Today marks the opening of the Cancun talks on Climate Change. They are a follow-up to last year’s Copenhagen discussion which, as everyone knows, did not yield the expected global agreement to effectively reduce greenhouse gases. A review of media coverage leading up to the Cancun event downplays expectations for any significant breakthroughs during this round. And if nothing substantive comes out of this week-long meeting, it will mark another nail in the coffin of the UN’s attempt to establish a globally binding agreement à la Kyoto Protocol. The outlook is not improved by the outcome of the US mid-term Continue reading
Climate Change
Are plants, trees, and forests the new oil fields?
Concern about a land grab in Africa for the production of industrial-scale, ethanol-producing crops may well be justified, which is why bird-dogging the “African agricultural green-rush” is everyone’s responsibility.
U.N. and World Bank Report Says Act Now or Pay Much More Later for Climate Disasters
By NATHANIAL GRONEWOLD of ClimateWire Published: November 11, 2010 UNITED NATIONS — Annual monetary losses for natural disasters are expected to rise to $185 billion worldwide by the end of the century, even without factoring in the anticipated negative impacts of climate change, a new joint U.N. and World Bank study concludes. With climate change included, the global annual losses could increase by anywhere from $28 billion to $68 billion. But governments can drastically reduce these losses and rising mortality rates by implementing preventive systems and infrastructure changes that are much cheaper and simpler than the post-disaster cleanup that has Continue reading
IPCC to feature role of Black Carbon in next report
Speaking Tuesday at a briefing on Capitol Hill, EPA officials said that “black carbon” (BC), an important factor in global warming and major by-product of solid biomass fuel and dirty diesel emissions, would figure prominently in a International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report due out next year. BC emissions can also seriously affect the health of residents in households that depend on burning wood, charcoal, animal dung, and agricultural residues for home cooking and heating. Another scientific paper due out early next year is likely to cast much needed light on the role of BC on global warming. The Continue reading
Video: A powerful look at the impact of CC on E. Africa’s pastoral communities
A simple yet poignant story about what lies ahead for some of the world’s most vulnerable people. At The Charcoal Project we don’t normally go for content that strays too far from our editorial mission. However, we decided that Evan Abramson’s short documentary film on the impact of Climate Change on the nomadic tribes that inhabit the border of Kenya and Ethiopia was just too powerful not to share. The impact of water scarcity on some of Africa’s poorest but proud people is a reminder of the challenges that lie ahead for Africa and those least responsible for Climate Change. Continue reading