Dire climate warning linked to China and India (Climate Change, Solar Power)

Dire climate warning linked to China and India

By Elisabeth Rosenthal

ROME: The average global temperature will rise to a devastating level by 2030 if China and India do not begin curbing energy use and carbon emissions immediately, officials of the International Energy Agency predicted Wednesday.

Speaking at the World Energy Congress, the officials noted that 60 percent of the global increase in emissions from 2005 to 2030 would come from India and China. By next year, China will overtake the United States as the leader in carbon emissions, the agency predicts; some studies suggest that this has already occurred.

Citing a World Energy Outlook from the agency last week, the officials said that if current development trends continued unchanged, total carbon emissions would rise by 57 percent by 2030, leading to a global temperature increase of 6 degrees Celsius, or 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit, by 2030.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations entity that presents its final report in Valencia, Spain, on Saturday, has estimated that global emissions would cause a warming of 1.8 to 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. Many scientists say 2 degrees is the threshold beyond which there would be significant social and economic disruption.

The agency officials said that by 2015, China, the United States and India would be ranked 1, 2 and 3 respectively in global emissions, accounting for more than half of the world's total, the officials said. "So without moving these three countries, we should expect no realistic results in reducing emissions," said Fatih Birol, chief economist of the agency and the report's chief author.

Such pronouncements by the agency in the past week have put new pressure on China and India, as well as the United States, to participate for the first time in global environmental treaties, like the Kyoto Protocol, that specify emissions limits. That treaty expires in 2012 and world leaders will meet in Bali, Indonesia, next month to develop a follow-up program.

China and India have resisted inclusion in global climate-change pacts, saying that emissions limits would be a severe handicap for their economies and efforts to improve the lives of citizens. The United States has refused to participate in plans that involve emissions caps, especially if developing countries are not included. Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, noted that emerging economies deserved help in environmental improvement, which is often costly. "It is a question of sharing the burden and how to do it. That is at the heart of the negotiations," he said by telephone.

Indeed, T. Sankaralingam, managing director of NTPC, India's largest utility, said climate concerns inevitably took a back seat in countries that were still trying to pull millions of people out of poverty. "The priority for our country is economic growth and accessibility to energy for the people," he said at the energy congress. "We need to build power plants, and transportation systems." He noted that 600 million people in India have no access to electricity. "People below the poverty line should not be denied the benefits of economic growth," he said.

Nobuo Tanaka, the designated executive director of the International Energy Agency, recognized the needs of people "striving for social and economic change" and the "concerted efforts" China and India have made recently to begin to address environmental problems. Still, he called the current trajectory "unacceptable." "We are all for China to grow, but we want it to grow with policies," he said. Who should bear responsibility for installing cleaner technologies in developing countries like India and China remains a huge open question.

"We in the developed world will have to help pay for the transformation not only in our own country but in other countries as well," said Kurt Yeager of World Energy Council Energy and Climate Change Study Group, USA.

But in recent weeks, agency officials have stressed that if a solution was not found to curb the growth of energy use and improve energy efficiency in India and China, the trend would become harder and harder to reverse. China and India are building huge numbers of power plants to meet energy over the next 10 years, and 90 percent will burn coal. Coal is a highly polluting but relatively inexpensive source of power, making it the choice for developing countries. While technology exists to make coal plants somewhat cleaner, it is expensive.

"What choices China and India make will be with us for 60 years," said Birol, the agency economist. "These are locked in investments."

Birol added: "Here in Europe in Brussels, in Paris, we talk about biofuels and photovoltaic cells. But in the world it is coal that increases most in the energy mix, especially in India in China." Likewise, choices made in construction and manufacturing today in developing countries will leave a long-lasting legacy. Cheap but low efficiency appliances like refrigerators and air conditioners being manufactured in countries like China to supply upwardly mobile populations will create emissions for years to come.

Measured in square meters, one half of the world's construction is in China, Birol said, and the quality of windows and walls is poor, so the resulting buildings waste enormous amounts of energy. "They will be with us for decades," he said.

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British companies to fight climate change together (Climate Change, Solar Power)

British companies to fight climate change together

By Julia Werdigier

LONDON: The largest British companies, including BP, Tesco and BT Group, pledged to offer greener products and invest in research and technology as part of a wider push to reduce carbon emissions and serve as models for other countries.

In a concerted effort, 18 of the top British top companies — ranging from carmakers and airlines to retailers and banks — were to publish a report Monday in which they promised to develop new products and services that would allow customers to cut their carbon footprints. The initiative is also intended to send a message to companies around the world to move climate change higher up their agendas. "Carbon needs to be part of the DNA for businesses just like health and safety has become over the years," said Richard Lambert, director general of the Confederation of British Industry, which helped coordinate the report.

They also said they would develop a standard for all companies involved in the initiative to regularly report their carbon emission levels, invest in technology and emission-saving projects, and promote "greener" behavior among their own employees, starting with the reduction of emissions from company cars and offices. The group did not say how it planned to ensure that its members stuck to their pledges but said the savings from cutting emissions would encourage them to do so.

"There is an urgency, and the sooner we do it the better and the cheaper," said Ben Verwaayen, chief executive of the telecommunications company BT and chairman of the task force group, whose members employ two million people worldwide and generate more than £1 trillion, or $2.06 trillion, in revenue. The report is the result of British businesses addressing issues raised by The Stern Review, a study published last year on the impact of global warming on the economy that was commissioned by the British government. The review, led by the government's top economist, Nicholas Stern, concluded that spending about 1 percent of global gross domestic product on stabilizing emissions today would avoid having to pay about 5 percent to 20 percent in the future. Such predictions have ensured that global warming has remained high on the government's agenda, and Prime Minister Gordon Brown has pledged to establish an advisory committee to help it meet its target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 60 percent from 1990 levels by 2050.

