Global Warming agreements

[awakening2lite]

source: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/12/16/bali.agreement/

U.S. agrees to global warming deal

(see the conference video at source)

In a dramatic reversal Saturday, the United States rejected and then accepted a compromise to set the stage for intense negotiations in the next two years aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions worldwide.

The White House, however, said in a statement that it still has "serious concerns" about the agreement.

"The negotiations must proceed on the view that the problem of climate change cannot be adequately addressed through commitments for emissions cuts by developed countries alone.

continued at source.

[Justiceguy]

Thanks for starting these 3 threads on global issues!

[spike404]

Thanks for starting these 3 threads on global issues!

Three? How about thirteen! And all, a waste of space.

[awakening2lite]

G7 mulls climate change fund

Published:Jan 28, 2008

TOKYO - Japan, Britain and the United States are looking to jointly propose the creation of a special fund designed to fight climate change, Jiji Press said today.

The three plan to make the proposal during a meeting of financial chiefs from the Group of Seven (G7) industrialised nations on February 9 in Tokyo, the news agency said.

The fund is mainly aimed at helping developing countries improve energy-saving technologies, Jiji said, adding that the World Bank is expected to manage it.

The three countries are to call on the other G7 members to back the plan and include it in their joint statement to be adopted at the end of the one-day meeting, it said. Immediate confirmation of the report, which quoted unnamed sources, was not available.

Apart from the three countries, the G7 is made up of Canada, France, Germany and Italy.

Japan has aimed to take the lead in debate over measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions when it hosts this year’s Group of Eight summit, which also includes Russia, from July 7 to 9 at the northern lakeside resort of Toyako.

The world’s second biggest economy after the United States, Japan is the home of the Kyoto Protocol, the landmark 1997 treaty that mandated cuts in greenhouse gas emissions heating up the planet.

Japan is far behind in meeting its Kyoto commitments as its economy recovers from recession in the 1990s. But Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said Saturday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that Japan will set its own target for cuts after Kyoto’s obligations expire in 2012.

http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=693371

[je suis]

Three? How about thirteen! And all, a waste of space.

Why? Does science scare you?

[spike404]

Why? Does science scare you?

Forgot about this thread, just re-discovered it.

Science doesn't scare me, but mob hysteria certainly does. Chicken Little still has his followers!

[awakening2lite]

JULY 9, 2009

G-8 Climate-Change Agreement Falls Short




L'AQUILA, Italy -- The Group of Eight leading nations agreed Wednesday to cut their emissions of heat-trapping gases 80% by 2050, but failed to reach an accord on shorter-term targets -- a setback that could have repercussions for a major meeting on climate change in Copenhagen later this year.


Their failure prompted a larger group of nations -- including China, India, and other developing-country polluters -- to backtrack from their own commitment to numerical targets they had planned to announce Thursday.


Chinese President Hu Jintao's sudden departure from the meeting early Wednesday further complicates negotiations, dealing a potentially significant blow to the summit's ability to produce concrete results on issues from climate change to economic recovery.


China has been a driving force in international discussions about currency, debt and concerns over soaring budget deficits as nations struggle to pull themselves out of the global financial crisis.


Mr. Hu departed to deal with rioting in China's western Xinjiang territory before he could meet privately with U.S. President Barack Obama or attend critical meetings of the G-8 plus 5, which includes China and four other developing economies.


Mr. Hu also was scheduled to attend the larger 17-nation Major Economies Forum on Thursday, chaired by Mr. Obama, and charged with reaching an accord on climate-change issues. Mr. Obama had hoped for a breakthrough in his debut on the stage of the international climate debate, but Mr. Hu's absence makes a last-minute push by Mr. Obama for a broad accord on emissions reductions impossible, U.S. officials here say.


The G-8 nations -- the U.S., Japan, Germany, France, the U.K., Italy, Canada and Russia -- did unite in issuing a declaration Wednesday night expressing "serious concern" about postelection violence in Iran and setting a March 2010 date for a nuclear-security summit in Washington. They also condemned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his statements denying the Holocaust.


The group stopped short of setting deadlines for a halt to Iran's nuclear program, saying the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September would provide an opportunity to take stock of options. French President Nicolas Sarkozy tried tougher language late Wednesday for reporters, however, saying that if there wasn't progress by September, "We will have to take decisions," Reuters reported.


