Facts About Climate Change

Turkey's Mount Ararat glaciers shrink: scientist

2010-09-08T09:32:08Z

The glaciers atop Mount Ararat, the peak in eastern Turkey where Noah's Ark is believed by devotees to have settled after the biblical flood, have shrunk by 30 percent in surface area over the last 30 years, a researcher said Wednesday. "We used satellite images to analyse the response of glaciers at the summit of Mount Ararat to climate change," geologist Mehmet Akif Sarikaya told AFP. "The glacier surface area decreased from eight square kilo...

New top climate change negotiator appointed

2010-09-07T19:20:07Z

The government Tuesday announced the appointment of a new chief negotiator and ambassador for climate change whose mandate will be to try implement agreements made at the talks in Copenhagen. "Our government is committed to working constructively to implement the Copenhagen Accord and to complete the negotiat...

Climate: New study slashes estimate of icecap loss

2010-09-07T09:20:56Z

Estimates of the rate of ice loss from Greenland and West Antarctica, one of the most worrying questions in the global warming debate, should be halved, according to Dutch and US scientists. In the last two years, several teams have estimated Greenland is shedding roughly 230 gigatonnes of ice, or 230 billion tonnes, per year and West Antarctica aro...

Instant View: Australian PM Gillard retains power

2010-09-06T23:20:21Z

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard clung onto power on Tuesday, securing support from independent lawmakers to form a minority government after her Labor Party lost its majority at elections last month. Labor now has a one-seat majority in the 150-seat parliament after winning the support of three of the independents and one...

Indonesia could cut CO2 by 70 pct by 2030: report

2010-09-06T08:10:11Z

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia could cut its projected greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent by 2030 at a relatively low cost, but would still need help from developed countries, a government report said on Monday. Indonesia's greenhouse gas emissions are forecast to increase by about 60 percent to 3.3 ...

Sceptical green urges smart billions to fight warming

2010-09-05T15:20:36Z

Bjoern Lomborg, the bad boy of the climate debate who has rejected for years "alarmist" prophecies from environmentalists, stresses in a new book the need to invest billions to fight global warming. In "Smart Solutions to Climate Change," Lomborg lashes out at current policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions but also highlights the need to spend 100 billion dollars a year on intelligent research and green technologie...

Bangladesh dams to reclaim 600 square kms of land

2010-09-05T02:20:13Z

Bangladesh plans to build a series of dams to reclaim 600 square kilometres (230 square miles) of land from the sea over the next five years, officials said Sunday. The government has approved the ambitious project under which dams would be built in the Meghna estuary to connect islands and help deposit hundreds of millions of tonnes of sediment, project chief Hafizur Rahman said. "The project would cost only 1.20 billion t...

Koch brothers give $1M to back Proposition 23

2010-09-04T11:40:21Z

Subsidiary of Koch Industries donates $1M to suspend California's global warming law

Oil billionaires David and Charles Koch have jumped on board an effort to suspend California's global warming law by making a million-dollar contribution this week. A subsidiary of Asia which climate change is beginning to open up at last as polar ice recedes. On Saturday the first non-Russian vessel to make an intercontinental commercial voyage through the Arctic Northeast passage will set sail from Norway for China. The route is thousands of kilome...

Greater clarity on climate finance at 46-nation forum

2010-09-03T13:41:15Z

Forty-six countries gained a clearer view on Friday of what it may take to secure a deal worth hundreds of billions of dollars in climate aid, an issue that threatens hopes for a treaty on global warming. A two-day informal meeting of the biggest players in the world climate haggle indicated growing support for a "Green Fund" to help dispense up to 100 billion dollars annually by 2020, said several of those attending. Britain, Denmark, France, Australia. Alain Robert, 48, who clambered bare-handed up a 56-storey central Sydney apartment block to raise awareness about cl...

EPA to issue more rules in climate fight

2010-09-02T13:10:16Z

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Environmental Protection Agency will roll out more regulations on greenhouse gases and other pollution to help fight climate change, but they will not be as strong as action by Congress, a senior administration official said. The agency "has a huge role to...