But some businesses have been skeptical in the past about government initiatives to introduce legislation on curbing emissions because they fear it would put them at a competitive disadvantage to rivals that are not bound by such laws. Lambert acknowledged at a press briefing Friday that competition issues were a concern but that British companies could use the need to cut emissions as an opportunity to become leaders in low-carbon technologies.

Iain Conn, head of BP's refining and marketing division, said that the return from some emission-reduction projects has more than covered investments in the necessary technology. Many companies have not yet realized they can actually make money from investing in such technology, he said. The report said that responsibility to cut climate-changing emissions lies with consumers, who through their purchases influence about 60 percent of British emissions; companies, which can enable customers to act by offering greener products; and the government, which should use tax cuts as an incentive for consumers. Consumers should be encouraged through tax cuts and cheaper products, for example, to invest in better insulation of their homes, an improvement whose financial benefits takes years for a consumer to recoup, the group said. In addition, if people were encouraged to buy the most efficient car in each class today, new car emissions could be reduced by a third. Further investments in air traffic management systems could cut fuel consumption by 12 percent, the report said.

Britain is responsible for about 4 percent of global emissions, more than its share of the 14 percent contributed by all 27 European Union member states. Within Britain, about 90 percent of emissions come from the transport, building, power and industrial sectors, and each sector will have to focus on different methods to cut emissions, the report stated. The building industry can cut most emissions by improving the structure of buildings and the use of lights, according to the report. The power industry can cut emissions by using more waste recycling, but also with the use wind and nuclear energy.

Some of the group's members, including Tesco and Shell, are already members of a similar but smaller group called .

The Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change, which is currently working with the government to tackle climate change. Verwaayen said that if consumer and business behavior starts to change within the next two years, the cost for each household to keep emissions down could be limited to about £100 a year by 2030. "We need to support the consumer with better information and more choice" to make it easier for them to limit emissions, Verwaayen said.

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Australia ratifies Kyoto pact (Climate Change, Solar Power)

Australia ratifies Kyoto pact

By James Grubel

CANBERRA: Australia's new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, took the oath of office on Monday and immediately signed documents to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, ending his country's decade of opposition to the global climate agreement.

The move isolates the United States, which will now be the only developed nation not to ratify the agreement which sets binding limits on developed countries to curb the carbon emissions blamed for global warming. "This is the first official act of the new Australian government, demonstrating my government's commitment to tackling climate change," Rudd said in a statement. Climate scientists said the development was a major step for Australia and sent a clear message to Washington.

"This has given America no excuse now. They are now the only country who won't ratify Kyoto, they are the ones most responsible for the problem and they are not living up to their responsibility," said Barry Brook, professor of climate studies at Adelaide University. Rudd, 50, led the centre-left Labor party to victory at the November 24 election, ending nearly 12 years of conservative rule, by promising a new generation of leadership and committing to sign the Kyoto pact. The former conservative government refused to ratify Kyoto, saying it would unfairly hurt the Australian economy with its heavy reliance on coal for energy and export income, while countries like India and China were not bound by targets.

But a new report from the environment think tank the Climate Institute, written by government and university scientists, found that Australia's economy could easily cope with strong cuts in greenhouse emissions.

It said growth would fall by only 0.1 percent of gross domestic product annually if Australia set a target of 20 percent cuts in emissions by 2020 and aimed to be carbon neutral by 2050. "Leading the way on climate is an affordable, prudent and achievable investment," Climate Institute chief executive John Connor said on Monday.

Shortly after Rudd was sworn in, the Kyoto decision was approved by Governor-General Michael Jeffery, who represents Queen Elizabeth in Australia's constitution and who must approve all international treaties. Under U.N. guidelines, full ratification takes place 90 days after the United Nations receives the formal Instrument of Ratification, meaning Australia will be a full member of the Kyoto club by the end of March.

The way is now clear for Rudd to play a stronger role at the U.N. climate talks in Bali, which opened negotiations on Monday on new carbon emission targets for beyond 2012. He is to lead a delegation of four Australian ministers at the conference. The previous government said Australia would meet its Kyoto targets, despite not ratifying the pact, but Rudd said the latest advice suggested it would miss its target to curb greenhouse emissions growth to 108 percent of 1990 levels by 2012.

"We are currently likely to exceed, or overshoot, our target by one percent," Rudd said, adding that Australia faced penalties under new targets beyond 2012. Rudd has set a long-term target of cutting carbon emissions by 60 percent of 2000 levels by 2050, but has yet to announce an interim target for emissions by 2020.

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U.S. asked to regulate airplane pollution (Climate Change, Solar Power)

U.S. asked to regulate airplane pollution

The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO: A coalition of states, cities and environmental groups is urging the U.S. government to curb global warming pollution from planes and other aircraft.

California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia were to file a petition Wednesday asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from domestic and foreign aircraft departing or landing at American airports. New York City and the South Coast Air Quality Management District in Southern California have also joined the states' petition.

"We want the EPA to take their head out of the sand and actively promulgate rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," the attorney general of California, Jerry Brown, told The Associated Press. The agency "has taken a very passive and unimaginative approach to combating global warming."