On Tuesday night, China's Mr. Hu was dining with local officials and business leaders in a frescoed palazzo in Florence when the meal was cut short by a flurry of phone calls. "In a matter of minutes everything froze, and then they left," said Matteo Renzi, the mayor of Florence.


The Chinese president left behind Chinese state councilor Dai Bingguo, whom U.S. Deputy White House National Security Adviser Denis McDonough describes as a powerful figure. Still, Mr. McDonough said, "It's a fair question" to ask whether Mr. Hu's departure will have an impact.




White House officials expressed disappointment at Mr. Hu's departure, but said the summit here can produce results. They said they didn't expect currency issues to come up, and that the biggest fights over fiscal imbalances and "exit strategies" for economic stimulus programs are with European nations such as Germany, not with China.


"Without China, the wind comes out of the sails," said Steven Schrage, Scholl chair of international business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a G-8 negotiator in the Bush administration.


Since the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, reluctant Western nations have painted the unwillingness of developing economies such as China to sign on to efforts to curb global warming as the largest political and technical impediment to progress. The U.S. Congress and the Bush administration cited the omission of China from Kyoto's mandates as the biggest reason the U.S. wouldn't participate in the treaty.


Developing countries have responded that they shouldn't have to slow or sacrifice their fossil-fuel-based economic growth to help the West atone for its historical consumption patterns.


Wednesday's breakdown here underscored how difficult a breakthrough will be when the world gathers in Copenhagen in December to try to complete a binding treaty to replace Kyoto.


"We still have time before Copenhagen," said Michael Froman, deputy White House national security adviser for international economics.


U.S. officials framed the L'Aquila climate-change declarations as progress. Numerical targets for emissions reductions by 2050 are largely meaningless anyway, as the target is so far in the future, they said. "It would be a big mistake to look only at 2050," said Todd Stern, the chief U.S. climate-change negotiator.


But it was the failure of the developed nations to set short-term goals that gave the developing countries their reason for torpedoing a broader deal that seemed within reach just a week ago. The G-8 nations also couldn't agree on a pledge to help fund poorer countries' moves toward cleaner energy sources and mitigate the effects of climate change they are already feeling.


A draft declaration had provisionally called for $400 million in this aid -- a figure many nations called too small and others called too large. In the end, they got only theoretical commitments to help with finances and technology.


Still, the G-8 declaration did move the developed world toward stricter regulations on the emissions of climate-trapping gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. The developed nations agreed a year ago to a 50% reduction by 2050, but European negotiators argued a more aggressive target was needed ultimately to convince the developing nations. This year, they got 80%.


But that may be less significant than it seems because the G-8 declaration leaves it to individual nations to decide their emissions baselines. Germany and other European countries wanted emissions cut 80% from 1990 levels. The U.S. wanted the cuts to be counted against current levels. The declaration states the reductions will be counted against 1990 levels "or later years."


"It recognizes multiple baselines," Mr. Froman said.


In another breakthrough, the G-8 agreed on Wednesday that global temperatures shouldn't rise more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. The U.S. has long resisted setting a temperature ceiling. Translating that ceiling into action will entail dramatic changes that will affect every corner of the global economy, especially as temperatures already have risen nearly one degree.


But some were less than impressed. "The G-8 might have agreed to avoid cooking the planet by more than two degrees, but they made no attempt to turn down the heat anytime soon," said Antonio Hill, spokesman for Oxfam International, summing up the view of several liberal environmental groups here.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124704550659510745.html?mod=rss_com_mostcommenta rt

[awakening2lite]

Hackers leak e-mails, stoke climate debate
By DAVID STRINGER (AP) – 31 minutes ago


LONDON — Computer hackers have broken into a server at a well-respected climate change research center in Britain and posted hundreds of private e-mails and documents online — stoking debate over whether some scientists have overstated the case for man-made climate change.
The University of East Anglia, in eastern England, said in a statement Saturday that the hackers had entered the server and stolen data at its Climatic Research Unit, a leading global research center on climate change. The university said police are investigating the theft of the information, but could not confirm if all the materials posted online are genuine.


More than a decade of correspondence between leading British and U.S. scientists is included in about 1,000 e-mails and 3,000 documents posted on Web sites following the security breach last week.


Some climate change skeptics and bloggers claim the information shows scientists have overstated the case for global warming, and allege the documents contain proof that some researchers have attempted to manipulate data.


The furor over the leaked data comes weeks before the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen, when 192 nations will seek to reach a binding treaty to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases worldwide. Many officials — including U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon — regard the prospects of a pact being sealed at the meeting as bleak.


