Inflatable Robots: The Cheap, Lightweight Robotic Alternative?
Making robots from fabric that were once made from metal can have huge implications on the future of materials usage. I, for one, welcome our new inflatable overlords.
Making robots from fabric that were once made from metal can have huge implications on the future of materials usage. I, for one, welcome our new inflatable overlords.
The Real Scandal: The Endless Effort to Smear Climate Scientists
This year has already witnessed multiple events that break climate records: the drought in East Africa, the worst drought in Texas’ recorded history, and record breaking storms and floods in the US south. Those events, anticipated by climatologists decades ago, should remind us that those who persecute and harass scientists, or mendaciously misrepresent their actions and findings, have no sense of decency.
by Stephan Lewandowsky, in a Conversation cross-post
Emails from the University of East An
glia’s Climatic Research Unit have once again been hacked and released on the internet. The timing is similar to the “climategate” scandal of 2009, with emails published just before an important UN climate conference. Does this mean the science is in doubt? Quite the opposite, says Stephan Lewandowsky.
An ambulance pulls up behind you. You know it’s an ambulance because you can read AMBULANCE in your rear view mirror. But you can also read it when you look at the vehicle directly; because the human visual system has the ability to quickly correct complete inversions or left-right reversals of letters. In fact, a complete inversion is easier to read than letters that are rotated only partially.
This human ability to process complete inversions more quickly than just partial distortions, alas, lends itself to exploitation by ruthless propagandists who seek to create a chimerical world in which up is down, left is right, and good is smeared as evil.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the netherworld of attacks on climate scientists.
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Remember “climategate”? The illegal hack of personal emails released just before the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009 that some columnists pronounced to be the (approximately 132nd) “final nail in the coffin” of global warming?
Remember the “errors” in the IPCC’s 2007 report? “Amazongate”, “Himalayagate”, and so on?
What has happened to “climategate”?
What’s happened is this.
First, the UK Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee exonerated the scientist at the centre of the tempest, Professor Phil Jones, finding he has “no case to answer” and that his reputation “remains intact.”
Then Lord Oxburgh (former chairman of Shell-UK) and his panel likewise exonerated the researchers, finding their “work has been carried out with integrity, and that allegations of deliberate misrepresentation” are “not valid.”
Another enquiry, chaired by Sir Muir Russell, found the scientists’ “rigour and honesty” to be beyond doubt.
Two enquiries by his university also cleared Professor Michael Mann – who presented the first of now innumerable “hockey stick” graphs – of all allegations.
Ultimately the (conservative) UK Government concluded “the information contained in the illegally-disclosed emails does not provide any evidence to discredit … anthropogenic climate change.”
Not one, not two, but by now nine vindications.
This comes as no surprise to anyone with even a passing familiarity with the distinction between private chat and public actions.
And what has happened to the IPCC “Whatevergates”?
What’s happened is this.
First, the Sunday Times apologised and retracted its “Amazongate” story. There is no “Amazongate”; there is only the Amazon rainforest threatened by climate change.
Then the Dutch government accepted responsibility for erroneously informing the IPCC that 55% of the Netherlands are below sea level. In fact only 26% are at risk of flooding because they are below sea level, whereas the other 29% are, err, at risk of flooding from rivers.
And about a year after “climategate” broke, the BBC finally apologised to the University of East Anglia for its misleading coverage of the “climategate” pseudo-scandal.
All that’s left of the “Whatevergates”, therefore, is red-faced apologies and one indubitable IPCC error: the incorrect projection of the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers to 2035, as opposed to the more likely 2350. This error was drawn to the public’s attention by, wait for it, an IPCC author.
Can we now forget about “gate” in connection with “climate”?
No.
Because there are too many real climategates that must not escape attention.
First, there was another batch of private emails posted by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a “think” tank notorious even by American standards. Those emails — yes, a second hack — revealed the real climategate by being truthful, with one scientist stating: “Those who deny the biophysical facts of the world would deny … gravity” and “we’re not in a gentlepersons’ debate, we’re in a street fight against … merciless enemies. Colleagues … are getting threatened with prosecution by … [US Senator James M.] Inhofe.”