Aviation is responsible for about 3 percent of overall carbon dioxide emissions in the United States, and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration expects domestic aircraft emissions to rise 60 percent by 2025, according to the petition.

The petition asks the environmental agency to develop rules to reduce aircraft emissions by requiring operators to increase fuel efficiency, use cleaner fuels or acquire lighter, more aerodynamic airplanes.

Earthjustice, an environmental law firm in Oakland, California, plans to file a similar petition on behalf of Friends of the Earth, Oceana and the Center for Biological Diversity.

Officials at the environmental agency said it would review the petitions but defended its efforts to combat global warming.

The United States "has invested over $37 billion on climate change science, technology and tax incentive programs - more than any other country in the world," the agency said in statement.

The Air Transport Association, which represents major American airlines, said establishing a greenhouse gas emissions standard for aircraft engines was not necessary "when the commercial airlines already are driven to be as fuel efficient and environmentally conscious as possible."

U.S. airlines have doubled their fuel efficiency over the past three decades and are committed to increasing fuel efficiency an additional 30 percent by 2025, the association said.

The petition comes as thousands of government officials, climate scientists and environmentalists from almost 190 nations meet in Bali, Indonesia, this week for the annual United Nations climate change conference.

California and several conservation groups filed a similar petition in October asking the environmental agency to limit emissions of heat-trapping gases from cargo ships, cruise liners and other oceangoing vessels.

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Bali draft says all nations must join climate fight (Climate Change, Solar Power)

Bali draft says all nations must join climate fight

By Alister Doyle and Gerard Wynn

NUSA DUA, Indonesia: All nations must do more to fight climate change, and rich countries must make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts, a draft proposal at United Nations talks said on Saturday.

The four-page draft, written by delegates from Indonesia, Australia and South Africa as an unofficial guide for delegates from 190 nations at the December 3-14 talks, said developing nations should at least brake rising emissions as part of a new pact. It said there was "unequivocal scientific evidence" that "preventing the worst impacts of climate change will require (developed nations) to reduce emissions in a range of 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020." The draft is the first outline of the possible goals of talks on a new global deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which binds just 36 developed nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.

"Current efforts ... will not deliver the required emissions reductions," according to the text, obtained by Reuters, that lays out a plan for averting ever more droughts, floods, heatwaves and rising seas. "The challenge of climate change calls for effective participation by all countries," it said. The United States is outside the Kyoto pact and developing nations led by China and India have no 2012 goals for limiting emissions. Echoing conclusions this year by the U.N. climate panel, it said global emissions of greenhouse gases would have to "peak in the next 10 to 15 years and be reduced to very low levels, well below half of levels in 2000 by 2050."

THREE OPTIONS

The draft lays out three options for how to proceed after Bali -- ranging from non-binding talks over the next two years to a deadline for adopting a new global pact at a U.N. meeting in Copenhagen in late 2009. Rich nations should consider ways to step up efforts to curb emissions of greenhouse gases by setting "quantified national emission objectives", the draft says. Poor countries should take "national mitigation actions ... that limit the growth of, or reduce, emissions," it says. It adds that "social development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities" for poor nations. Delegates will report back on Monday with reactions.

Earlier, trade ministers from 12 nations met for the first time on the sidelines of a U.N. climate conference, opening a new front in the global warming battle. Their two-day discussions ending on Sunday focus on easing tariffs on climate-friendly goods to spur a "green" economy. About 20 finance ministers will join the fringes of the Bali meeting on Monday and Tuesday. "Climate change solutions open up important opportunities for jobs and trade," Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean told reporters. Ministers at the trade meeting included those from the United States, Australia, Brazil and India.

Differences over who should take the blame for, and do most to curb, emissions threatened to deadlock the main talks. Canada and Australia joined Japan on Saturday in calling for commitments from some developing countries. But developing nations would find it "inconceivable" to accept binding targets now, said the U.N.'s climate change chief Yvo de Boer. An alliance of 43 small island states urged even tougher action to fight climate change, saying they risked being washed off the map by rising seas. Outside the conference centre, Balinese dancers used sticks to burst black balloons labelled "CO2", the main greenhouse gas.

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China rejects mandatory cuts on greenhouse gases (Climate Change, Solar Power)

China rejects mandatory cuts on greenhouse gases

By The Associated Press

BALI, Indonesia: China insisted Friday that it would not consider mandatory cuts on greenhouse gases, saying the United States and other industrialized countries should take the lead in fighting climate change by being less extravagant. China, which some believe has surpassed the United States as the world's top emitter of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, also questioned the fairness of binding cuts when its per-capita emissions are about one-sixth those of the United States.

It said, too, that it had only been pumping pollutants into the atmosphere for a few decades, whereas the West has done so for hundreds of years. "China is in the process of industrialization, and there is a need for economic growth to meet the basic needs of the people and fight against poverty," said Su Wei, a top climate expert for the government and member of its delegation at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali. "I just wonder whether it's fair to ask developing countries like China to take on binding targets," Su said. "I think there is much room for the United States to think whether it's possible to change its lifestyle and consumption patterns in order to contribute to the protection of the global climate." Delegates from nearly 190 nations are attending the gathering, which runs from Dec. 3 through Dec. 14 and is charged with initiating negotiations that will lead to an international accord to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on global warming. Kyoto, which has not been ratified by the United States, commits three dozen industrialized countries to cut their greenhouse gases an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels between next year and 2012, when it expires. After years of dodging the issue and appearing defensive on global warming, diplomats and activists say, China is playing a constructive and positive role at the Bali conference.

