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German Scientists Call for 'World Climate Bank'
Spiegel
German climatologists are pushing for the creation of a "world climate bank" which would allow industrialized countries to purchase emission rights from less-developed nations. The revenues would enable poor countries to finance environmentally friendly economic development.

A new study by advisers to the German government has revealed that industrialized nations must radically reduce their CO2 emissions if they want to reach the internationally agreed target of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. The climatologists are proposing setting up a "world climate bank" to allow countries to trade emission rights.

According to the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), Germany would have to halve its CO2 output compared to current levels by 2020 and cut emissions to zero by 2030 if it wants to remain on track. "These findings are as surprising as they are shocking," WBGU executive Hans Joachim Schellnhuber said about the report, prepared ahead of December's international climate summit in Copenhagen. The German government has up until now been planning much less ambitious cuts...
(31 August 2009)

Let's Just Rejigger the Globe To Cool It Off
Emily Badger, Miller-McCune
In July the American Meteorological Society stepped gingerly into the far outer reaches of the climate debate, a place where a reluctant but growing number of scientists, and even more science fiction fans, have been talking about geoengineering.

The controversial idea suggests that if we can't curb our greenhouse gas emissions in time to avert cataclysmic climate change, maybe we should contemplate changing the Earth system itself — fertilizing the oceans with iron to stimulate plankton that would sequester carbon dioxide or spraying the stratosphere with dust particles that would deflect sunlight back into space.

Geoengineering poses not just technical and scientific problems, but also any number of ethical ones, not the least of which is a simple question of hubris. We know we can change the climate, because that is inadvertently what man has been doing since the dawn of the industrial revolution. But if that interference has so far been problematic, what makes us think we can now start interfering benevolently? And what right do we have to make that decision for every other species on earth?

Into this debate, the AMS released a policy statement that broached geoengineering without actually endorsing it. Climate policy has until now focused on mitigation (reducing our emissions) and adaptation (preparing for the changes it's too late to stop). Geoengineering, the AMS says, could come with frightful consequences. But it could also offer a solution of last resort if — and only after — mitigation and adaptation prove to be not enough...
(1 Sept 2009)
(related: Extreme and risky action the only way to tackle global warming, say scientists and Man-made eruptions – 'Plan B' in the battle for the planet

Global warming, California, and wildfires
Joseph Romm, Grist
The scientific literature paints a hellish future if we don’t quickly reverse greenhouse gas emissions trends (see “Climate change expected to sharply increase Western wildfire burn area — as much as 175% by the 2050s”). Even the watered down, consensus-based 2007 IPCC report acknowledged the danger:

A warming climate encourages wildfires through a longer summer period that dries fuels, promoting easier ignition and faster spread. Westerling et al. (2006 — see here) found that, in the last three decades, the wildfire season in the western U.S. has increased by 78 days, and burn durations of fires >1000 ha have increased from 7.5 to 37.1 days, in response to a spring-summer warming of 0.87°C. Earlier spring snowmelt has led to longer growing seasons and drought, especially at higher elevations, where the increase in wildfire activity has been greatest. In the south-western U.S., fire activity is correlated with ENSO positive phases, and higher Palmer Drought Severity Indices….

Insects and diseases are a natural part of ecosystems. In forests, periodic insect epidemics kill trees over large regions, providing dead, desiccated fuels for large wildfires. These epidemics are related to aspects of insect life cycles that are climate sensitive.

Now brutal heat and drought are fueling massive California wildfires once again (see, for instance, the BBC piece “Heat fuelling California wildfire”). We can’t expect much from the status quo media (see “CNN, ABC, WashPost, and AP blow Australian wildfire, drought, heat-wave story”). So here is CAP’s Tom Kenworthy explaining ”What a 1-Degree Temperature Increase Means for Wildfires”—and I’ll end with some comments on this positive or amplifying carbon-cycle feedback:...
(1 Sept 2009)

Prescott: cutting emissions by 80% will not be enough
Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor, The Independent
Europe's climate targets of cutting carbon emissions by 30 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050 may not be tough enough to get developing countries into a worldwide global warming deal, John Prescott has warned.

In an interview with The Independent, the former Deputy Prime Minister, who brokered the current climate treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, said a 90 per cent cut might be needed in order to secure an agreement at December's UN climate conference in Copenhagen.

Countries such as India are likely to ask rich Western countries to cut back on atmospheric CO2 still further so that developing countries can continue to expand their economies and pull more of their people out of poverty, said Mr Prescott, who has taken on an influential new role as the rapporteur on climate change for the Council of Europe...
(3 Sept 2009)