That is the second real climategate: the McCarthyite attempts by Senator Inhofe to criminalise climate scientists — attempts to criminalise those who, 35 years ago, predicted the temperature rise by century’s end to within 1/10th of a degree.
This is no isolated incident: Virginia’s Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, has launched several frivolous lawsuits — despite losing an earlier one — against the University of Virginia in what the Washington Post called a “war on the freedom of academic inquiry”“. And Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman evoked Pastor Niemoeller’s cry against the erosion of humanity under the Nazis: “First, they came for the climate scientists…”.
The real climategate involves active censorship within NASA by Bush appointees, which the agency’s Inspector General later found to have “reduced, marginalized, or mischaracterized climate change science”.
The real climategate involves Bush White House staff replacing assessments of the National Academy of Sciences with a discredited paper by two individuals with no expertise in climatology. This paper, funded by the American Petroleum Institute, was so flawed its appearance in a peer-reviewed journal led to the resignation in protest by three editors and the publisher’s unprecedented acknowledgement of mishandling.
Those are not merely historical episodes because the real climategate encompasses the ongoing complicity of some media organs.
In Canada, the real media climategate involves the ongoing list of defamatory articles by the “National Post.” The tabloid is finally being sued by Professor Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria.
In Australia, the real media climategate involves the national daily newspaper, whose misrepresentations of science are legendary and, sadly ongoing.
Those real climategates are the tip of an iceberg of venality enveloping anti-science interests and their enablers.
And just a few hours ago, another illegal release of personal emails among scientists was dumped on to the world in the lead-up to the next climate conference in Durban. First Copenhagen, now Durban. When the science is so rock solid that it can no longer be reasonably doubted, all that is left is to steal private correspondence in a desperate attempt to disparage those who are trying to protect the world from the risks it is facing.
Joseph Welch famously brought down Joe McCarthy with a simple question: “Have you no sense of decency?”
This year has already witnessed multiple events that break climate records: the drought in East Africa, the worst drought in Texas’ recorded history, and record breaking storms and floods in the US south. Those events, anticipated by climatologists decades ago, should remind us that those who persecute and harass scientists, or mendaciously misrepresent their actions and findings, have no sense of decency.
That is the real climategate.
— Stephan Lewandowsky is a cognitive scientist at the University of Western Australia whose research examines people’s memory and decision making, with particular emphasis on how people respond to corrections of misinformation. This piece was originally published at The Conversation website.
One In Five Canadians Crossing the Border To Get Into the Black Friday/ Cyber Monday Madness
It's one thing to drive to the mall, but one fifth of Canadian shoppers are driving to another country. That's crazy.
Andy Revkin on Buy Nothing Day
The Dot Earth Blogger on The Ad Man Behind Occupy Wall Street, and ‘Buy Nothing Day"
Kansas School Unconstitutionally Disciplines Student For Criticizing Gov. Sam Brownback
In a blatant violation of the First Amendment, a public high school in Prairie Village, Kansas disciplined a student for speaking out against Gov. Sam Brownback (R-KS):
Emma Sullivan, a senior at Shawnee Mission East High School in Prairie Village, was in Topeka on Monday as part of Kansas Youth in Government, a program for students interested in politics and government.
During the session, in which Brownback addressed the group, Sullivan posted on her personal Twitter page: “Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot”
On Tuesday, Sullivan was called to her principal’s office and told that the tweet had been flagged by someone on Brownback’s staff and reported to organizers of the Youth in Government program. [...]
Sullivan said the principal ordered her to write letters of apology to Brownback, the school’s Youth in Government sponsor, the district’s social studies coordinator and others.
It’s troubling that Brownback’s staff is so thin skinned that they felt the need to call down the government’s wrath on a high school student who had the audacity to criticize the governor. If nothing else, one would think a state governor’s office has better things to do than troll the internet looking for young dissenting voices they can intimidate.