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EU agrees steep fines to cut car CO2 from 2012 (Climate Change, Solar Power)

EU agrees steep fines to cut car CO2 from 2012

By Paul Taylor Reuters

BRUSSELS: The European Commission enraged Germany and its carmakers on Wednesday by proposing tough legislation to force down emissions of carbon dioxide from cars, with steep fines on manufacturers that fail to comply. With several commissioners dissenting, the European Union executive set a four-year phase-in period from 2012 for fines on manufacturers whose fleets exceed an average of 120 grams per km of the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming. "This will send a strong signal to the world about the determination of the European Union to take bold measures on climate change," EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas told a news conference.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel slammed the plan as "not economically favourable", telling journalists in Berlin it would burden Germany and its carmakers disproportionately. German producers of heavier luxury vehicles such as Porsche, with by far the highest emissions of any major carmaker, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, could face billions of euros in fines unless they change course fast.

The DJ Stoxx European car sector index fell 1.4 percent, triple the broader market's decline. Shares in Porsche were down 3.87 percent. German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, often a backer of EU green initiatives, called it a "competition war" against the German car industry to benefit French and Italian rivals. But France complained that the Commission had let makers of heavier, more polluting vehicles off too lightly by varying the emission target according to the weight of the car.

Environmental campaigners accused Brussels of a sell-out for phasing in the fines over four years and setting no ambitious long-term goal. Greenpeace transport spokeswoman Franzisaka Achterberg said the EU had stood up like a lion for the world's climate at a U.N. conference but "is going down like a lamb and putting carmakers' short-term profits before our common survival".

Fines on companies for non-compliance will start at 20 euros ($28.80) per new car for each excess gram per km in 2012 on average over the whole fleet, and rise to 95 euros g/km in 2015. "The proposal is backed by credible penalties," Dimas said, noting that voluntary curbs had failed and road transport was the second-biggest source of emissions after power generation. Car producers denounced the plan, which requires makers of heavier luxury vehicles to make bigger cuts than manufacturers of smaller, lighter cars, and vowed to lobby member states and the European Parliament to fight them. "It's a bad decision. It is not balanced," Ivan Hodac, secretary-general of the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, told Reuters. "The level of penalties is totally unacceptable, up to 100 times higher than what is paid by other industries in the EU's emissions trading scheme," he said. Of the overall mandatory target, an average of 130 g/km must be achieved from improved engine technology and the rest through biofuels and more efficient gears, tires and air-conditioning. The average emissions level from cars in the EU was 163 g/km in 2004, the last year for which full data is available. The decision was reached after a showdown between industrial and environmental champions in the EU executive over how to fight climate change without penalizing European carmakers. It applies to all new cars sold in Europe, including those made by U.S., Japanese, South Korean and Chinese producers. Commission Vice President Guenter Verheugen, a German, dissented from the proposal and boycotted a planned joint news conference to announce it. He had sought lower fines and more flexibility on how companies achieve the cuts.

Several of the other 27 commissioners entered reservations in the minutes but did not demand a vote, a spokesman said. Germany's Volkswagen branded the proposal unfair, saying it would hit German firms harder than European rivals. BMW said the plan would distort the market and must be changed. Industry analysts forecast a fierce political battle. "It will lead to a political crisis. The Germans will have to pay more than the others. The rules are strange," said analyst Philippe Houchois at JP Morgan. Dimas, a Greek, argued for heavy fines as an effective deterrent to force manufacturers to invest in clean technology and produce lighter cars.

A table compiled by the Commission showed that France's Peugeot and Renault as well as Fiat of Italy would have to make the smallest cuts to attain their targets, while BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Japan's Subaru and Porsche would have to make the most progress. But carmakers will be able to team up and pool their CO2 emissions to meet the EU targets. That means makers of heavier cars will be able to buy emissions credits from producers whose fleet is below the limit.

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U.S. agency says 17 states can't set car emission rules (Climate Change, Solar Power)

U.S. agency says 17 states can't set car

emission rules

By John M. Broder and Felicity Barringer

WASHINGTON: The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday denied California and 16 other states the right to set their own standards for carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles. The EPA administrator, Stephen Johnson, said the proposed California rules were pre-empted by federal authority and made moot by the energy bill signed into law by President George W. Bush on Wednesday. Johnson said California had failed to make a compelling case that it needed authority to write its own standards for greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks to help curb global warming. "The Bush administration is moving forward with a clear national solution, not a confusing patchwork of state rules," Johnson said in an evening conference call with reporters. "I believe this is a better approach than if individual states were to act alone."

Other states affected by the ruling included New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The decision immediately sparked a heated debate over its scientific basis and whether political pressure was applied by the automobile industry to help it escape the proposed California regulations. State officials and environmental groups vowed to sue to overturn the edict. The 17 states had waited two years for the Bush administration to issue a ruling on an application to set stricter air quality standards than those adopted by the federal government. The denial of the request, technically known as a Clean Air Act waiver, is the first of more than 50 applications that the federal government has refused to allow California to set its own pollution rules. The emissions standards California adopted in 2004 — but not been approved by the federal government — would have forced automakers to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent in new cars and light trucks by 2016, with the cutbacks to begin in 2009 models. That would have translated into roughly 43 miles per gallon for cars and some light trucks and about 27 miles per gallon for heavier trucks and sport utility vehicles.

The new federal law will require automakers to meet a 35-mile-per-gallon fleetwide standard for cars and trucks sold in the United States by 2020. It does not address carbon dioxide emissions, but such emissions would be reduced as cars were forced to become more fuel efficient. California's proposed rules had sought to address the impact of carbon dioxide and other pollutants from cars and trucks that scientists say contribute to the warming of the planet.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California said the states would go to federal court to reverse the EPA decision. "It is disappointing that the federal government is standing in our way and ignoring the will of tens of millions of people across the nation," Schwarzenegger said. "We will continue to fight this battle." He added, "California sued to compel the agency to act on our waiver, and now we will sue to overturn today's decision and allow Californians to protect our environment." Twelve other states — New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington — had proposed standards like California's, and the governors of Arizona, Colorado, Florida and Utah have said they would do the same.

If the waiver had been granted and the 16 other states had adopted the California standard, it would have covered at least half of all vehicles sold in America. Automakers praised the decision. "We commend EPA for protecting a national, 50-state program," said David McCurdy, president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. "Enchancing energy security and improving fuel economy are priorities to all automakers, but a patchwork quilt of inconsistent and competing fuel economy programs at the state level would only have created confusion, inefficiency and uncertainty for automakers and consumers." In recent weeks, the chief executives of the Detroit auto companies were in Washington to lobby for less-stringent regulations. Industry analysts and environmental groups said the EPA decision had the appearance of a reward to the industry, in return for dropping its opposition to the energy legislation. Auto industry leaders issued statements supporting the new energy law, which gives them more time to improve fuel economy than California would have. State officials reacted with dismay. The California attorney general, Edmund Brown Jr., called the decision "absurd." He said it ignored a long history of waivers granted California to deal with its special topographical, climate and transportation circumstances, which require tougher standards than those set nationally. Brown noted that federal courts in California and Vermont upheld the California standards this year against challenges by the auto industry.

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Nations agree on steps to revive climate treaty (Climate Change, Solar Power)

Nations agree on steps to revive climate treaty

By Thomas Fuller and Andrew C. Revkin

NUSA DUA, Indonesia: The world's countries wrapped up two weeks of intense and at times emotional talks here on Saturday with a two-year timetable for reviving an ailing, aging climate treaty.

The deal came after the United States, facing sharp verbal attacks in a final open-door negotiating session, reversed its opposition to a last-minute amendment by India. "We've listened very closely to many of our colleagues here during these two weeks, but especially to what has been said in this hall today," Under Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky, who led the American delegation, told the assembled delegates. "We will go forward and join consensus," she said.

The Bush administration had earlier made a significant change in policy, ending its long-held objection to the need to formally negotiate new steps to avoid climate dangers. This time, the United States agreed to set a deadline for an addendum to the original treaty, which was signed by President George W. Bush's father in 1992. The agreement notes the need for "urgency" in addressing climate change and recognizes that "deep cuts in global emissions will be required." Still, it does not bind the United States or any country to commitments on reducing greenhouse pollution. "It starts a negotiation that allows but doesn't require an outcome where the U.S. takes a cap," or a national limit on greenhouse gases, said David Doniger, a former climate negotiator in the Clinton administration and the climate policy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The agreement sets the stage for some commitments by developing countries to reduce greenhouse emissions. But it includes no language making such steps mandatory. American negotiators here had pushed hard to get developing countries, including emerging economic giants like China and India, to agree to seek cuts while retaining flexibility on how to make them. The last-minute dispute Saturday was over the wording of commitments by developing countries. The overall agreement, if completed by 2009, would also ensure continuity for parties to the Kyoto Protocol, the only existing addendum to the original climate treaty, which took effect in 2005. The Kyoto pact limits emissions by three dozen industrialized countries but has been rejected by the United States.

Its emissions caps expire in 2012, and adherents, particularly European countries, were eager to start the process of setting new limits to sustain markets in emissions credits — a keystone of the protocol. The Bush administration is increasingly under pressure domestically to take action on global warming. Climate legislation is gaining momentum in the Democrat-controlled Congress and presidential candidates from both parties are generally more engaged on the subject.

In April, the Supreme Court rejected the Bush administration's contention that carbon dioxide was not a pollutant and ordered it to re-examine the case for regulating carbon dioxide from vehicles. Dozens of states are moving ahead with caps on greenhouse gases. The differences in philosophy at the meeting were striking and fundamental. European Union negotiators said they favored specific government-imposed caps on emissions and wanted industrial countries to lead the way. The United States favored relying on "aspirational" goals, research to advance nonpolluting energy technologies and a mix of measures, including mandatory steps like efficiency standards for vehicles and appliances — but all set by individual nations, not mandated by a global pact. Developing countries, a vaguely defined group that includes countries as different as China and Costa Rica, have long insisted that rich countries, which spent more than a century adding carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere, should take the first step.

The tenor of the conference improved markedly after European nations, frustrated with the United States, threatened on Thursday to boycott talks proposed by the Bush administration in Hawaii next month. Germany's environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, who led the criticism of the United States earlier in the week, said Friday, "The climate in the climate convention has changed a little bit. "It's true that during the last night and during the negotiations America was more flexible than in the first part of the conference. "We very much appreciate this. Not only the Americans but also other parties." Reuters reported Friday that the European Union had dropped a central demand that the guidelines for the agreement should include a reference to tough emissions targets for wealthy countries to meet by 2020. Coincidentally or not, the mood shifted after a speech Thursday by former Vice President Al Gore, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize this year for helping to alert the world to the danger of global warming.

