Monthly Archives: June 2008

Norwegians fume as new ‘climate tax’ on fuel takes effect

By | Published: June 30, 2008
Agence France-Presse: Norway, which already has some of the highest fuel prices in the world, on Tuesday introduced a new tax on petrol and diesel aimed at curbing climate change. Although the new charge was no more than 0.05 kroner (0.6 euro cents, 1.0 dollar cent) per litre of petrol and 0.10 kroner per [...]
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Australia: Queensland resources lobby: Open up uranium, nuclear industries

By | Published: June 30, 2008
Australian: THE Queensland Resources Council argued today that lifting a ban on uranium mining could expand the state’s economy and through its use in nuclear power generation help to avoid huge greenhouse gas emissions. Michael Roche, chief executive of the council, said lifting the ban would underwrite a multibillion dollar investment and jobs expansion [...]
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Stubborn Fire Threatens California’s Scenic Coast

By | Published: June 30, 2008
window.document.getElementById(‘post-7932′).parentNode.className += ‘ adhesive_post’;Reuters: California firefighters struggled to gain the upper hand on Sunday against a nine-day-old wildfire that is threatening the scenic Big Sur area along the state’s rugged central coast. The Big Sur fire has burned about 32,500 acres (13,150 hectares) and destroyed 16 homes since it was sparked by [...]
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Georgia order seen hurting U.S. coal investment

By | Published: June 30, 2008
Reuters: Developers of coal-fired power plants in the U.S. will face yet more obstacles since a Georgia court overturned an air permit for a new coal plant, saying the plant needed to limit emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas blamed for global warming. Environmental groups predicted Monday’s ruling would discourage investment in coal [...]
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Midwest floods show impact of global warming

By | Published: June 30, 2008
Reuters: Floods like those that inundated the U.S. Midwest are supposed to occur once every 500 years but this is the second since 1993, suggesting flawed forecasts that do not take global warming into account, conservation experts said on Tuesday. "Although no single weather event can be attributed to global warming, it’s critical to [...]
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Climate change changing fish communities

By | Published: June 30, 2008
United Press International: An analysis of 50 years of data from weekly U.S. fish trawling surveys in and near Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay show climate change is affecting the fish. The University of Rhode Island study shows there is an ongoing significant shift in composition of coastal fish communities — invertebrates and warm-water species [...]
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United States: Global Warming Threatens Everglades, 6 Million Residents

By | Published: June 30, 2008
National Public Radio: Environmentalists have been issuing dire warnings about the deterioration of the Florida Everglades for years, saying these wetlands have to be restored in order to revive fragile ecosystems and increase scarce fresh water supplies. Over half of the Everglades are gone, irreversibly converted to urban or agricultural development. But this week, [...]
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UN agency hails green energy ‘gold rush’

By | Published: June 30, 2008
Agence France Presse: The world is enjoying a "green energy gold rush", the UN’s environmental agency said Tuesday as it published a report outlining a 60 percent hike in investment in renewable energy in 2007. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) study, published in Nairobi, said more than 148 billion dollars (93 billion euros) of [...]
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UN’s Ban presses China on climate change

By | Published: June 30, 2008
Agence France-Presse: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told China on Tuesday to accept its global responsibilities on climate change, as he began a three-day visit to the world’s most populous nation. "It is important that we have China on board for this common effort to address climate change," Ban told reporters just before leaving [...]
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World Bank approves climate funds before G8 summit

By | Published: June 30, 2008
Reuters: The World Bank on Tuesday agreed to establish two investment funds to help developing economies switch to clean energy technologies to curb carbon emissions and assist poor countries adapt to climate change. The approval of the Clean Technology Fund and Strategic Climate Fund comes days before a summit of Group of Eight leaders [...]
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G8 alone can’t set world climate goal -White House

By | Published: June 30, 2008
Reuters: The Group of Eight major industrialized countries meeting next week in Japan cannot by themselves set effective long-term world goals on curbing greenhouse gas emissions, the White House said on Tuesday. "With evidence mounting of rapidly rising emissions from emerging markets, action by the G8 alone would not be effective," said Dan Price, [...]
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Gas up: Carbon tax tomorrow

By | Published: June 30, 2008
Metro Canada: The already high price of gas – nearly $1.50 yesterday – will rise 2.4 cents a litre tomorrow when North America’s first carbon tax comes into effect. The controversial tax aims to shift consumer behaviour toward lifestyles and activities that don’t pollute. And while environmental groups have called it a powerful [...]
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Japanese government considers carbon trade

By | Published: June 30, 2008
United Press International: The Japanese government said it will pilot an emissions trading system. As part of its efforts to tackle global warming, the government has said it plans to pilot an emissions trading system in the fall based on energy efficiency, The Yomiuri Shimbun reported. Under the system, individual companies will try [...]
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Fiji: Sustainable development recipe

By | Published: June 30, 2008
Fiji Times: For the uninitiated – it all started in 1992 when 172 countries met in Rio de Janeiro at the Earth Summit and created the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This entity was tasked to look critically at climate change issues and start global negotiations to reduce the anthropogenic greenhouse [...]
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UN chief urges rich nations to lead on Africa, climate

By | Published: June 30, 2008
window.document.getElementById(‘post-7932′).parentNode.className += ‘ adhesive_post’;Agence France-Presse: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appealed Tuesday to rich nations not to backtrack on assistance to Africa and action against climate change at next week’s Group of Eight summit. Leaks of the draft statement for the July 7-9 summit in Japan suggest that rich nations will water down commitments [...]
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