Disasters show 'screaming' need for action - climate chief

2010-09-02T11:20:59Z

UN climate chief Christiana Figueres on Thursday warned that a string of weather calamities showed the deepening urgency to forge a breakthrough deal on global warming this year. Speaking before some 40 countries were to address finance, an issue that has helped hamstring UN climate talks, Figueres said floods in Pakistan, fires in

Disasters 'scream' call for climate action: UN

2010-09-02T08:20:42Z

Nations meet on climate cash, U.N. sees long haul

2010-09-02T07:47:56Z

GENEVA (Reuters) - About 45 nations met on Thursday to seek ways to raise billions of dollars in aid to help the poor combat climate change as the United Nations warned them of a long haul to slow global warming. Environment ministers and senior officials in Geneva we...

UN: Climate funds shouldn't divert poverty aid

2010-09-02T04:20:53Z

UN climate chief: Poor countries right to expect 'green aid' be on top of poverty relief

The U.N.'s climate chief says poor countries are right to expect that any funding they receive to combat global warming be kept separate from development aid or poverty relief. Christiana Figueres says developing countries taking part in two days of talks on climate change financing this week expect the $...

Financing said vital for world climate change deal

2010-09-01T07:30:04Z

GENEVA (Reuters) - A global fund to help poorer countries switch to green industrial technology is vital in any new international pact to battle global warming, Switzerland's top climate change negotiator said on Wednesday. The official, Franz Perrez, was speaking at a news conference on the eve of a two-day gathering ...

India backs embattled IPCC chief Pachauri

2010-09-01T01:16:03Z

India's government said it remained fully supportive of IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri after a damning UN-ordered review called for changes to the Nobel Prize-winning climate change body's leadership. "Pachauri has the full support of the government," Environment Minister Australia's only Greens MP Wednesday declared his support for Prime Minister Julia Gillard as tortuous negotiations to form a minority government inched forward. Greens leader Senator Bob Brown said MP Adam Bandt would back Gillard's Labor party in parliament after she offered to s...

U.N. to study impact of incomplete climate action

2010-08-31T12:30:19Z

OSLO (Reuters) - The U.N. panel of climate scientists will look at the costs of "second best" ways of fighting global warming amid doubts that all countries will sign up to U.N.-led action, a leading expert said on Tuesday. Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of the U.N. working group looking at...

Tiny Antarctic creatures hint at sea level rise

2010-08-31T07:00:17Z

OSLO (Reuters) - Tiny marine creatures found on the seabed on opposite sides of the vast West Antarctic ice sheet give a strong hint of the risks of sea level rise caused by climate change, scientists said Tuesday. The discovery of very similar colonies of bryozoans, animals t...

Rajendra Pachauri: IPCC chief in the spotlight

2010-08-31T00:15:53Z

Rajendra Pachauri, under harsh scrutiny as head of the UN's top advisory body on climate change, is a 69-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner with a sideline in writing steamy novels. The Indian said late Monday that member nations of the ...

UN climate panel ordered to make fundamental reforms

2010-08-30T14:15:51Z

An international review panel on Monday called on the UN global climate change body to carry out fundamental reforms after embarrassing errors in a landmark report dented its credibility. The Nobel Peace Prize-winning UN-ordered review said Monday that the global panel on climate change needed to "fundamentally reform" how it operates after embarrassing errors in a landmark report dented its credibility. The five-month probe recommended an overhaul of the position of Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the

U.S. to propose labeling greenhouse gases from cars

2010-08-30T09:15:13Z

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will propose on Monday new labels for passenger vehicles detailing for the first time their greenhouse gas emissions, while also changing measurements of fuel economy. The labeling proposed by the Examination of Nobel-winning climate panel finds it successful but needs better organization

An international panel of scientists says the acclaimed committee studying global warming needs stronger leadership and fundamental changes. Representatives of the world's science academies have released their report on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate ...

U.N. climate panel urged to reform, stick to science

2010-08-30T07:30:16Z

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. climate panel should only make predictions when it has solid scientific evidence and avoid straying into policy advocacy, a group of national science academies said in a report on Monday. The U.N. Inte...

UN climate panel needs to 'fundamentally reform'

2010-08-30T07:15:43Z

The UN's climate panel needs to "fundamentally reform" its structure to prevent the kind of embarrassing errors found in a landmark 2007 study on global warming, a review said Monday. A UN-requested probe of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that the Nobel Prize-winning body was ...