Moreover, there’s no question that the high school principal violated Sullivan’s First Amendment rights. Although public school students’ right to free speech is not unlimited, schools are generally only allowed to discipline students for speech that is disruptive to the school’s learning environment. It is difficult to imagine how a single tweet criticizing a controversial politician during a field trip could have disrupted this high school’s ability to educate its students.
Moreover, because the school district violated Sullivan’s clearly established federal constitutional rights, she is likely entitled to have the district or the principal pay her attorney’s fees if she decides to bring a lawsuit challenging this unconstitutional disciplinary action. In other words, the district could be wise to settle this case immediately if Sullivan decides to bring them to court.
New Study Links Climate Change to Higher Medical Costs
by Frances Beinecke, cross posted from NRDC’s Switchboard
When I speak to lawmakers and business leaders about the costs of climate change, they tend to think in terms of damaged property and lost agricultural revenue. Certainly the fires in Texas and the flooding from Vermont to Virginia have brought home the staggering costs associated with rebuilding homes and replanting crops. But one cost of extreme weather has gone nearly unreported: health care.
In a groundbreaking study published recently in Health Affairs, a group of NRDC scientists and university economists looked at six climate-change-related events that happened in the United States in the last decade.
These extreme events accounted for more than $14 billion in health-related care costs and more than 760,000 interactions with the health care system.
As climate change intensifies, these medical bills will rise dramatically.
Today a report by the world’s leading body of climate scientists concluded that global warming is causing more extreme weather events and they will become even more frequent in the decades ahead.
That means greater health threats and higher medical costs.
We are already seeing the toll these events take. Extreme weather routinely sends people to emergency rooms with injuries, respiratory illness, and other life-threatening conditions.
In a blistering heat wave that hit California in 2006, 655 people’s deaths, 1,620 hospitalizations, and more than 16,000 excess emergency room visits resulted in nearly $5.4 billion dollars in costs, according to the new study.
When the Red River flooded in North Dakota in 2009, the news media covered the damage done to homes and communities. But few realized that the two deaths, 263 emergency room visits, and an estimated 3,000 outpatient visits associated with the flood generated more than $20 million in health-related costs.
And across the United States in 2002, high temperatures increased the amount of smog pollution in the air, exposing nearly 288 million Americans to smog levels higher than those deemed safe for public health. This extra pollution hastened the death of 795 people, caused 4,150 hospitalizations, and prompted more than 365,000 outpatient visits. This smog-related medical care came at cost of $6.5 billion.
If we want to shield our families from these health hazards and stop the escalation in medical costs, America must set limits on global warming pollution.
President Obama has made an impressive start. The clean car standards he announced in July will cut carbon emissions from vehicles in half and save Americans $80 billion a year at the pump. But cars and trucks are only one piece in the puzzle.
Power plants account for 40 percent of U.S. carbon emissions, yet there is no limit on how much global warming pollution these plants can release. The Obama administration is expected to set limits on carbon pollution on plants. Together with the clean car standards, these new safeguards would cover two-thirds of the nation’s global warming pollution.
This is the kind of progress we must make if we want to save money and lives in the decades ahead.
Frances Beinecke is the president of the Natural Resources Defense Council. This post was originally published at NRDC’s Switchboard blog.
Woman Pepper-Sprays 20 In "Competitive Shopping" Spree on Black Friday
She claims it's not a problem, "It's just a food product, essentially."
Clever Teacup Design Means One Less Thing To Clean
If you are trying to live with less, this clever design can help.
Australia’s Touching Marriage Equality Ad
GetUp! Action for Australia has produced this touching video of a young couple sharing their lives with each other from a day at the beach to personal tragedies, birthdays, and finally the marriage proposal:
Marriage equality is a hotly contested issue in Australia, where some 62 percent of voters now support marriage equality. Last week, Prime Minister Julia Gillard of the Australian Labor Party announced that she would support a conscience vote on same-sex marriage, but would not favor including marriage equality in the party’s platform. A conscience vote could doom the effort because Labor MPs would be split, while the Coalition — a group of center-right parties — would vote against it. (HT: Kevin Farrell)
Gisele Bünchen, Wangari Maathai & Unilever Are Big Winners at The International Green Awards 2011
The inspriation filled International Green Awards 2011 take place in London celebrating the best creative work in sustainability.
Rick Perry Should Be Thankful For The Federal Health Care Dollars Flowing Into Texas
Politico’s Kate Nocera has a good piece explaining why this holiday season Rick Perry must be thankful for all the federal dollars that flowing into Texas, even if he publicly rails against Washington spending on the campaign trail:
More than $380 million in early grants and other aid from the federal health law have already gone to businesses and agencies in the Lone Star State, according to figures from the HHS, and Texas ended up with $17 billion from the stimulus.
Now, the state is waiting for final approval of a new waiver from federal Medicaid rules that could allow the state to draw down an additional $12 billion in funds from the federal government.
And that’s before the main parts of the Affordable Care Act even kick in, which will bring billions of dollars to Texas in extra Medicaid funds and subsidies to help people buy private coverage through a new health insurance exchange.
Indeed, despite the “Washington is overreaching in health care shtick,” Perry is a big believer in bringing back the federal dollars that Texas pays out in taxes: he has asked for and accepted federal stimulus funds for the Medicaid program, is close to securing the state’s 17th Medicaid waiver, has benefited from millions of dollars in grants included in the Affordable Care Act, and will soon expand access to health care for lower-income Texans on Washington’s dime (in accordance with health care reform). So while the governor talks about — and even believes in — allowing states to act as laboratories of democracy and design their own health care systems, his tenure suggests very little of that innovation could be sustained without federal aid.
Must-See Video of Rep. Don Young (R-AK) Bullying a Witness: “I Can Call You Anything I Want…. You Just Be quiet!”
By Don Shelby, in a re-post
On Nov. 18 the celebrated historian, Dr. Douglas Brinkley, testified before the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee. The committee was taking testimony on another congressional effort to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil exploration and drilling.
Brinkley was there to suggest that the ANWR be designated a national monument, preserved and protected. Brinkley knows about conservation. Among his award-winning publications and best-selling books is “Wilderness Warrior” about Theodore Roosevelt’s environmental policies. His most recent book, “The Quiet World,” traces the history of Alaska’s wilderness. He’s currently writing a new history on the conservation movement in America.
After Brinkley delivered his testimony, Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, walked into the hearing late. Please watch this short clip of what happened:
By way of full disclosure, Dr. Brinkley is a friend of mine, but had Dr. Brinkley been a stranger to me, I would still be mortified that a United States congressman would treat a guest of the House in such a fashion. I hope this piece of video is seen by as many Americans as possible. I shouldn’t like people in other countries to see it. We still have an image to uphold in the world. Young makes it look like the most powerful nation on earth is run by the inmates of the asylum.
You may also notice that Dr. Brinkley doesn’t suffer fools gladly. I talked to him about the confrontation. He told me: “I felt like I needed to hold my own against them. I feel good about it.”
He continued: “I’m a historian and I read a lot of testimony. It is important to me to have an accurate record. I thought I needed to set the record straight for Congressman Young. My name is not Dr. Rice, it is Dr. Brinkley.”
That is certainly part of it. It is likely, as well, that Brinkley had studied the history of Congressman Young before he arrived at the hearing. Brinkley told me he knew that Congressman Young, at another hearing, had waved a walrus penis bone at Mollie Beattie, the incoming chief of the Fish and Wildlife Service.
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Brinkley may have read the Rolling Stone article about Young that quotes the congressman as saying, “Environmentalists are a self-centered bunch of waffle-stomping, Harvard-graduating, intellectual idiots.” The quote continues, “[They] are not Americans, never have been Americans and never will be Americans.”
I don’t think Congressman Young would have dared say such a thing to Teddy Roosevelt’s face.
