Climate report urges serious and immediate action

Governments across the globe are being urged to act immediately before climate change wipes out species, increases hunger and leads to water shortages and floods.

The dire warnings are included in a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

In reaction to the IPCC report, experts in Canada are appealing to citizens to make small changes in their own lives and to pressure representatives to take action.

"Canadians are now worried that this is a serious problem that requires serious solutions," Jose Etcheverry, climate change analyst with the David Suzuki Foundation, told CTV Newsnet.

"The consequences directly depend on the action or the lack of action that we take. If we continue to be asleep at the button, the consequences will be much more serious."

more here:-Emissions Already Affecting Climate, Report Says New York Times
Climate Report: Poor Will Suffer Most Forbes
All Headline News - Los Angeles Times - Pakistan Dawn - Insurance Journal

Global warming should be national effort

The Supreme Court decision Monday, its first on global warming, should be a wake-up call to everyone that it's time to take this issue out of the political arena and make it a national effort similar to the space program of the 1960s.
The court had three questions before it:
ä Do states have the right to sue the Environmental Protection Agency to challenge its decision not to regulate tailpipe emissions from cars?
ä Does the Clean Air Act give the EPA the authority to regulate tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases?
ä Does the EPA have the discretion not to regulate those emissions?
The court said yes to the first two questions. On the third, it ordered EPA to re-evaluate its contention it has the discretion not to regulate tailpipe emissions.
Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the majority opinion. He stressed the U.S. contribution to climate change and the potentially calamitous consequences. "EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change," Stevens wrote.

Same story at these channels aswell:- MarketWatch - Telegraph.co.uk - Twice (subscription)

Bush loses power over greenhouse gas emissions

from The Independant

The Bush administration has suffered a major blow over its refusal to limit the emission of greenhouse gases after the Supreme Court ruled that a government agency had the power to enforce regulations on cars and lorries.

In its first-ever ruling on a case involving global warming, the court decided that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a White House department, was authorised to enforce limits on the amount of carbon dioxide produced by vehicles. It said the EPA had offered "no reasoned explanation" for its refusal to regulate such emissions and Justice John Paul Stevens said the EPA's claim that it lacked the authority was "arbitrary, capricious or otherwise not in accordance with law".

Under President George Bush, the White House has long refused to enforce binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions, claiming such a move would damage the economy. It has argued the way forward for the US - responsible for 25 per cent of global emissions and 37 per cent of the world's vehicles - is to engage in voluntary reduction through the use of more efficient technology.

Also on THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE.

High Court Rebukes Bush On Car Pollution

Apr. 2 - KGO - The U.S. Supreme Court rules in its first ever case on climate change, and it's a victory for California and other states that have tougher clean air regulations than those recommended by the government. The highest court in the land basically ruled, in a 5 to 4 decision, that the Bush administration needs to do more to curb emissions from new cars and trucks in order to slow global warming. The ruling has profound implications here in California.

The Bush administration argued the Environmental Protection Agency did not have the authority to regulate the greenhouse gases emitted from motor vehicles. The Supreme Court disagreed.

Dan Kammen, Ph.D., UCB Energy & Resources Group: "It's a big victory for the environment and for California."

The high court ruled the EPA has authority under the Clean Air Act.

Dan Kammen, Ph.D.: "It authorizes the EPA to really do what everyone thought it could do all along, and that was to develop the rules, the timetables, the requirements to regulate greenhouse gases, and carbon dioxide in particular."

The White House said it would now reconsider its policy.

for more :-
Blow for White House over emissions MSNBC
Supreme Court: EPA can regulate vehicle emissions USA Today
Christian Science Monitor - Los Angeles Times - New York Times - MarketWatch

Earth Hour takes a light load off road down under.

From The Australian News

• April 02, 2007

MORE than 2000 businesses in Sydney's CBD switched off their lights for Earth Hour on Saturday night - and saved the equivalent in CO2 of taking six family cars off the road for a year.

The great switch-off, organised by WWF to encourage energy efficiency, saw Sydney not so much plunge into darkness as slip into a slightly dimmer state: lights on the arch (but not the base) of the Harbour Bridge went out, as did lights on the roof of the Opera House.

The logos on most buildings went out; the security and street lighting did not.

Energy Australia said there was a 10.2 per cent cut in power use in Sydney's CBD during Earth Hour, with 24 tonnes of CO2 saved. By comparison, the average car produces six tonnes of CO2 a year; a return flight to London produces 11 tonnes of CO2.

WWF spokesman Andy Ridley said: "It looked fantastic and, to be honest, we were amazed by the high level of participation."

Mr Ridley said he knew the "great plunge" would not happen because "so many buildings switched the lights off on the Friday and, of course, the street lights were still on because of public safety."

The event started at 7.30pm on Saturday. In parks along the harbour, people sat waiting on picnic blankets for the big black-out, but not everybody was certain it had happened. So many lights were left on, children were chanting: "Turn them off." They were off - all of them except for safety lights, street lights, and the lights in buildings and apartments.

The lights on the arch of the Harbour Bridge went off, but the impact on the environment was probably offset by the hundreds of cars that crammed on to the road for the event.

Sydneysiders were encouraged to switch off lights at home, too, and to explore their back yards by torchlight; camp out in tents; have fun with sparklers; and sit with binoculars and look at the night sky.

But Sydney Observatory manager Geoff Wyatt wondered why the organisers planned the event for a night when the moon was 95per cent full.

"You couldn't really have picked a worse night, in terms of light from the moon, but they planned it without consulting us," he said.

"Because of the moonlight, the sky was no different."

But the CBD looked "bizarre. It was very odd to see silhouettes of buildings. It looked stunning. Actually, we had a journalist from Germany here who said it looked like Russia (before capitalism)."

Mr Wyatt said observatory staff were not "light Nazis. We all love to go to Tokyo and we love to be bathed in the power but we would like to encourage sensible lighting."

Energy Australia spokesman Anthony O'Brien said energy use dropped from an expected 228,180kwh to 204,900kwh.

Poor Nations to Bear Brunt as World Warms

The world’s richest countries, which have contributed by far the most to the atmospheric changes linked to global warming, are already spending billions of dollars to limit their own risks from its worst consequences, like drought and rising seas.

But despite longstanding treaty commitments to help poor countries deal with warming, these industrial powers are spending just tens of millions of dollars on ways to limit climate and coastal hazards in the world’s most vulnerable regions — most of them close to the equator and overwhelmingly poor.

Next Friday, a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that since 1990 has been assessing global warming, will underline this growing climate divide, according to scientists involved in writing it — with wealthy nations far from the equator not only experiencing fewer effects but also better able to withstand them.

Two-thirds of the atmospheric buildup of carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping greenhouse gas that can persist in the air for centuries, has come in nearly equal proportions from the United States and Western European countries. Those and other wealthy nations are investing in windmill-powered plants that turn seawater to drinking water, in flood barriers and floatable homes, and in grains and soybeans genetically altered to flourish even in a drought.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/science/earth/01climate.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin