I have recently described "the myth of 'Clean Coal' as "pernicious nonsense"; noting coal carbon sequestration [search] technologies are unproven and being used to delay coal plant bans, and that if the world's coal reserves of 3500 gigatonne of carbon are burnt "the planet will be several times past the concentration of carbon dioxide considered able to be adapted to safely." Well there is finally some good news in Ecological Internet's campaign to "Keep the Coal in the Ground". NASA scientist James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, today "called for the United States to stop building coal-fired power plants and eventually bulldoze older generators that don't capture and bury greenhouse gases." Meanwhile, TXU, a massive Texas-based utility planning to build 11 new coal plants, is likely to be bought by an equity group that promises to environmentalists to cancel much of their planned coal expansion. In response to intensifying grassroots anti-coal protests, the private-equity firms Texas Pacific Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts have agreed as part of the purchase to stop plans to build eight of the eleven new coal-fired power plants, not to propose new coal-fired plants outside Texas and to support mandatory national caps on emissions linked to global warming [more]. There is NO future for coal in post-industrial energy policy adequate to stabilize the global climate within inhabitable parameters.

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TAKE ACTION! Let the President know the world expects Indonesia to keep the Environment Minister's promise to tackle the root causes of rainforest fires and peatland drainage

Indonesia's rainforests [search] contain 60% of all the tropical peat in the world. Such rainforests on peat soils are one of the world's most important carbon sinks and play a vital role in helping to regulate the global climate. They are also very rich in biodiversity and a refuge for species like orang-utans. Rainforest peatlands [search] are being destroyed fast; primarily by palm oil, timber, and paper and pulp companies. The Indonesian government has endorsed a massive biofuel program which foresees an increase in oil palm plantations [search] to eventually over 26 million hectares. Far from reducing climate change emissions, it will rapidly release up to 50 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere. This is the equivalent of over 6 years of global fossil fuel emissions and could well make the generally accepted 2C degree of warming that is considered "dangerous" unavoidable. A recent study has found that one ton of biodiesel made from palm oil grown on Southeast Asia's peatlands is linked to the emission of 10-30 tons of carbon dioxide. Shockingly, this is 2-8 times as much carbon released as in production of a ton of fossil fuel diesel. Please write to the Indonesian government now to express your grave concerns over biofuel expansion plans which threaten to further destroy rainforests and peatlands, and to thus dangerously accelerate global warming. TAKE ACTION!

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Greenhouse gases have yet again reached a new record high leading perhaps to the hottest January on record. With the outlines of climate science firmly established, there are long past due initiatives emerging to accelerate international processes which have until now only yielded the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) [search], the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [search] scientific processes and the much maligned and underperforming Kyoto Protocol [search]. There are emerging from multiple channels - including pressure by Ecological Internet and thousands of other truly grassroots efforts - initatives to accelerate talks; a so called climate summit and a new UN environmental body - to move forward with proposals that will avert global climate disaster by bringing the United States and China into a regime of mandatory emissions caps, as well as establish a global cap and trade system. The so called G8+5 Climate Change Dialogue recently met [more | more2] and agreed in DC that developing countries are going to have to face some sort of caps as well, and that a global carbon market to cap and trade emissions is needed.

Clearly Kyoto is defective in a number of regards, but it represents twenty years of effort to establish the first mechanisms to cap and trade emissions. It must be strengthened and made universal and equitable, not jettisoned to start over down some other track. All of the pieces are in place to begin the process of reducing emissions ultimately by some 80% by 2050 - the science rock solid, evidence of looming catastrophe all around, the Hollywood ecorazzi are posing (the only people that really deserve or get any media attention on the matter), and Al Gore is now a concert promoter for the Earth. Now we need the poliitical will to act to achieve universal carbon emission caps weighed in favor of developing nations initially, with eventual convergence and contraction of overall national rates of carbon emitted, and a global carbon trading [search] to set the right price on carbon. Ecological Internet will be supporting an accelerated timetable for a climate summit to jumpstart international negotations and "turn positive words into positive actions".

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In addition to the release of the IPCC Fourth Assessment, 1st volume summary which essentially declares complete confidence (>90%) that humans are causing climate change with grave impacts, there have been a number of other positive steps in climate policy this week. There has been a seashift in Australian climate policy with the Howard government on the hotseat literally for a bereft climate policy over the years, and now the disasterous "big dry" drought. Under pressure with a new election looming, Howard's government is proposing a carbon trading system - which before you get too excited, apparently would not cap emissions. But along with China indicating they are setting up a carbon market, and with California talking hooking up with Europe's carbon market, the prospects of global carbon market in the next couple years looms large. Brazil's Lula along with China laid the blame for climate disruption where it belongs, at the developed nation's feet. Jacque Chirac's call for an emergency global summit on climate, supported by some 46 countries, appears likely. Such a summit must seek to get all countries to cap emissions with special allowances for developing countries to have easier caps and more time in order to not lock in carbon emission disparities between the rich and poor. With the science settled, there has also started to be even more discussion of climate change solutions and their implementation, where the focus should shift like a laser beam. Perhaps this was the week where the World started getting their act together on equitable mandatory climate emission reductions. They can not come soon enough.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (8) | More on climate policy

Last week Ecological Internet (EI) launched a new environment social network entitled "My.EcoEarth.Info". This site is the latest addition to EI's leading climate environmental portals - Climate Ark and EcoEarth.Info - and the new social networking capabilities are going to be an important element in fostering "Grassroots Global Earth Activism". The intent is to broaden EI's unprecedented global environmental advocacy network to allow more communication, sharing of information and collaboration between Earth Action network participants and EI itself. On the new site you can share your
environmental concerns in an on-line diary, and even launch campaigns with petitions; all while networking with people from around the world that share your concerns and are working as you are to Save the Earth. Please, at your earliest convenience stop by and take the 5-10 minutes it takes to setup your free profile as either an individual or organization. And then start adding content and networking with others. We look forward to feature
requests as we continue to work on a version 2.0. Together we can will global ecological sustainability into being.

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The United Nations has just released its long-awaited report on climate change [news search], warning global warming is almost certainly caused by humans. "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level," the report said. What little debate still existed regarding human causality for climate change has been squashed as the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued their strongest statement yet that human activities are changing the climate. The report, Volume 1 of IPCC's Fourth Assessment, entitled Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basic [download official summary in pdf] states the cause of climate change is "very likely" man-made (>90% chance) and "would continue for centuries" (summary of main findings). It is quite interesting to note the changing levels of certainty of human causation of climate change by the IPCC over the last 20 years by this conservative grouping of world scientists. Though authoritative and exhaustively peer reviewed, if anything IPCC documents have and continue to error on the side of caution - partly the nature of science, the need to produce a consensus document, and lobbying by government bureaucrats protecting their interests. It is likely that scenarios of abrupt, runaway climate change [search] are given short thrift in such an environment. Climate Ark's news tracking and search feature provides full coverage of the lead up to, and the release of, the much anticipated report. Now on to climate change solutions [search] - 80% carbon reductions by 2050, massive renewable energy investments, banning coal, focus upon energy conservation and efficiency, and an emergency global summit to get all countries on board with equitable mandatory emissions caps.

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