Negotiators picked up discussions toward a new global climate treaty in Bonn, Germany this week. The meeting was the first since the 2011 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) in Durban where leaders initially agreed to put together a plan that would limit Earth-warming emissions. The stakes for the 10-day meeting are high -- negotiators have set goals of building support for funding developing nations to the tune of $100 billion a year by 2020 and of constructing a global, legally binding climate agreement that extends the Kyoto Protocol. While countries agreed in Durban to sign the deal by 2015, U.N. Climate Chief Christiana Figueres insisted milestones should be set in 2012.
So far, the European Union and groups of developing countries are divided over details of how the Kyoto Protocol should be extended. The talks may have inspired Qatar -- one of the largest emitters of carbon -- to cut its emissions and pay into the Green Climate Fund. Qatar will host the next round of annual climate negotiations in November -- the first member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to do so.
One university in Australia is looking at the effects of climate change by creating an atmosphere where CO2 is 40 percent higher than current levels and studying its impact on the environment, humans and other living things. The Aussie researchers predict an average increase of about 3 degrees centigrade, but the first results of the study won't be available until next year. A new journal article says, depending on the area, as many as 40 percent of mammals migrate too slowly and won't be able to keep pace with climate shifts expected in the next hundred years.
Japan Faces Summer Test
While Iran and the U.N. nuclear agency discussed Iran's nuclear program and suspicions Tehran may have tested nuclear arms technology, Japan decided to restart nuclear reactors in one town as others there contemplated how to handle things nuclear-free before the summer's heat sets in. At least one utility in the country is considering a rate hike to compensate for the impending hot weather, while the Japanese operator of the Fukushima plant posted a $10 billion loss stemming from the meltdown. The town is the first to restart a nuclear reactor since all the nation's nuclear reactors were shut off following the Fukushima disaster roughly one year ago. According to one newspaper poll, residents there are split on nuclear power.
In the U.S., California also faces threats of summer power shortages due to complications with the San Onofre nuclear plant. And the nuclear reactor being built in Augusta, Ga., will not only be completed behind schedule, but come in at a much higher price -- approximately $900 million.
Could cheap natural gas be choking aging nuclear plants? E&E Publishing reported the nuclear industry is questioning whether lower natural gas prices will put pressure on plants, just as cheap gas has done to coal.
EPA Declares Gasland Town's Water Safe
Vermont made history this week by becoming the first state to ban hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," the hotly debated natural gas drilling technique that injects a mixture of water and chemicals underground at high pressures to release hard-to-reach oil and natural gas. The ban is not predicted have an immediate effect, however, because the state has no fracking projects under way and no evidence of natural gas reserves.
The news comes as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requested more money to probe the technique. It was just days after the EPA announced water in the town made famous by hydraulic fracturing and the movie Gasland was given a clean bill of health. Though water at one home did show elevated levels of methane, the well water was declared safe. The EPA released data for 59 of the 61 wells tested, claiming "the set of sampling did not show levels of contaminants that would give the EPA reason to do further testing." The finding has residents of the northeastern Pennsylvania town disputing the claim. The lawsuits and tests revolving around the use of hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas have made it difficult for insurers to price risk.
While drilling continues in Pennsylvania -- generating about $3.5 billion in 2011 -- the U.S. Department of Interior recently found roughly two-thirds of land leased by the oil industry goes unused. This equates to roughly 46 million acres both on- and offshore.
Recent cyber attacks aimed at computer networks belonging to U.S. natural gas pipeline companies may have ties to China, the Christian Science Monitor reported. The U.S. and China have agreed to cooperate on cyber security despite China's implication in the pipeline attacks. As a whole, the energy sector is becoming more vulnerable to these types of attacks, which also struck Iran last month.
Some, however, are looking to other methods for energy generation. One group of researchers in California is trying to harness viruses for energy needs. As Norway opened the world's largest carbon capture and storage test facility, La Ventosa Mexico -- the windy place -- inched its way toward earning a title for "the largest growth of wind power projects anywhere in the world." The Atlantic Wind Connection project, a network of offshore wind farms off the East Coast that could power close to two million homes in the next 10 years, received permission to move forward. The "first-of-its-kind project" would be served by a 380-mile underwater power line running from Virginia to New Jersey.
The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.
Follow Tim Profeta on Twitter: www.twitter.com/NichInstitute
Peter M. J. Hess, Ph.D.: The Titanic, Climate Change and Avoidable Tragedies
Marcia G. Yerman: Sen. James Inhofe Seeks to Destroy Landmark EPA Ruling
Mike Fegelman: Meet Press TV: Iran's Hateful Mouthpiece in Canada
http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.com/press.html
http://copenhagenconsensus.com/Default.aspx?ID=1637
Translation into non-misleading English:
A report from a "think tank" headed up by controversial economist Bjorn Lomborg is now available.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjørn_Lomborg
Although electric cars are not totally co2 free, they reduce emisisons even if the electricity is coming form a coal fired station.
