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Worries about global warming are growing: survey
Reuters
Worries about global warming have increased around the world this year and many people want more government action to slow climate change, a survey showed on Tuesday.

Sixteen percent of more than 26,000 Internet users in 47 nations surveyed in March said climate change was a "major concern" against just 7 percent in a survey in October, according to the report by the Nielsen Company and Oxford University.
(5 June 2007)

China unveils climate change plan
Jonathan Watts, Guardian
China vowed to "blaze a new path to industrialisation" today as it unveiled its first national plan on climate change.

But in a blow to efforts to tackle global warming, the world's second biggest producer of greenhouse gases refused to accept binding targets for emissions, saying wealthy developed nations must take the bulk of the responsibility for the problem.

The announcement of the 62-page action plan appeared aimed at deflecting criticism ahead of the G8 plus six summit in Germany this week and a series of key international meetings on the environment.

China said the programme, initially scheduled for release in April this year, would increase efficiency, make greater use of renewable energy and increase forest cover.

The government also pledged more research into energy-saving technology, improvements in water resource management, and public education campaigns to raise awareness of the issue.

On the contentious issue of greenhouse gas emissions, the plan promised "significant achievements" but made no commitment to a quantifiable goal.
(4 June 2007)

China's climate plan: the main points
Mark Oliver, Guardian
China unveiled its first national climate change plan today.

The 62-page document, published by China's National Development and Reform Commission, can be read in English in pdf form here.

The main points in the plan, as summarised by officials at the launch, are as follows:

· China promises to make "significant achievements in controlling greenhouse gas emissions", which are a "major global issue".

· The country will not impose carbon dioxide emission caps, which would hurt a developing nation trying to eradicate poverty.

· Wealthy powers produce most greenhouse gases following 200 years of industrialisation so should fund clean development rather than forcing poor countries to accept emission limits. Rich nations have shifted manufacturing to poor nations then blamed them for rising pollution.

· China subscribes to the UN framework convention on climate change, which says that nations have "common but differentiated responsibilities" to address global warming. China will also fulfil its commitments under the Kyoto protocol.

· With its "scientific approach" to sustainable economic development, China will take the R&D of renewable energies to a "new level". Currently, China is around 10% less energy efficient that developed countries, which must do more to share knowledge of clean technologies.

· China will introduce new efficiency legislation and preferential policies for energy saving products. It will consider changes in tax policies - for instance, to boost use of environmentally friendly vehicles - and phase out the production of energy-intensive cars.
(4 June 2007)

U.S. cuts back climate checks from space
John Heilprin, Associated Press
The Bush administration is drastically scaling back efforts to measure global warming from space, just as the president tries to convince the world the U.S. is ready to take the lead in reducing greenhouse gases.

A confidential report to the White House, obtained by The Associated Press, warns that U.S. scientists will soon lose much of their ability to monitor warming from space using a costly and problem-plagued satellite initiative begun more than a decade ago.

Because of technology glitches and a near-doubling in the original $6.5 billion cost, the Defense Department has decided to downsize and launch four satellites paired into two orbits, instead of six satellites and three orbits.

The satellites were intended to gather weather and climate data, replacing existing satellites as they come to the end of their useful lifetimes beginning in the next couple of years.

The reduced system of four satellites will now focus on weather forecasting. Most of the climate instruments needed to collect more precise data over long periods are being eliminated.

Instead, the Pentagon and two partners - the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA - will rely on European satellites for most of the climate data.
(4 June 2007)

Strange Bedfellows in Climate Politics
Charles Komanoff, Freezerbox
Did lefty pundit Alexander Cockburn and corporate behemoth General Motors secretly agree to swap climate positions?

It looks that way. GM, swallowing hard, recently joined the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, the elite enviro-business coalition pushing cap-and-trade -- a so-called "market-based system" -- for controlling carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile, the famously acidic Cockburn lacerated global warming orthodoxy in his column in The Nation magazine, deriding it as a "fearmongers' catechism [of] crackpot theories" ginned up by "grant-guzzling climate careerists" and opportunistic politicians looking to ride the greenhouse "threatosphere" all the way to the White House. (Whew!)

But there's less here than meets the eye. For as the inconvenient details of cap-and-trade schemes start to surface, USCAP is looking less and less like a CO2 control lobby and more like a corporate club seeking to cash in on the rising clamor against free carbon spewing. And Cockburn, it turns out, has been raining on the climate crisis parade for years.
(24 May 2007)
If you have missed the Cockburn-greenhouse controversy that has roiled the U.S. liberal-left, you have not missed much. -BA

EU moving further on climate change
Stephen Castle and James Kanter, International Herald-Tribune
Europe is moving toward far reaching changes to its emissions-trading system that could force large-scale polluters to pay for most, or even all, permits to produce climate-changing gases, European officials said Monday.

Although the European carbon-trading arrangement is the world's most functional, the countries that administer it acknowledged in a meeting this weekend in Essen, Germany, that the system was shadowed by some major flaws, including a government-credit allocation plan that allows companies to profit by lobbying for additional pollution permits.
(4 June 2007)