Missed votes
Brinkley should not have been surprised that Congressman Young showed up late and missed the bulk of the historian’s testimony. Young is often cited as the congressman missing more votes than any other member of the House. Brinkley would have known that Young was the co-sponsor, with discredited Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, of the bill to pay for the infamous “bridge to nowhere.”
Brinkley told me: “Everyone knows that Young is just a menacing blowhard. He has a history of being rude, he browbeats and he’s snotty toward anyone who cares about the environment.”
I asked Brinkley if he was surprised that Committee Chair Doc Hastings took Young’s side and continued lecturing the historian. “No,” said Brinkley. “They are tied together at the hip. They are both oil company factotums. They are a tag team.”
Had Young been in the room for Brinkley’s testimony, he would have heard an interesting history lesson. Brinkley told those present that President Dwight D. Eisenhower had set aside the ANWR, and protected it the same way Ike had protected Antarctica. Brinkley is proposing that President Obama set aside the ANWR as a national monument using the 1906 Antiquities Act.
“Eisenhower created it as a refuge,” Brinkley said.
So Brinkley suggests a new name and new status for ANWR. “I think it should be called the Dwight Eisenhower National Monument,” he said.
But what about the oil?
According to the United States Geological Survey, there is a good deal of oil beneath the coastal plains of the ANWR. But there is, in relative terms, very little when compared to world demand. Pump it dry and it would be emptied in less than a year.
Another Republican congressman, Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland, always votes against drilling the ANWR. It makes him unpopular in the caucus room. But the old biology teacher-turned congressman doesn’t object to drilling on environmental grounds. Bartlett told me that he votes against draining it now. He thinks it is smarter to save it for future generations who might need it, and use it more efficiently.
Bartlett doesn’t think it is wise to pump the ANWR dry just to consume it in highly inefficient cars and trucks. Bartlett drives a Prius, which is another thing that drives the caucus a little crazy.
Same argument
Young chided Brinkley by saying that no one ever goes to the ANWR. Brinkley told me, “They used the same argument when considering whether to set aside the Grand Canyon. ‘Nobody ever goes there,’ they said.”
The Grand Canyon is back up for debate, by the same forces who wish to open the ANWR for oil drilling. Congress is considering bills to open up areas near the Grand Canyon for uranium mining. It was being rushed through until someone noticed that the company doing the mining was from Russia, and no one had checked whether there were any safeguards preventing Grand Canyon uranium from going into Iranian nukes.
“Our park lands, our treasured areas are under attack,” Brinkley told me. “We fought hard to protect these wild places and that makes the United States unique. China is destroying its landscape. We have a history of preserving ours.”
Brinkley believes Young and his ilk have another reasons for going into the ANWR, and it has nothing to do with oil. “I think they believe,” he said, “if they can open up the ANWR, molest it piece by piece, they will demoralize the whole environmental movement.”
Brinkley believes, as Young has made clear, there are members of Congress who see people who would protect wild places as the enemy of the country. “The Coastal Plain of the ANWR has an unbelievably rich marine environment,” Brinkley said. “It is where the caribou calve. It is where the polar bear den.”
To Congressman Don Young’s ears, such talk borders on treason.
Brinkley has a ready response. “Congressman Don Young is a low-grade Joseph McCarthy.”
– Don Shelby. Before retiring in 2010, he worked for 32 years as anchor, investigative reporter and environmental correspondent for WCCO-TV. He reported from the scene of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. He has twice won the Pulitzer Prize of broadcasting: The George Foster Peabody. He is a member of the Climate Science Rapid Response Team roundtable.
Known Carcinogen Spreading Through Groundwater in New Jersey, Hundreds at Risk
The same toxic stuff Erin Brokovich discovered in Hinkley is leeching into a New Jersey community. This is exactly why we need good, well-upheld environmental protections.
