By Fayen Wong Thursday June 24, 2010 05:40:03 AM GMT PERTH, June 22 (Reuters) – Asia’s thermal coal imports are set to hit a record high next year, nearing 500 million tonnes, as economies in the region extend their recovery over the next 18 months, an official Australian forecast showed on Tuesday. Asian exporters, such […]
By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com June 24, 2010 The Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) has condemned Malaysia’s booming practice of converting tropical forests into rubberwood plantations, arguing that the conversion threatens Malaysia’s biodiversity, endangered species, and releases significant greenhouse gas emissions. According to the resolution, rubberwood plantations in Malaysia have expanded nearly 30-fold in […]
By Michael Perry, ReutersJune 17, 2010 SYDNEY (Reuters) – The world’s oceans are virtually choking on rising greenhouse gases, destroying marine ecosystems and breaking down the food chain — irreversible changes that have not occurred for several million years, a new study says. The changes could have dire consequences for hundreds of millions of people […]
By Jessica Shankleman, BusinessGreen17 Jun 2010 British businesses need to invest in adaptation measures to cope with flooding and drought in the coming decades even if substantial reductions in greenhouses gas emissions are achieved. That is the stark warning from the insurance industry today after a new report from the Met Office warned that global […]
Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and certain manufactured greenhouse gases have all risen substantially in recent years. • Before the industrial era began around 1780, carbon dioxide concentrations measured approximately 270–290 ppm. Concentrations have risen steadily since then, reaching 387 ppm in 2009—a 38 percent increase. Almost all of this increase […]
By Jeremy Hancewww.mongabay.com June 13, 2010 The Indonesian government failed to live up to its promises to reduce fires across the tropical nation last year. Instead a 2009 State Environment Report showed a 59 percent rise of fire hotspots from 19,192 in 2008 to 32,416 last year, as reported by The Jakarta Post. Officials say […]
NEW YORK, NY, May 26, 2010 — Nitrous oxide, or N2O, is a greenhouse gas considered by experts to be 300 times more powerful in its atmospheric warming effect than carbon dioxide. By far the greatest recorded sources of N2O emissions are from agricultural activities and fossil fuel combustion. But sewage breakdown by some wastewater […]
May 11, 2010 (Reuters) — India’s greenhouse gas emissions grew 58 per cent between 1994 and 2007, official figures released on Tuesday showed, underlining the country’s growing importance in the fight against climate change. Emissions rose to 1.9 billion tonnes in 2007 versus 1.2 billion in 1994, with the industrial and transport sectors upping their […]
Editing by Philippa Fletcher OSLO (Reuters) – Thawing permafrost can release nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, a contributor to climate change that has been largely overlooked in the Arctic, a study showed on Sunday. The report in the journal Nature Geoscience indicated that emissions of the gas surged under certain conditions from melting […]
Nearly 30% of the Earth’s terrestrial ice-free surface is devoted to livestock production, while 8% is devoted to production of crops that are directly consumed by people. As livestock production shifts to more intensive systems, it will place more pressure on arable land for the production of feed. Over-grazing has resulted in loss of biodiversity […]