'Spiderman' arrested after scaling Sydney skyscraper

2010-08-30T00:15:35Z

A French climber known as "Spiderman" was arrested on the roof of a 57-storey Sydney skyscraper on Monday after scaling the building without ropes or a harness to raise climate change awareness. Alain Robert scaled the 150-metre (492-foot), twin-tower Lumiere apartment building in central Sydney in about 25 minutes, as dozens of curious onlookers packed...

Mongolian Cabinet holds meeting in Gobi desert

2010-08-29T18:00:07Z

Mongolian Cabinet holds meeting in Gobi desert to draw attention to climate change

Top Mongolian officials donned dark green baseball caps reading "Save our planet" and set up chairs and tables in the sands of the Gobi desert for a Cabinet meeting aimed at drawing attention to climate change. The meeting of 12 government ministers was held in scorching heat Friday in Gashuunii Khooloi, a sandy valley in South G...

Climate aid reaches $30 bln goal, but is it new?

2010-08-26T08:00:28Z

OSLO (Reuters) - Aid promises from rich nations to help poor countries slow global warming are reaching the $30 billion goal agreed in Copenhagen but analysts say much of that is old funding dressed up as new pledges. Officially, the promises total $29.8 billion, Reuters calculations show, apparently meeting a pledge of "new and add...

Australia's capital sets 40 percent carbon cut law

2010-08-25T23:15:26Z

CANBERRA (Reuters) - The government of an Australian territory said on Thursday it will enact tough carbon cutting laws, a step that comes after a national election that punished the ruling Labor party over lack of action on climate change. The Australian Capital Territory, which includes ...

Biomass: A boom for microturbines

2010-08-23T19:15:15Z

CPST offers the only pure play

As energy costs and climate change are becoming greater concerns for many governments around the world, many are mandating wide shifts in how energy is produced. One such mandate is an increase in the use of biomass (wood scrap) to generate electricity and heat. To continue reading please click here 81996001&bid=informcom" />

German scientist hands Putin frosty climate rebuke

2010-08-23T10:15:48Z

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin queried Monday whether man was to blame for climate change on a visit to the remote Russian Arctic, only to find himself bluntly contradicted by a German scientist. Putin, known for his tough-guy visits to his country's most far-flung areas, went by helicopter to a Russian-German research station on an island at the mouth of the Lena River in the F...

Putin ponders climate change in Arctic Russia

2010-08-23T09:15:54Z

SAMOILOVSKY ISLAND, Russia (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin traveled beyond the Arctic Circle on Monday to look into evidence for climate change after a record heatwave ravaged central Russia this summer. Putin, who has in the past displayed a lig...

Climate Change-Shared Vision-Analysis

2010-08-08T04:00:14Z

FILE - In this Monday Dec. 14, 2009 file photo protestors run with a balloon representing the volume of one metric ton of carbon dioxide during a demonstration outside parliament, rear, in Copenhagen during the U.N. climate change conference. The new climate change treaty under negotiation for the last 2 1/2 years begins with a brief document called "A Shared Vision." The problem is, t...

Britain Climate Change

2010-07-08T12:16:16Z

Chairman of the review group, Sir Muir Russell, second left, talks to the media on their findings at the Royal Institution in London, Tuesday July 7, 2010, during the release of their report into the University of East Anglia e-mail...

APTOPIX Britain Climate Change

2010-07-07T06:45:36Z

Chairman of the review group, Sir Muir Russell talks to the media on their findings at the Royal Institution in London, Tuesday July 7, 2010, during the release of their report into the University of East Anglia e-mails on climate c...

Climate Panel

2010-06-23T11:46:12Z

FILE - In this Saturday, Oct. 24, 2009 file photo a man walks on Glacier Chacaltaya in the Andes mountains in Bolivia. The U.N. science body on climate change, accused of ignoring its critics and allowing glaring errors to creep into its work, announced Wednesday June 23, 2010, that a broader range of experts will write its next...

Climate

2010-06-12T08:25:45Z

FILE - In this Dec. 3, 2009, file photo smoke billows from a chimney of the cooling towers of a coal-fired power plant in Dadong, Shanxi province, China. Two weeks of United Nations climate talks in Bonn came up with a sketchy new draft for a deal to halt global warming, but some nations immedia...