9 September 2008
For Personal Use Only

• Source: Irish Times

RICH COUNTRIES must start basing their climate change policies on human rights principles and stop using economic excuses to “wriggle out of their responsibilities”, says international aid agency Oxfam in a new report published today, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor. (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under The Environment, Climate Change

1 September 2008
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• Author: Hiroshi Okabe
• Source: JAPAN SPOTLIGHT Bimonthly

Toyako Summit Mulls Environment, Other Global Issues

A Japanese legend says our wishes for the future will be met if we write them on “tanzaku” strips of paper and tie them to a bamboo branch on the occasion of the July 7 “Tanabata” star festival. Top leaders of the Group of Eight (G-8) industrial countries met for their annual summit at the Lake Toya resort in Hokkaido on that day and made wishes in accordance with the legend. (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under The Environment, Climate Change

26 August 2008
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• Source: Jiji Press English News Service

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry will request 23.8 billion yen in budget outlays for fiscal 2009 to revive subsidies to promote the use of solar power systems at private homes, officials said Tuesday.

Japan provided subsidies to households adopting solar power systems between 1994 and fiscal 2005, when the subsidy system was scrapped for financial reasons. (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under The Environment, Climate Change

26 August 2008
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• Source: Agence Europe

More than 1,500 delegates from 180 countries are meeting in Accra, Ghana, from 21 to 27 August) in the latest phase of UN climate change negotiations which aim to bring, in December 2009, an international agreement on a worldwide post-2012 regime for tackling global warming. (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under The Environment, Climate Change

26 August 2008
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• Author: Jonathan Soble
• Source: Financial Times

Japan is preparing for the arrival of plug-in electric cars next year with plans to build hundreds of “quick recharge” power stations and other infrastructure to accommodate the vehicles.

Drivers in Japan will be the first in the world to be offered battery-powered cars by large carmakers. The transport and power system upgrades, which are supported by the government, carmakers and electricity utilities, are designed to promote rapid adoption by easing concerns about the cars’ convenience and driving range. (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under The Environment, Climate Change

23 August 2008
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• Author: John Vidal and David Adam
• Source: The Hindu

Developing countries and human rights groups are heading for a clash at a U.N. climate change meeting intended to stop the destruction of tropical forests. Diplomats from more than 100 countries are meeting in Accra, Ghana, to open talks on whether tropical forests should join the emerging global carbon market. This would allow countries and companies to earn money from not cutting down trees. (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under The Environment, Climate Change

22 August 2008
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• Author: Kim Hyun-cheol
• Source: Korea Times

A carbon tax is likely to be introduced from 2010 in a master plan to achieve low-carbon based development.

Chong Wa Dae has recently confirmed a list of 40 new administrative strategy agenda, which includes substitution of a carbon tax with the current transportation tax, the Chosun Ilbo, a Korean daily, reported Thursday. (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under The Environment, Climate Change

21 August 2008
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• Source: The Saigon Times Daily

OSLO - More than 150 nations meet in Ghana from today trying to speed up sluggish talks on a new climate treaty and plug big gaps in a “vision” of leading industrial nations of halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The Aug. 21-27 meeting of 1,000 delegates will also consider new ways to combat global warming such as slowing tropical deforestation ?U.N. studies say burning of trees accounts for about 20% of greenhouse gases from human activities. (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under The Environment, Climate Change

21 August 2008
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• Author: Aminu Abubakar
• Source: Agence France Presse

Time is running out in the fight against global warming, the UN’s top climate change official warned as a new round of UN talks got started here Thursday.

“There is little time left to get a solid negotiating text on the table. Clearly the clock is ticking,” said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under The Environment, Climate Change

20 August 2008
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• Source: All Africa

The governments of Japan and Liberia Monday signed an agreement for the provision of US$7.1 million food aid to Liberia. (more…)

Filed by Sarah Cale under Global Financial Crises, Development, The Environment

20 August 2008
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• Author: Kim Hyun-cheol
• Source: Korea Times

President Lee Myung-bak faces a bumpy road in his move to transform South Korea into a “Low Carbon, Green Growth'’ country, as suspicion is mounting over the feasibility of his administration’s roadmap. (more…)

Filed by Sarah Cale under The Environment, Climate Change

19 August 2008
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• Author: Anne Chaon
• Source: Agence France Presse

Rich nations will come under pressure at climate talks in Africa this week to get specific about how quickly and by how much they intend to cut their carbon footprints, said the UN climate chief.

The expert-level gathering in Accra, Ghana kicks off Thursday, and will lay the technical groundwork for a major UN meeting in Poznan, Poland at the end of the year. (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under The Environment, Climate Change

19 August 2008
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• Source: Korea Times

President Lee Myung-bak’s latest pledge for “low-carbon, green growth'’ is a welcome ― if belated ― shift from the expansion-at-all-costs policy.

