By Samuel Nota, alertnet 14 March 2012 After 20 years dominated by inaction on climate change, the world is entering a “third era” when the impacts of climate change are unavoidable, says a London climate expert. Even if countries instantly reduced carbon emissions to zero, the impacts of emissions already in the atmosphere are “inevitable […]
By Grant Potter and Graham Salinger3 March 2012 A recent report by The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), offers new insight into the threat that climate change poses to the livelihood of millions of farmers worldwide. The report, Mapping Hotspots of Climate Change and Food Insecurity in the Global Tropics [pdf], maps areas […]
[cf. U.S. CO2 emissions to stay below 2005 levels as coal use shrinks] 22 February 2012 (Bloomberg News) – China’s energy use rose at the fastest pace in four years in 2011 and efficiency improved, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Consumption climbed 7 percent to 3.48 billion metric tons of standard coal equivalent, […]
By MICHELLE FAUL Associated Press 16 February 2012 JOHANNESBURG (AP) – Poachers have slaughtered at least 200 elephants in the past five weeks in a patch of Africa where they are more dangerously endangered than anywhere else on Earth, wildlife activists said. The money made from selling elephant tusks is fueling misery throughout the continent, […]
By Fred Pearce10 February 2012 LONDON – We can forget about fixing the planet’s ecosystems and climate until we have fixed government systems, a panel of leading international environmental scientists declared in London on Friday. The solution, they said, may not lie with governments at all. “We are disillusioned. The current political system is broken,” […]
New Delhi, 2 February 2012 (AFP) – India has the worst air quality in the world, beating even its neighbour China, according to an annual survey based at Yale and Columbia universities in the United States. Of all the countries surveyed in the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), which measures the effects of polluted air on […]
By Harold Thibault, Guardian Weekly31 January 2012 For visitors expecting to see China’s largest freshwater lake, Poyang is a desolate spectacle. Under normal circumstances it covers 3,500 sq km, but last month only 200 sq km were underwater. A dried-out plain stretches as far as the eye can see, leaving a pagoda perched on top […]
By SHARON LaFRANIERE27 January 2012 BEIJING – Weary of waiting for the authorities to alert residents to the city’s most pernicious air pollutant, citizen activists last May took matters here into their own hands: they bought their own $4,000 air-quality monitor and posted its daily readings on the Internet. That began a chain reaction. Volunteers […]
The large and persistent external imbalances in the global economy that have developed over the past decade remain a point of concern for policymakers. Reducing these imbalances has been the major focus of consultations among G20 Finance Ministers under the G20 Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth and the related Mutual Assessment Process (MAP) […]
Contact: Yan ZhongWei, yzw@tea.ac.cnScience in China Press24 January 2012 The Twenty-four Solar Terms are ancient Chinese terms used for about 2000 years. They describe 24 stages or timings associated with seasonal changes in phenology and agricultural activity throughout a year. Qian et al. from the Key Laboratory of Regional Climate-Environment for East Asia, Chinese Academy […]