Energy independence from middle east and Venezuela oil is a stronger motivator for a larger portion of the population in the US than is climate change reversal.
THE GOOD NEWS: The by product of energy independence and security via electric car usage is less CO2 emissions AND less trade deficit AND a stronger USA geopolitical position.
Surely, a wide swath of the political spectrum here in the US could get behind that message.
Environmentalist are doing a poor sales job because they are not including all of the benefits of using electric cars (which has the most potential for reducing CO2 in the USA).
Look as far as Kyoto is concern it's way past time to give fast developing nations a pass!
Over 2/3's of the mercury pollution in the U.S. originates in Asia!
Citing lower costs, Mich. utility slashes renewable energy surcharge | LaurenAWEA
Merit order effect of PV in Germany - News - Renewables International
Renewable power cuts into baseload in Germany - 100% renewable - Renewables International
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Hemp Produces Viable Biodiesel, Study Finds
October 6, 2010 By Christine Buckley
(PhysOrg.com) -- Industrial hemp, which grows in infertile soils, is attractive as a potential source of sustainable diesel fuel.
Of all the various uses for Cannabis plants, add another, “green” one to the mix.
Researchers at UConn have found that the fiber crop Cannabis sativa, known as industrial hemp, has properties that make it viable and even attractive as a raw material, or feedstock, for producing biodiesel – sustainable diesel fuel made from renewable plant sources.
The plant’s ability to grow in infertile soils also reduces the need to grow it on primary croplands, which can then be reserved for growing food, says Richard Parnas, a professor of chemical, materials, and biomolecular engineering who led the study.
http://www.physorg.com/news205599757.html
As to temperatures and sea level rising by a particular amount, it is interesting to note that during this April many high temperature records were broken by as much as 7 degrees. And the residual effect of the CO2 in the air now is still increasing. We have not reached reached an equilibrium temperature range as seen by the fact that the temperature is rising steadily from decade to decade.
It is interesting that the faux free marketers complain bitterly about gas prices, but then they often are the biggest wasters of energy. The more you waste, the more it costs. Supply and demand.
It is funny that the people who complain about nanny government turn around and bend over for their fossil fuel suppliers who then pollute their air, land, and water, and require 100's of billions of dollars of military expenditures to protect their petroleum jugular.
YORBA LINDA, Calif. — Documents released Friday by the Nixon Presidential Library show members of President Richard Nixon's inner circle discussing the possibilities of global warming more than 30 years ago.
Adviser Daniel Patrick Moynihan, notable as a Democrat in the administration, urged the administration to initiate a worldwide system of monitoring carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, decades before the issue of global warming came to the public's attention.
There is widespread agreement that carbon dioxide content will rise 25 percent by 2000, Moynihan wrote in a September 1969 memo.
"This could increase the average temperature near the earth's surface by 7 degrees Fahrenheit," he wrote. "This in turn could raise the level of the sea by 10 feet. Goodbye New York. Goodbye Washington, for that matter."
No need to rub the warmist's noses in it,
What a day that will be! Bringing an actual argument to the table for once
Seth Borenstein in Washington
Associated Press
December 12, 2007
An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer—a sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point. This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions." "The Arctic is screaming," said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government's snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colorado.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/071212-AP-arctic-melt.html
It's really all about income distribution, isn't it. One day, this whole AGW scam will go down as the biggest hoax perpetrated upon mankind.
drive..
or bicycle to this thing?
as for fracking the EPA has dropped its suites in TX because they could not find ANY pollution of groundwater .....
The AGW advocates like you tell us clearly we Must reduce CO2 output NOW by 25-80% or face the consequences - nothing less will do a thing to stop AGW. So without China and India its IMPOSSIBLE.
But dopes like you tell us we should spend trillions we don't have and that will NOT lower world CO2 output in the hope that they (china and India) "might come along".
Are you kidding? that is the freaking joke here. and my answer is NO and Hell no.
cap and trade BS is dead - as it should be.
Against that backdroip, the proposals of past 'summits' have produced very limited goals, and the achievements have been far less. Why would any upcoming summit produce anything more meaningful? What has changed? The reality is that all the major stakeholders in climate change (energy resource owners, energy producers, energy industry workers, politicians, energy consuming public, etc) are comfortable with the status quo, albeit for different reasons. They all want to get whatever they can in the here-and-now at the expense of the survival of their progeny. One cannot imagine a more selfish act.