Iowa Senate Republicans To Bring Up Same-Sex Marriage Repeal In 2012 Session
Iowa’s Republican senate minority leader Jerry Behn insists that Iowans should have the right to vote on gay people’s marriage rights during the legislative session beginning Jan. 9, despite the GOP’s recent loss in a special senate election that failed to change the balance of power in the senate. Behn debated the issue with senate majority leader Mike Gronstal, who reiterated his commitment to keeping the issue off the floor, saying, “people’s rights should not be put to a popular vote“:
GRONSTAL: If I can put, if you can put my rights to a popular vote of the people then I can put your rights to a popular vote of the people and eventually, and eventually — well, we didn’t put slavery to a vote of the people in Iowa, we didn’t put the right to go to a school in your neighborhood to a vote of the people of Iowa, we didn’t put public accommodations law to a vote of the people in Iowa. The Supreme Court said certain inalienable rights — you either — when you say the Pledge of Allegiance, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all, you don’t say for all except for gay people, you don’t say that. [...]
BEHN: It’s about Iowans being allowed to decide.
GRONSTAL: … to a vote of the people. Churches are not required to marry anybody. I just think it’s fundamentally wrong to put to a popular — it’s the whole principle …
GRONSTAL: … to protect people’s individual rights. That is, the Constitution is to protect that.
Watch it:
Iowa Senate rules allow the majority leader to decide the issues debated and voted on in the chamber, where Democrats currently hold a 26-24 majority. The Republican controlled-house, however, has already approved a resolution to put the state Supreme Court’s 2009 ruling in favor of marriage equality to a popular vote and defining marriage between one man and one woman. Gronstal has successfully blocked the issue in the Senate.
What To Do With Those Thanksgiving Leftovers
From Fritattas To Risottos to Leftover Pie, Tasty Ways To Recycle Your Food
Forget Black Friday, Remember Small Business Saturday
Small business is the heartbeat of local communities and the engine of the US economy.
The Week in Pictures: Lt. John Pike Pepper Spraying Memes, Rubber Glove Bridal Gown, and More
Lt. John Pike is now an internet sensation. We also have a bridal gown made of rubber gloves, vans decked out ultra-luxe and more.
Fully Organic Monkee Genes is First Denim Brand Approved by England’s Soil Association
The chic jeans are available in super skinny, 70s flare, babycords, and more.
The Week in Animals News: Octopus Walks on Land, President Obama Pardons Turkeys, and More
An Octopus leaves the water and literally sprints across land. We also have turkeys saved from the ax, a scary look at a factory farmed turkey, and more.
Durban News Round Up: Science, Not Politics, Must Drive Climate Talks
Other stories below: Merkel Demands China, India and Brazil Reduce Emissions; China Says Economic Woes No Excuse for Climate Action
Science not politics must drive Durban climate talks
Global climate talks need to focus on the growing threat from extreme weather and shift away from political squabbles that hobble progress toward a tougher pact to rein in greenhouse gas emissions, the head of the U.N. climate panel said.
Negotiators from nearly 200 countries meet in Durban, South Africa, on Monday for two-week talks, with minimal expectations of major progress toward an agreement that will eventually bind all major economies to emissions caps.
Rajendra Pachauri warned the latest round of talks risked being bogged down by “short-term and narrow political considerations.”
“It is absolutely essential that the negotiators get a continuous and repeated exposure to the science of climate change,” Pachauri told Reuters in an interview late on Tuesday.
“If we were to do that it will definitely have an impact on the quality and outcome of the negotiations, after all these are human beings, they have families, they are people also worried about what is going to happen to the next generations.”
China says economic woes no excuse for climate inaction
Economic problems in Europe and elsewhere should not get in the way of a new pact to fight global warming, China’s top climate official said on Tuesday ahead of major climate talks in South Africa.
“After the financial crisis, every country has had its problems, but these problems are just temporary,” Xie Zhenhua, vice-director of the National Development and Reform Commission, told reporters on Tuesday.
Officials in Beijing have suggested economic turmoil in Europe and political unrest in North Africa have pushed climate change far down the list of global priorities, overshadowing next week’s talks and undermining plans to provide cash and technical support to poor nations to adapt to climate change.