In one leaked e-mail, the research center's director, Phil Jones, writes to colleagues about graphs showing climate statistics over the last millennium. He alludes to a technique used by a fellow scientist to "hide the decline" in recent global temperatures. Some evidence appears to show a halt in a rise of global temperatures from about 1960, but is contradicted by other evidence which appears to show a rise in temperatures is continuing.


Jones wrote that, in compiling new data, he had "just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e., from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline," according to a leaked e-mail, which the author confirmed was genuine.
One of the colleague referred to by Jones — Michael Mann, a professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University — did not immediately respond to requests for comment via telephone and e-mail.


The use of the word "trick" by Jones has been seized on by skeptics — who say his e-mail offers proof of collusion between scientists to distort evidence to support their assertion that human activity is influencing climate change.


"Words fail me," Stephen McIntyre — a blogger whose climateaudit.org (http://climateaudit.org/) Web site challenges popular thinking on climate change — wrote on the site following the leak of the messages.


However, Jones denied manipulating evidence and insisted his comment had been taken out of context. "The word 'trick' was used here colloquially, as in a clever thing to do. It is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to anything untoward," he said in a statement Saturday.
Jones did not indicate who "Keith" was in his e-mail.


Two other American scientists named in leaked e-mails — Gavin Schmidt of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, and Kevin Trenberth, of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, in Colorado — did not immediately return requests for comment.


The University of East Anglica said that information published on the Internet had been selected deliberately to undermine "the strong consensus that human activity is affecting the world's climate in ways that are potentially dangerous."


"The selective publication of some stolen e-mails and other papers taken out of context is mischievous and cannot be considered a genuine attempt to engage with this issue in a responsible way," the university said in a statement.


http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ikaqlFpp9jCRHWN0zNuamKXfyeMgD9C441LG0

[LiveLaughLuv]

Security November 22, 2009 8:42 AM
Hacked Climate Change E-mails Highlight Security Concerns

In the heat of the climate change debate sparked by hacked e-mail messages, there has been little discussion of how the e-mails were leaked. In a connected world, security and privacy are both more important, and harder to come by. Tony Bradley
Was this article useful? Yes 4 No 0 The debate over climate change--and what is fact versus what fits the agenda of one side or the other-is raging in the wake of hacked emails alleging that facts were covered up. I'll let the climate change rivals battle that out, but let's take a closer look at the security aspects of email and how attackers were able to acquire these messages.

A server at the Hadley Climate Research Center in the United Kingdom was breached and the attacker was able to acquire thousands of e-mail messages and sensitive documents which were subsequently uploaded to an FTP server in Russia and have since been publicly shared and analyzed around the world.

Officials have not commented on the authenticity of the data, although at least portions of it have been confirmed as legitimate. In a statement, officials did confirm the breach, though: "We are aware that information from a server in one area of the university has been made available on public Web sites."

Of course, this isn't the first time that potentially damaging information has been leaked due to an e-mail hack. You might recall Sarah Palin's personal Yahoo email account getting hacked during the Presidential campaign last year.

Twitter has been victimized twice this year. First, in January some prominent Twitter accounts were compromised, leading to fake messages like the one allegedly from CNN anchor Rick Sanchez that said "i am high on crack right now might not be coming into work today." Then in May an attacker was able to compromise internal documents and employee salary information and post it to the Web.

These attacks are, unfortunately, not all that isolated or unique. In the case of the Palin hack, and at least one of the Twitter breaches, the weak link can be traced back to security controls on Web-based e-mail services. Attackers were able to exploit the system in place for users to recover lost usernames and passwords, and instead use it to gain unauthorized access.

The Hadley climate change breach, and the compromise of sensitive documents at Twitter, though, demonstrate why it is important to encrypt data--even data at rest on internal servers that are not intended to be exposed to the public Internet. Improved security controls to prevent unauthorized access in the first place would be nice as well, but encrypting the data trumps all else and virtually ensures it won't be compromised.

All of the breaches, hacks, compromises, and attacks highlight another point as well-if you write it, record it, photograph it, or in any way document or archive something, assume that it will be seen by the general public someday. With virtually endless amounts of digital storage, and social nature of online communications, its not possible to guarantee the data will never be disclosed.

