Climate change

Whatever concerns Climate change goes here…

Latest (bad) news from the arctic

This week no less than three news about the arctic hit my aggregator. First and foremost the WWF released a new report on how the melting of the pole could threaten no less than a quarter of the human population. The second one is about Mr. Ban Ki-moon – the UN secretary general – who […]

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European emissions keep on decreasing

Some might say that this year the cuts in greenhouse gases emissions are due to the recession. It might be the case, but here the news nonetheless: the European Union decreased its emissions for the fourth year in a row in 2008. But there is more to it : the European Union and its 27

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UNEP urges to seal the deal

For World Environment Day the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) started a great initiative to raise awareness on the absolute necessity of sealing a deal in Copenhagen at the end of the year. What our elected representatives will sign then is the beginning of  the Kyoto Protocol successor but also one of the most important

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Could the US tax more gasoline ?

It is a well known fact, US gasoline tax is ridiculously low compared to many countries in the European Union and other nations. The table on the left brings data from the OECD on this. US drivers pay less than 10 euro cents per liter of tax when their German, British, Italian, French or Turkish

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The European Cap and Trade system works fine

To a new study presented by a US non-governmental organization, the European cap and trade system – called Emission Trading System or ETS – seems to finally work after a much difficult start. To TreeHugger: The trading system has created a healthy carbon market now worth 56 billion US dollars, and (…) has been responsible

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Least developed nations call for climate action

It is no news if you have been reading this blog as China – alongside with other nations – has been calling the richest nations to cut drastically their GHG emissions by 2020 in order to prevent the worse from occurring. Now the 49 least developed countries are calling the G8 to cut their greenhouse

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World CO2 emissions rose by nearly 2% in 2008

We have seen last year that CO2 emissions rose by 3.1 percent in 2007. According to the International Economic Platform for Renewable Energies (IWR) they rose in 2008 by 1.94 percent to reach no less than 31.5 billion metric tons. The document released by this institution in interesting as it provides data by country. This

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350 new species discovered in Eastern Himalayas

We have seen it before, biodiversity is impressively rich in places where Mankind isn’t too much present. Indeed, the WWF wrote in December 2008 that the Greater Mekong is a biodiversity treasure. Now the organization notes : Over 350 new species including the world’s smallest deer, a “flying frog” and a 100 million-year old gecko

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Could the Sahara desert become green again ?

We have seen it previously, the Amazon Rainforest could become a desert because of deforestation and climate change. As I noted in May a three degrees Celsius increase would destroy it by up to 75 percent. But could global warming help the Sahara region becoming green again ? To National Geographic it could be the

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China is getting ready for Copenhagen

China has been asking developed countries to commit themselves to cut by 40 percent their greenhouse gases emissions by 2020 at the Copenhagen talks in December. We have seen previously that such targets are reachable. Meanwhile, the People’s Republic is increasingly working on slowing its own carbon emissions by using all means, from energy efficiency

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