“Climate change isn’t unimportant at this stage, but it isn’t so salient, and I think it will again draw the attention of the global community in 2015 after the (new round of) scientific assessments are carried out,” said Xie.
He was referring to a review of nations’ emissions reduction pledges and a major 2013-14 report by the U.N. climate panel.
Europe may find itself isolated at a meeting of Major Economies Forum in Washington this week with India and United States being on the same page on opposing the legally binding climate treaty. The forum will be discussing the future of the existing climate treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, and the ambit of the proposed new climate treaty under long term cooperative action to fight climate change.
The European Union has sought that the second commitment period of the protocol, starting from 2013, should have legally binding emission reduction targets for all nations, which India and United States have opposed.The EU has proposed that after 2020 there should be a mandatory emission reduction targets for all countries including developing nations such as India and China. Between 2013 and 2020, the countries will have to commit on their voluntary climate change actions without any conditions.
India has declared to reduce its emission intensity by 20-25% of its 2005 levels by 2020 with a condition that rich nations would provide money and transfer clean technology to meet the target. So far, rich nations have been dithering on funding the clean technology transfer mechanism and providing finance to the developed world to fight climate change.
Angela Merkel: China, India, Brazil must cut CO2 emissions
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday large emitters of greenhouse gases among rapidly-growing economies such as China, India and Brazil must agree to cut their emissions.
Merkel said in parliament: “Worldwide CO2 emissions this year were higher than ever. We are in an extremely difficult situation where the Kyoto Protocol expires, we have not got far and an extension of the protocol will unfortunately not happen in Durban.
Negotiators from almost 200 countries meet from November 28 in South Africa for a U.N. climate summit, where only modest steps are expected toward cutting greenhouse gas emissions despite warnings from scientists that extreme weather will likely increase as the planet warms.
The Kyoto Protocol, the U.N. plan obliging some 40 industrialised nations to cut emissions, expires next year. Rich nations are reluctant to target major emission cuts beyond 2012 without commitments from big developing economies to curb theirs. The latter want to see deeper cuts from wealthy nations.
The World Meteorological Organization said on Monday the three main greenhouse gases blamed for global warming reached record levels in 2010.
On COP17 Climate Change Conference, Brazil Keeping The Faith
According to a poll by The Economist taken during last week’s virtual Global Energy Conference, just 15% of respondents think that any substantial deals on climate change will be reached at next week’s COP-17 in Durban, South Africa. Brazil, on the other hand, is keeping the faith.
A signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, Brazil has its own set of national laws that bind the country to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and invest in new, cleaner tech. The country’s ambassador for the UN Climate Change Conference, Luis Alberto Figueiredo Machado, said that the country feels no pressure to reduce carbon emissions to meet international Kyoto agreements. They’re going to meet those goals easily.
He also said that despite the U.S. Congress generally in disagreement on climate change, with politicians out of lock step with most Americans who believe climate change is a problem, Brazil believes that the U.S. will deliver on climate change. Some day.
“We are absolutely convinced that the U.S. government will do what they said in terms of reducing CO2. They are a major party in (climate change) negotiations. We are confident,” he said during a press conference on Monday.
SocGen cuts EU, UN carbon price forecasts
Societe Generale cut its price forecasts for European Union and U.N.-backed carbon permits on Tuesday due to an expected drop in industrial emissions and flagging demand for permits due to prospects of a recession in the euro area next year.
Carbon permits called EU Allowances (EUAs) are traded under the EU’s emissions trading scheme (EU ETS), which caps the emissions of 11,000 carbon-intensive power stations and industrial firms in 30 countries.
The benchmark EUA price slumped to a new 33-month low of 8.88 euros ($11.96) a tonne on Monday as worries mount about the EU’s economic health, shedding nearly 40 percent since the start of the year.
“This should lead to lower European industrial production and should be broadly unsupportive for carbon demand.” The bank said in a research note.