I am not saying the ‘sky is falling' or declaring that security is dead. With strong passwords, solid security practices, and sufficient encryption, most data will never see the light of day. I am saying, though, that it is possible that the information could be disclosed despite your best efforts, and that you should think twice about what you write in an e-mail or post in a Facebook status update, lest it become a smoking gun skeleton in your closet.

Make sure you have security controls in place to prevent unauthorized access. Encrypt the data so that it can't be compromised even if the security controls fail. And, ultimately, don't write things in e-mails that you wouldn't want broadcast on the big screen in New York's Times Square.

Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

Tony Bradley tweets as @PCSecurityNews, and can be contacted at his Facebook page
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/blogs/bizfeed/182825/hacked_climate_change_emails_highlight_security_co ncerns.html?tk=rss_news

[LiveLaughLuv]

David Adam, environment correspondent guardian.co.uk, Sunday 22 November 2009 19.03 GMT Article history

Climate change sceptics and lobbyists put world at risk, says top adviser
• Chance to limit warming squandered, says scientist
• World needs to prepare to cope with at least 3-4C rise

Climate change sceptics and fossil fuel companies that have lobbied against action on greenhouse gas emissions have squandered the world's chance to avoid dangerous global warming, a key adviser to the government has said.

Professor Bob Watson, chief scientist at the department for environment and rural affairs, said a decade of inaction on climate change meant it was now virtually impossible to limit global temperature rise to 2C. He said the delay meant the world would now do well to stabilise warming between 3C and 4C.

His comments come ahead of key UN negotiations on a new global climate treaty in Copenhagen next month that the UK government insists should still aim for a 2C goal, despite doubts over whether a meaningful deal can be sealed.

In an interview with the Guardian, Watson said: "Those that have opposed a deal on climate, which would include elements of the fossil fuel industry, have clearly made making a 2C target much, much harder, if not impossible. They've clearly put the world at risk of far more adverse effects of climate change."

The decision of former US president George W Bush to walk away from the Kyoto protocol, the existing global treaty on carbon emissions, sent a message to other countries not to act, he said. "The last decade was a lost opportunity. Elements within the fossil fuel industry clearly had major implications for the Bush administration."

He added: "I think they've clearly been partly to blame, without any question at all. But you have to say it is not just the fossil lobby. Within the US, there is not strong support for the Kyoto protocol in both parties. Even Obama now will have to persuade a still somewhat sceptical Senate that we should be doing this."

The Copenhagen talks are not expected to deliver a legally binding treaty as originally hoped, but could still make progress on issues such as emissions cuts for rich countries and financial assistance for the developing world. A strong agreement rests on how far Obama is willing to push towards strong carbon cuts in the US.

European officials fear the agreement could eventually do no better than return emissions in 2020 to 1990 levels; scientists say they must fall by 25-40% to have a good chance of staying within the 2C limit.

Watson, a former head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said: "I think we will do well to stabilise between 3 and 4C. Even that is going to take strong political action to decarbonise the energy system and to require us peaking greenhouse gas emissions in the next 10 or more years," he said. "We have to make sure we understand what it would mean to see 3-4C. How would we adapt our agriculture, our water resources, coastal protection and human health systems."

A Guardian poll this year showed that almost nine out of 10 climate scientists thought the 2C target would be missed.

The British government last month published a map that laid out the stark details of a world warmer by 4C. It showed that the rise would not be evenly spread across the globe, with temperature rises much larger than 4C in high latitudes such as the Arctic. Because the sea warms more slowly, average land temperature will increase by 5.5C, which scientists said would shrink yields for all major cereal crops on all regions of production. A 4C rise would also have a major impact on water availability, with supplies limited to an extra billion people by 2080.

Watson backed controversial calls for research into geoengineering techniques, such as blocking the sun, as a way to head off dangerous temperature rise – one of the most senior figures so far to do so. "We should at least be looking at it. I would see what the theoretical models say, and ask ourselves the question: how can we do medium-sized experiments in the field?"

Such an effort could divert attention and funds from efforts to cut carbon and switch to cleaner technology, he said. "I think it should be a real international effort, so it isn't just the UK funding it."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/22/climate-change-emissions-scientist-watson

[Smokey Stover]

Livlaughluv has posted interesting and important material on global warming. I'm certain she takes it seriously, as she should. Still, I'd like to hear a paragraph or two or ten stating her own opinions, which I imagine are strong.