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Bert Bolin, pioneering climatologist who won Nobel (Climate Change, Solar Power)

OBITUARY

Bert Bolin, pioneering climatologist who won Nobel

By Dennis Hevesi

Bert Bolin, a pioneering climatologist and the first chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the former Vice President Al Gore for their warnings about global warming, died Sunday in Stockholm. He was 82.

The cause was stomach cancer, Henning Rodhe, a chemistry professor and colleague of Bolin at Stockholm University, told The Associated Press. According to Stockholm University, Bolin initially planned to travel to Oslo to accept the prize on behalf of the IPCC, but was unable to do so because of poor health, The AP reported. Last month, while visiting Sweden, Gore told Bolin in a written statement: "Bert, you set up the framework for the IPCC and without your contributions we would not have come to where we are today. Thank you for starting the process."

Bolin traveled to Washington in May 1959 and, according to The New York Times, told the National Academy of Sciences that a 25 percent increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere during the 150-year period ending in 2000 could be expected. Carbon dioxide, he said then, was the cause of a warming trend of two to three degrees in the previous 50 years. He was chairman of the UN panel from 1988 to 1997 and, with scientific expertise and acquired diplomatic skills, shepherded the panel through the first two of its influential climatological assessment reports.

"You're dealing with people from all countries, all perspectives, all different points of view; people who are strongly attached to particular ideas," Dan Reifsnyder, the U.S. State Department's deputy assistant secretary for environment and sustainable development, said Thursday. "Somehow Bert got this group to work together to produce objective scientific and technical reports that come very close to policy." The panel, created in 1988 by the UN Environment Program and the World Meteorological Organization, brought together 3,500 scientists from around the world and set them in three working groups. One examines atmospheric chemistry and greenhouse gas emissions. The second deals with the impacts of various degrees of climate change. The third researches the possibilities for mitigation.

The concerns expressed in the first of the two assessments issued while Bolin was chairman, in August 1990, led to the drafting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the first international document bringing countries together to deal with the issue. The framework, first promoted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, has 192 signatories, including the United States. The second assessment issued during Bolin's tenure, in 1995, led to the Kyoto Protocol, which called on industrialized countries to collectively limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. The United States signed the protocol in 1998, but the document has never been sent to the U.S. Senate for its consent.

"Bert was responsible for helping to assure that the IPCC remained an objective scientific and technical body," said Reifsnyder, who worked with Bolin for many years. Bert Richard Johannes Bolin was born in Nykoping, Sweden, on May 15, 1925. He graduated from Uppsala University in 1946. He earned a master's degree in 1949 and a doctorate in 1956, both in meteorology, at Stockholm University. He was hired as an associate professor there and remained on the faculty until 1990.

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Academia crosses disciplinary lines to address global warming (Climate Change, Solar Power)

Academia crosses disciplinary lines to address global warming

By Claudia H. Deutsch

It is a basic tenet of university research: Economists do joint studies, chemists join forces in the laboratory, political scientists share ideas about other cultures - but rarely do the researchers cross disciplinary lines.

The political landscape of academia, combined with the fight for grant money, has always fostered competition far more than collaboration. But the push to stop global warming may just change all that. For instance, the Rochester Institute of Technology in September established the Golisano Institute for Sustainability, aimed at getting students and professors from different disciplines to collaborate in studying the environmental ramifications of production and consumption.

"The academic tradition is to let one discipline dominate new programs," said Nabil Nasr, the institute's director. "But the problem of sustainability cuts across economics, social elements, engineering, everything. It simply cannot be solved by one discipline, or even by coupling two disciplines." Neil Hawkins, vice president for sustainability for Dow Jones, sees it that way, too. Dow is giving $10 million, spread over five years, to the University of California, Berkeley, to set up a sustainability center.

"Berkeley has one of the strongest chemical engineering schools in the world, but it will be MBAs who understand areas like microfinance solutions to drinking water problems," Hawkins said. That realization is spreading throughout academia. More universities are setting up stand-alone centers that offer neutral ground on which engineering students can work on alternative fuels while business students calculate the economics of those fuels and political science majors figure how to make the fuels palatable to governments in both developing nations and American states.

"We give professors a chance to step beyond their usual areas of expertise, and we give students exposure to the worlds of science and business," said Daniel Esty, director of the year-old Yale Center for Business and the Environment, a joint effort between the School of Management and the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

Similar setups are getting easier to find. Last year, the University of Tennessee consolidated all of its environmental research programs under a new Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment. Arizona State University did the same in 2004, when it inaugurated its Global Institute of Sustainability. The Arizona institute reports directly to the university president and is run by Jonathan Fink, who is also the university's sustainability officer.

"We want all the departments to contribute without thinking they own the initiative themselves," Fink said. Already, experts in biogeochemistry - the study of the scientific underpinnings of earth's origins and existing biosystems - are working with social scientists to study the impact of rapid urbanization on plants and animals. It is impossible to quantify the growth of stand-alone centers. There is no naming convention - some are sustainability centers, some are environmental institutes and some are global warming initiatives.

And many do not stand alone at all, but are neatly tucked inside an existing school. Nor do the environmentally themed names necessarily convey an envirocentric agenda. Many "sustainability" centers - the Kenan-Flagler Center for Sustainable Enterprise at the University of North Carolina is a good example - address global cultures, business ethics and corporate social responsibility along with environmental issues.

