The survey indicated the highest levels of concern were in Latin America and Asian-Pacific countries, topped by the Philippines on 78 percent which was struck by Typhoon Ketsana in September. The poll did not cover most of Africa.
Those least concerned by global warming, blamed on human emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, were mainly in eastern Europe. Estonia was bottom with just 10 percent saying they were very concerned.
Jonathan Banks, Business Insights Director Europe of the Nielsen Co., said that worries about climate change may now be picking up with the focus on Copenhagen.
"Economic woes temporarily knocked the climate change issue off the top line agenda, but as the recession is now beginning to recede, we expect the Copenhagen summit to push this important issue to the front again," he said.
Worldwide, air and water pollution followed by climate change were the top three environmental concerns for the world population, the survey found.
(Editing by Matthew Jones)
[Environment News]
FACTBOX: China's climate stance at Copenhagen
(Reuters) - Negotiators meet in Copenhagen from Monday for a U.N. conference seeking to create a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N.-backed pact governing countries' actions against climate change up to end of 2012.
Sun Dec 6, 2009 11:50pm EST
Green Business
Here are some details about China's stance at the talks, what the country has already promised to do to cut emissions and what it would like to see offered by developed nations:
* China says it is threatened by global warming and the shrinking glaciers, expanding deserts, prolonged droughts and more intense storms predicted to come with a warming world.
* China is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases from human activity. In 2008, its output of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from burning fossil fuels, reached 6.8 billion metric tons, a rise of 178 percent over levels in 1990, according to the IWR, a German renewable energy institute. U.S. emissions rose 17 percent over that time to 6.4 billion metric tons.
* But China's average greenhouse gas emissions per person are much lower than those of rich nations. The average American is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions equal to 25.0 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, compared to 5.8 metric tons for the average Chinese, according to the World Resources Institute.
* China says global warming has been overwhelmingly caused by the accumulated greenhouse gas emissions of rich economies, and they should lead in dramatically cutting emissions, giving poor countries room to develop and expand emissions in coming decades.
China has previously said that those emissions cuts should be 25 to 40 percent of 1990 levels by 2020, but more recently it has been coy about specific numbers.
* China says industrialized nations should also transfer much more green technology to poorer nations, and has demanded that they commit up to one percent of their economic worth to helping poor nations fight global warming. Here, too, Chinese officials have recently been vaguer on specific numbers.
* Last month, China said it would cut its carbon intensity -- the amount of carbon dioxide emitted for each unit of GDP -- by 40 to 45 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels. This target will still allow emissions to grow substantially over the next decade as the economy continues expanding. This goal was the first measurable curb on national emissions in China.
* China has ratified the Kyoto Protocol. As a developing country, China is not required by the protocol to set binding targets to control greenhouse gas emissions.
The United States and other countries have said China and other big developing nations should accept more specific goals and oversight in the successor to Kyoto. But China has said that, as a developing country, its emissions goals should not be binding under any international treaty.
(Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Chris Buckley)
[Environment News]
U.N. climate summit in close range of a deal: report
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - The world is within striking distance of a U.N. deal to curb greenhouse gas emissions enough to avoid the worst effects of global warming, a U.N. report said on Sunday as delegates gathered for climate talks in Copenhagen.
COPENHAGEN
Sun Dec 6, 2009 12:40pm EST
Green Business
"For those who claim that a deal in Copenhagen is impossible: they are simply wrong," Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), said as delegates gathered for December 7-18 talks on a new deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.
"We are in closing range of a deal." he told a news conference ahead of the 190-nation talks.
UNEP and British climate change expert Nicholas Stern said in a report adding up commitments to date that the gap between countries' strongest proposed greenhouse gas cuts and what is needed may be only a few billion metric tones.
The report said the world should aim for maximum emissions of 44 billion metric tones a year in 2020 to have a chance of limiting a rise in world temperatures to a widely accepted benchmark of no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times.
Current promised curbs on emissions proposed by developed and developing nations would be enough to limit emissions to 46 billion metric tones by 2020, if fully implemented.
In recent days and weeks, countries including the United States, China, India, Brazil and Indonesia have laid out new targets mean to slow climate change that may bring more droughts, floods, heat waves and rising sea levels.
The report said that current world emissions are about 47 billion metric tones a year. Without any curbs, emissions would rise to the mid-50s or higher by 2020, the study said.
By contrast, many experts say pledges made so far are not enough to reach the benchmarks that have been set for averting the worst of climate change, such as ensuring that global emissions fall after 2020.
Steiner said that further use of emissions cuts on aviation and shipping or wider use of forests to soak up emissions could help close the gap.