Nor did his environment-friendly development scheme appear to be a hurriedly-coined slogan on the occasion of the Republic of Korea’s 60th birthday Friday, as he made similar remarks at the G-8 summit in Japan and the National Assembly’s opening session last month. (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under The Environment, Climate Change

13 August 2008
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• Source: Guardian Unlimited

Prince Charles’ warnings that genetically modified crops and industrial agriculture will lead to ecological disaster appear only to be adding a dose of passion to the cooler analysis of world’s leading agronomists, climate scientists and grassroots groups in developing countries, who have been saying much the same about farming and ecology for some time. When asked whether “industrial scale food conglomerates are the way ahead”, he said: “What, all run by gigantic corporations? Is that really the answer? I think not. That would be the absolute destruction of everything.” (more…)

Filed by Sarah Cale under Global Financial Crises, Multilateral Trade, The Environment

7 August 2008
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• Source: SinoCast China Business Daily News (Abstracts)

BEIJING — China’s first two exchanges for environmental interest transactions were established in Beijing and Shanghai on August 5, 2008, citing a report.

On their early stage, these exchanges offer platforms for the trade of carbon dioxide rations.
(more…)

Filed by Anita Li under The Environment, Climate Change

6 August 2008
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• Author: Bernardo V. Lopez
• Source: BusinessWorld

The key factor in the recent WTO failure in Geneva revolves around a statement of one delegate, “Multilaterals never fail, they just continue.” The retort to such unfounded optimism is, “Endless talks are tantamount to failure when they become too long.” (more…)

Filed by Sarah Cale under Multilateral Trade, The Environment

6 August 2008
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• Author: Scott Otteman
• Source: Inside US-China Trade

Analysts this week offered a wide range of explanations for why China last week opted to join India in blocking a global deal on agriculture and non-agricultural market access modalities over the extent of an special agricultural safeguard that would protect developing countries from surging imports. (more…)

Filed by Sarah Cale under Multilateral Trade, Development, The Environment

3 August 2008
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• Source: The Press Trust of India Limited

Washington, Aug 3 (PTI) — Describing the rapid economic growth of India and China based on coal and other hydrocarbons as “a problem”, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said Washington has “repeatedly” raised the issue of global warming with the two countries so as to address the challenges. (more…)

Filed by Ivana Jankovic under The Environment, Climate Change

3 August 2008
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• Author: Hugh Wheelan
• Source: Observer Business Pages

A GROUP of the world’s biggest pension funds brought together privately by Prince Charles and known informally as the P8, an allusion to the G8 group of the world’s wealthiest nations, is to release an action plan this summer on fighting climate change using their investments. (more…)

Filed by Ivana Jankovic under The Environment, Climate Change

1 August 2008
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• Source: Mining Engineering

Leaders of the world’s eight leading industrial nations gathered for the 2008 G8 conference in Japan in July and quickly endorsed halving world emissions of greenhouses gases by 2050.

The Group of Eight - leaders from the United States, Japan, Russia, Germany, France, Britain, Canada and Italy - also called on all major economies to join together to stem the potentially dangerous rise in world temperatures. (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under The Environment

31 July 2008
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• Author: Liu Junhong
• Source: China Daily

Fortune magazine of the US recently published its list of the 500 biggest companies in the world in terms of market value. The latest Fortune 500 reflected three prominent changes in the political and economic structure of our world, namely the so-called natural resources nationalism, the crackling of the US-led global financial system and the rise of emerging economies.
(more…)

Filed by Anita Li under Other, Global Financial Crises, The Environment, Climate Change, Energy and Nuclear Safety

31 July 2008
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• Source: eSource Canada Business News Network

Canada and the United States are at the back of the G8 pack in the race against climate change, according to the 2008 G8 Climate Scorecards released by WWF and Allianz SE.
(more…)

Filed by Anita Li under The Environment, Climate Change

29 July 2008
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• Source: AFX Asia

Japan’s cabinet on Tuesday adopted a plan to slash carbon emissions up to 80 percent by 2050 by starting carbon trading and stepping up research on carbon-capture technologies.

“Japan must continue showing leadership on the issue of environment,” Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told the cabinet meeting. “To lead the world, Japan must take the initiative by achieving a low-carbon society.” (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under The Environment, Climate Change

29 July 2008
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• Author: Shaun Vorster
• Source: All Africa

THE Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tells us global emissions need to peak, and start to decline, in 10 to 15 years.

According to the panel, avoiding dangerous climate change requires developed countries to reduce their emissions compared with 1990 levels by 80%-95% by 2050 and by 25%-40% by 2020. In developing countries, substantial deviations below business-as-usual baselines are required. (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under The Environment, Climate Change

29 July 2008
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• Author: Keya Acharya
• Source: Inter Press Service

An acrimonious debate is raging within the international community over the “common but differentiated” principle of climate change, which sets differing emission-reduction targets on countries based on their history of emissions, with richer nations requiring higher cuts.

The probability of implementing such a principle seems somewhat slim, seeing as the United States has rejected the Kyoto Protocol climate change treaty outright and Canada, another G-8 member, has not kept its initial commitments on cutting emissions as per the Kyoto Protocol. (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under The Environment, Climate Change