The Aspen Institute's Center for Business Education compiled a list of more than 600 academic centers that, at first blush, sound like they would be stand-alone environmental facilities. Rich Leimsider, its director, figures only a handful really are. "We are seeing more centers framed as sustainability, but they may not be qualitatively different from the ethics, innovation or globalization centers of 15 years ago," he said. "Universities realize that you can discuss sustainability with a CEO and not get laughed out of the room."

But Leimsider said he does see more stand-alone centers that are devoted primarily to analyzing environmental problems, influencing environmental policy and preparing students to think collaboratively when they try to solve those problems outside the academic world.

Many of the centers have one foot set squarely outside the ivory tower. Esty said that the Yale center was developing an "eco-services clinic" that would help companies address various environmental issues. Duke University's Corporate Sustainability Initiative, which is a joint venture of its earth sciences, business and environmental policy schools, is also a founding member of the Chicago Sustainable Business Alliance. Its faculty and students have already developed a small wind turbine for private use, and have helped local businesses reduce their carbon footprints. Nor does the money for the centers necessarily come from university coffers. Often it comes from individuals who are passionate about the environment.

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U.S. warns Europe on using climate change as pretext for protectionism (Climate Change, Solar Power)

U.S. warns Europe on using climate change as pretext for protectionism

By James Kanter and Stephen Castle

BRUSSELS: The United States warned the European Union on Monday against using climate change as a pretext for protectionism, setting the stage for trans-Atlantic tension over a new package of EU measures to combat global warming. The pointed comments by the U.S. trade representative, Susan Schwab, after talks in Brussels, came just two days before the European Commission introduced its proposals for cutting EU emissions at least 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2020.

"We have been dismayed at a variety of suggestions where we have seen the climate and the environment being used as an excuse to close markets," Schwab said after discussions with Peter Mandelson, her European counterpart. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has called for a carbon tax on imports to ensure that European companies that need to comply with tough environmental rules are not undercut by foreign competitors whose governments are not capping carbon emissions.

EU officials were not expected to propose such a measure Wednesday but were expected to keep alive the possibility of a so-called border tax or similar measure to keep European industries competitive. The EU pledge to protect European industry by 2011 at the latest will be aimed at assuaging powerful lobby groups from sectors like steel and aluminum manufacturing, which say they are facing higher costs than their overseas competitors because of the EU's determination to lead the world in climate protection.

Even so, EU officials hope to be able to avoid the issue entirely, not least because any European border tax could be challenged at the World Trade Organization. Instead, EU officials hope that other developed countries like the United States, which did not sign the Kyoto climate treaty, will join an international treaty by the end of the decade, making protectionist measures unnecessary. Measures other than the border tax that are under discussion by EU officials and diplomats in Brussels include granting greater numbers of free pollution permits than currently planned. Officials say they believe such a method would not break world trade rules.

The EU also could condone global agreements within sectors like steel and cement, rather than between nations. In that scenario, industries worldwide in a particular manufacturing sector would agree to cut their pollution by a certain amount, in theory leveling the competitive playing field. EU officials say they are optimistic about a global climate accord after the recent meeting of nearly 200 nations in Bali, Indonesia, where agreement was reached on laying out a plan for negotiations that could produce a climate treaty by 2009.

But the Bali Action Plan faces high hurdles, including the persistently thorny problem of convincing the United States to take action even if fast-developing countries like China, which insists on development's getting higher priority than emissions curbs, fail to make similar pledges. Schwab also took issue with Europe's attitude toward genetically modified foodstuffs, which she described as "perfectly safe." In particular she singled out France's decision to go slowly on cultivation of genetically modified corn.

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Europe plans revamp of carbon trading (Climate Change, Solar Power)

Europe plans revamp of carbon trading

By James Kanter and Stephen Castle

BRUSSELS: European Union officials will propose this week a major overhaul of the bloc's sometimes dysfunctional carbon emissions trading system, aiming to reduce corporate influence and make polluting more expensive. The new system would oblige more factories in Europe to pay for pollution and aims to reduce the oversupply of permits. That, in turn, could push up their cost.

It also would be governed centrally in Brussels, rather than partly by member countries, as is now done, with the aim of reducing the ability of companies to profit by lobbying pliant governments for more pollution permits than they need. The draft proposal, seen by the International Herald Tribune, is to be presented to the European Parliament on Wednesday by the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso.

"It's highly laudable that the EU is pulling out all the stops and doing everything in its power to meet the targets it has set itself," said John Hay, a spokesman for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is based in Bonn and oversaw the negotiations that led to the Kyoto Protocol. "This is certainly an example of what many developed countries need to do to stabilize greenhouse gases using stringent national policies and effective market mechanisms," Hay said.

Lobbying from energy-intensive industries, particularly in high-wage western Europe, still could mean the legislation faces obstacles to approval. The review by Parliament and EU governments could take more than a year. In a concession to governments, national capitals would be allowed to keep money raised by selling permits that could amount to between €30 billion and €50 billion, or $44 billion and $73 billion, annually by the end of the next decade, according to EU officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the plans. Governments, however, still could be urged - and may even be required - to put a portion of the revenue toward programs like funding research and development for reducing emissions and encouraging renewable sources of power, the officials said. Those details still are being finalized, they said.

Henrik Hasselknippe, the director of EU emissions trading analysis for Point Carbon, a research and consulting company based in Oslo, Norway, said one of the most important aspects of the announcement this week is a commitment to make polluters buy many more - and in some cases all - of their permits starting in 2013. Industries currently in the system, including steel and cement factories, are allocated most of their permits by national governments and use the trading system to buy more or sell surplus.