I'd like to hear the opinions of Spike404 as well, stated at more length than just a sentence or two. Most scientists have unimpeachable educational and intellectual credentials, and the vast majority of them take global warming very seriously. It's hard for me to imagine why conservatives tend to dismiss them. I've heard a few reasons offered, that sound to me perfectly ludicrous. One is that global warming, being a liberal fantasy, is forced down the throats of any scientists who want to keep their jobs by liberal university administrations. Why would liberals dream up global warming? And if science doesn't support it, why did the notion originate in the scientific community, not in "liberal" university administrations?

[LiveLaughLuv]

I want our planet to be here long after I'm gone..I really don't know much about what I've posted but believe in that "Green House" effect is affecting our climate across the world.

Just going by when I was young, the winters were winters, the snow 4 ft high or more and frigidly cold. I see now, how we don't get that much snow, (which as I've aged, I'm alright with that part :girl_haha:) but get much rain. I see the temperatures rise unless we get that cold front coming from Canada it's more seasonably warm than cold. I wonder if one day the East Coast will have that Florida weather and Florida will get NY weather..the axis is shifting...

I see how the waters may eventually take parts of NY, Florida, California with the melting of the icebergs. We may have a shift in axis which will cause havoc for when the waters rise, the US as we know it, will once again change it's shape of the land...JMHO

[LiveLaughLuv]

Newest Weapon Against Climate Change: Rocks
A strong contender in the fight against global warming may be right under our feet. .By Michael Reilly | Tue Nov 24, 2009 08:00 AM ET .
Reddish bands of listwanite, which are formed from carbonized peridotites, appear on a mountain in Oman.
Peter Kelemen/Columbia University

Rocks with a powerful thirst for carbon dioxide (CO2) could suck enough of the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere to help counteract global warming, according to a recent study.

The country of Oman hosts a strip of mantle rocks called peridotites in a formation 350 kilometers (217.5 miles) long and 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) wide.

Formed under searing heat and crushing pressure deep in the Earth, the rocks have unusual chemical properties when thrust up to the surface, including an affinity for carbon dioxide.

WATCH VIDEO: Ralph Keeling has spent 20 years in the family business: studying climate change.

"They are in disequilibrium with the surface," Juerg Matter of Columbia University said. "So they react really quickly with the atmosphere, rainwater and groundwater, and absorb CO2."

Traditionally, scientists have thought the process is self-limiting, stopping as newly-formed carbon minerals filled up spaces in the rocks.

But recently, Matter and a team of scientists have discovered that the usually gray rocks are laced with ribbons of red. These bands were produced by a mineral called listwanite, formed when the minerals in peridotite are carbonized.

If all of the mantle rocks exposed in Oman were converted in this way -- a highly improbably scenario, the team admitted -- they would lock away 4,000 years worth of human emissions.

Even a small fraction of that could make a dent in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Globally, peridotites occur in large enough amounts that carbon sequestration programs would make sense in places like Greece, Papua New Guinea and the west coast of the United States.

"This is one option, and there are lots of options for carbon sequestration," Matter said. "The most interesting part about this is it leads to permanent storage of CO2. You don't have to worry about leakage if you lock it up as a mineral instead of storing it in a reservoir or aquifer."

The team noted that listwanite is riddled with fractures, which increase surface area and allow CO2-rich groundwater to keep circulating within the rock. They believe mimicking such a process would be key to the success of any man-made attempts at carbon sequestration using peridotites.

Matter and his team will present their latest findings next month at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

"What's really new here is that these reactions are occurring at lower temperatures and faster than was previously thought," Gregory Dipple of the Univeristy of British Columbia said.

Dipple cited his experience at a large mine in Australia, where peridotite tailings were sucking up as much as 50,000 tons of dioxide each year from the atmosphere. The mine's annual emissions were around 350,000 tons.

"You know, the tailings are offsetting something like 15 percent of emissions just by sitting there," Dipple said.

He added that peridotite's global capacity to sequester carbon dioxide is "almost infinite," but that he, Matter and other researchers are still several years from the first attempts to engineer such a solution to global warming.
http://news.discovery.com/earth/carbon-rocks-global-warming.html

[awakening2lite]

...



Here's a link to the UN Copenhagen Climate Change Conference (named "Hopenhagen") Web site:
http://www.hopenhagen.org/














http://www.examiner.com/x-12720-DC-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2009m11d22-Pirated-email-scandal-puts-damper-on-Copenhagen-climate-talks

EXCERPT


The latest downsized goals for Copenhagen are to establish the steps necessary to reach an agreement (within 6 months) and to set a timetable.