Steiner said the gap between scientists' views on what must be done and what is on the table in Copenhagen had narrowed significantly. "There is still a significant gap but people overestimate the impossibility of actually closing that gap."
"You could say that we are within a few gigatonnes of actually having a deal in Copenhagen in terms of the target for 44 gigatonnes by 2020," he said.
He said a realistic figure for the current gap between the 190 nations' pledges and where they needed to be at the of the conference was probably around 2 gigatonnes, with a range in the report of between 1 and 5 gigatonnes.
"This signals ... that if leaders want to negotiate a deal, they have the means to do so, and to do so in a way that would allow an agreement at the end of Copenhagen."
(Reporting by Alister Doyle and Anna Ringstrom)
[Environment News]
World concerns about climate change dwindle: survey
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - World concern about climate change has fallen in the past two years, according to an opinion poll on Sunday, the eve of 190-nation talks in Copenhagen meant to agree a U.N. deal to fight global warming.
COPENHAGEN
Sun Dec 6, 2009 3:02am EST
Green Business
The Nielsen/Oxford University survey showed that 37 percent of more than 27,000 Internet users in 54 countries said they were "very concerned" about climate change, down from 41 percent in a similar poll two years ago.
"Global concern for climate change cools off," the Nielsen Co. said of the poll, taken in October. It linked the decline to the world economic slowdown.
In the United States, the number two emitter after China and the only industrialized nation outside the U.N.'s existing Kyoto Protocol for curbing emissions, the number of those very concerned fell to 25 percent from 34.
President Barack Obama wants to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, and plans to join more than 100 world leaders in Copenhagen at the end of the December 7-18 meeting to try to reach a new U.N. deal.
China, the top emitter of greenhouse gases, was among few nations surveyed where the number of people very concerned rose, to 36 from 30 percent.
The survey indicated the highest levels of concern were in Latin America and Asian-Pacific countries, topped by the Philippines on 78 percent which was struck by Typhoon Ketsana in September. The poll did not cover most of Africa.
Those least concerned by global warming, blamed on human emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, were mainly in eastern Europe. Estonia was bottom with just 10 percent saying they were very concerned.
Jonathan Banks, Business Insights Director Europe of the Nielsen Co., said that worries about climate change may now be picking up with the focus on Copenhagen.
"Economic woes temporarily knocked the climate change issue off the top line agenda, but as the recession is now beginning to recede, we expect the Copenhagen summit to push this important issue to the front again," he said.
Worldwide, air and water pollution followed by climate change were the top three environmental concerns for the world population, the survey found.
(Editing by Matthew Jones)
[Environment News]
FACTBOX: China's climate stance at Copenhagen
(Reuters) - Negotiators meet in Copenhagen from Monday for a U.N. conference seeking to create a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N.-backed pact governing countries' actions against climate change up to end of 2012.
Sun Dec 6, 2009 11:50pm EST
Green Business
Here are some details about China's stance at the talks, what the country has already promised to do to cut emissions and what it would like to see offered by developed nations:
* China says it is threatened by global warming and the shrinking glaciers, expanding deserts, prolonged droughts and more intense storms predicted to come with a warming world.
* China is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases from human activity. In 2008, its output of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from burning fossil fuels, reached 6.8 billion metric tons, a rise of 178 percent over levels in 1990, according to the IWR, a German renewable energy institute. U.S. emissions rose 17 percent over that time to 6.4 billion metric tons.
* But China's average greenhouse gas emissions per person are much lower than those of rich nations. The average American is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions equal to 25.0 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, compared to 5.8 metric tons for the average Chinese, according to the World Resources Institute.
* China says global warming has been overwhelmingly caused by the accumulated greenhouse gas emissions of rich economies, and they should lead in dramatically cutting emissions, giving poor countries room to develop and expand emissions in coming decades.
China has previously said that those emissions cuts should be 25 to 40 percent of 1990 levels by 2020, but more recently it has been coy about specific numbers.
* China says industrialized nations should also transfer much more green technology to poorer nations, and has demanded that they commit up to one percent of their economic worth to helping poor nations fight global warming. Here, too, Chinese officials have recently been vaguer on specific numbers.
* Last month, China said it would cut its carbon intensity -- the amount of carbon dioxide emitted for each unit of GDP -- by 40 to 45 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels. This target will still allow emissions to grow substantially over the next decade as the economy continues expanding. This goal was the first measurable curb on national emissions in China.
* China has ratified the Kyoto Protocol. As a developing country, China is not required by the protocol to set binding targets to control greenhouse gas emissions.
The United States and other countries have said China and other big developing nations should accept more specific goals and oversight in the successor to Kyoto. But China has said that, as a developing country, its emissions goals should not be binding under any international treaty.
(Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Chris Buckley)
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