Europeans took an early lead in efforts to curb global warming by championing the Kyoto climate treaty and by establishing the largest carbon-management system in the world. The 3-year-old system involves complicated quotas that cap emissions from thousands of factories across the trade bloc. Companies buy or sell permits based on whether they overshoot or come in beneath their pollution targets. Supporters of the system say limiting supply by stopping government handouts of permits would eventually drive up the cost of polluting and force companies to make emissions reductions and to adopt low-carbon technological innovations.

So far the United States has resisted adopting a European-style system. Even so, several other countries and U.S. states have adopted similar systems, and Europeans hope fixing some of the flaws in the current system would encourage more to follow their example. In mid-2006, the market price for permits collapsed in Europe, along with the incentive to cut emissions, seriously undermining the credibility of the program. That happened after news leaked of a significant difference between how many permits industries were granted and how many permits they actually needed.

Partly because of such problems, Mahi Sideridou, the EU climate policy director for Greenpeace, said the European system so far had not succeeded in reducing emissions in Europe. She also criticized the EU for continuing to allow companies based in Europe to buy permits from overseas to offset their pollution in the new system. Even so, Sideridou said the plan to be presented this week represented progress. "Eliminating the governments as middle men is a good thing in our view," she said. "Governments were under a lot of pressure from industry," she said.

In the past, many of the sectors like steel and cement had benefited from over-allocations by selling excess credits, according to Hasselknippe of Point Carbon. Electricity producers like E.On and RWE in Germany and Vattenfall, the Swedish energy company, also benefited from free allowances, but mainly by passing on costs to their customers, he said.

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EU adopts blueprint for climate fight (Climate Change, Solar Power)

EU adopts blueprint for climate fight

By Paul Taylor and Gerard Wynn

BRUSSELS: The European Union's executive adopted plans on Wednesday to slash greenhouse gas emissions, seeking to push the world into tough climate action, but delayed key decisions on how to soften the impact on industry. The plans will transform Europe's energy supply by 2020, with a 10-fold increase in renewable energy production in Britain for example, and raise power bills by 10 to 15 percent.

The European Commission said the measures were a vital step in the fight against global warming and other countries must now join the effort. "Europe and the rest of the world have to act fast, and act boldly, if we are to prevent this catastrophe," said EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas.

The measures would also curb the bloc's rising dependency on imports of fossil fuels. "We do not want to be dependent on regimes that are not our friends and want to protect ourselves from them," Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told the European Parliament in presenting the plan. The renewables targets would wean the 27-nation bloc off coal and oil, as would a decision that power generators must pay from 2013 for all permits to emit carbon dioxide, most of which they now get for free, likely to slash coal plant profits. German utility RWE said it called into question the future of coal -- "Coal is threatened in its economic viability," RWE's head of power generation, Ulrich Jobs, told Reuters. The measures implement an EU-wide target which EU leaders agreed last March to get a fifth of energy from renewable sources and curb greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020. They still need approval by EU leaders and the EU Parliament.

Environmentalists urged the EU to cut emissions unilaterally by 30 percent by 2020. The head of the Nobel Prize-winning U.N. climate change panel said the EU plans may prove too lax. "I see no reason why some of these targets may not become stronger, may not become more stringent," Rajendra Pachauri told reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

COST The U.N. panel last year warned that tough climate action required global greenhouse gas emissions to peak by 2015 and detailed looming global warming threats including higher sea levels and more floods and droughts.

The Commission's proposals included a major overhaul from 2013 of the EU's flagship Emissions Trading Scheme, which allocates a fixed quota of emissions permits to heavy industry. Airlines and oil refineries will have to pay for one-fifth of emissions permits in 2013, rising to 100 percent in 2020.

But Brussels delayed until 2010 a key decision on which industries most vulnerable to global competition, such as steel, aluminium and cement, can get all their quota for free. "The conditions for companies to have access to free allowances ... are left uncertain until 2010," Europe's main industry lobby, BusinessEurope, complained in a statement.

"Significant electricity price increases will result from this package," it warned. Industry leaders are worried higher energy costs will tilt competitiveness further in favour of China and India, which have no emissions limits, at a time of record oil prices. If there were no global deal to curb emissions, succeeding the Kyoto Protocol on climate change after 2012, the EU said it would also consider forcing importers to buy permits. Power bills for industry and households will rise as the bloc gets more energy from expensive clean technologies, and as the supply of CO2 permits to power generators shrinks from 2013 on. Utilities will pass the extra costs on to consumers.

But Barroso dismissed cost concerns, telling parliament: "The additional effort needed to realise the proposals would be less than 0.5 percent of GDP by 2020. That amounts to about 3 euros (2.25 pounds) a week for everyone." Resistance is expected over targets for each country to cut greenhouse gases and install renewable energy, but the EU executive talked up potential business benefits. "(It) gives Europe a head start in the race to create a low-carbon global economy that will unleash a wave of innovations and create new jobs," said Dimas. Brussels tried to shore up the environmental credibility of a target to get one-tenth of transport fuels by 2020 from biofuels made from plants, setting detailed criteria to avoid unwanted side effects such as tropical deforestation. EU carbon prices fell nearly 10 percent earlier this week, mostly on falling oil prices, and slid further by 3 percent on Wednesday, closing at 19.70 euros.

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