BRASILIA, Dec. 1, 2008 (AFP) -- The Brazilian government on Monday announced a plan under which it would cut deforestation of the Amazon by 70 percent over the next decade.

It is the first time Brazil, home to the largest area of tropical woodland on the planet, has set a target for reducing the damage wreaked by illegal loggers and ranchers.

Environment Minister Carlos Minc unveiled the initiative in the presence of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and said it would be formally presented at a U.N. climate change conference underway this week in Poland.

"Just in terms of avoided deforestation in the Amazon, the plan foresees a reduction of 4.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide that won't be emitted up to 2018 -- which is more than the reduction efforts fixed by all the rich countries," Minc said.

The minister said Brazil hopes to use the plan to "increase the number of contributors to the Amazon Fund" launched last August which aims to collect money from around the world to fight deforestation.

Copyright 2008 -- Agence France-Presse

POZNAN, Poland, Dec 1, 2008 (AFP) -- Green groups upped the pressure at U.N. climate talks in Poland on Monday with wacky stunts aimed at prodding delegates from around the world to get moving on a new deal to tackle global warming.

The World Wildlife Fund, or WWF, welcomed the almost 11,000 participants at the 12-day talks in Poznan by handing out walnuts and urging them to "crack the climate nut" and overcome negotiation deadlock.

Greenpeace meanwhile unveiled a three-metre (10-foot) high sculpture depicting the Earth on the brink of destruction from a "tidal wave" of carbon dioxide made of wood and coal.

"So far there is still an utter lack of any kind of visionary leadership in these talks. There are still governments that repeatedly fail to grasp the urgency of the crisis," Greenpeace said.

"That's why we need to make ourselves heard, because the impacts of climate change are racing ahead of the scientific projections."

It also launched a video running through 20 years of speeches and "broken promises" on climate change from the likes of former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian premier Silvio Berlosconi.

The forum in Poland of the 192-member U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) comes halfway in a two-year process, launched in Bali, Indonesia, that aims at crafting a new pact in Copenhagen in December 2009.

Delegates in Poland are tasked with whittling down an 82-page document containing a vast range of proposals for action into a workable blueprint for negotiations culminating in a deal in the Danish capital.

Aid agency Oxfam said that climate change would "increase global poverty and halt -- eventually reverse -- human development if governments fail to take major steps."

Copyright 2008 -- Agence France-Presse

POZNAN, Poland, Dec 1, 2008 (AFP) -- War, hunger, poverty and sickness will stalk humanity if the world fails to tackle climate change, a 12-day U.N. conference on global warming heard on Monday.

A volley of grim warnings sounded out at the start of the marathon talks, a step to a new worldwide treaty to reduce greenhouse gases and help countries exposed to the wrath of an altered climate.

"Humankind in its activity just reached the limits of the closed system of our planet Earth," said Polish Environment Minister Maciej Nowicki, elected to chair the December 1-12 meeting in the city of Poznan.

"Further expansion in the same style will generate global threats of really great intensity -- huge droughts and floods, cyclones with increasingly more destructive power, pandemics of tropical disease, dramatic decline of biodiversity, increasing ocean levels," said Nowicki.

"All these can cause social and even armed conflict and migration of people at an unprecedented scale."

The forum of the 192-member U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) comes halfway in a two-year process, launched in Bali, Indonesia, that aims at crafting a new pact in Copenhagen in December 2009.

Nowicki's warning was underscored by Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which provides neutral scientific opinion on global warming and its impacts.

"The impacts of climate change, if there is inaction, can be extremely serious," he said, delivering some sobering statistics to sharpen minds among the almost 11,000 conference participants in Poznan.

The number of people living in severely stressed river basins is projected to rise from 1.4 to 1.6 billion in 1995 to 4.3-6.9 billion in 2050, Pachauri said.

"That's almost the majority of humanity," he said. Between 20 and 30 percent of species assessed will be at increasingly high risk of extinction as global temperatures exceed two to three degrees centigrade (3.6-5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, he said. Progress under the so-called Bali Roadmap has been bogged down over demands for concessions and the sheer complexity of a deal.

Rich countries are historically to blame for most of today's warming. They are lobbying for emerging giant countries, led by China and India, which will be the big polluters of tomorrow, to do more to tackle their surging emissions.

Developing countries, meanwhile, want the West to help pay for them to expand their economies in a sustainable manner and to stump up cash to help vulnerable countries cope with climate change.

Hopes for a breakthrough at Poznan have also been darkened by the global economic crisis.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, prime minister of Denmark, which is tasked with steering the proposed treaty to a conclusion, urged countries not to be deterred and argued that investing in green technology created growth and jobs. "I feel confident that the financial crisis will be overcome. The recovery will come. However climate change is not going to become less of a problem in the coming years," he said.

Environmental pressure groups agreed, with Greenpeace saying that the global recession was "nothing compared to the trillions of dollars that climate change will cost us."

"The current finance crunch was the result of ignoring major risks, so let's not repeat this mistake by ignoring the even bigger risks from climate change," said the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

Delegates in Poland will be examining an 82-page document containing a vast range of proposals for action beyond 2012, when emissions-curbing pledges under the Kyoto Protocol run out.

The hope is to condense this labyrinthine document into a workable blueprint for negotiations culminating in a deal in Copenhagen.

One spur for optimism is the election of Barack Obama as US president, who has vowed to sweep away George W. Bush's climate policies which caused the United States to be isolated in the world environmental arena since 2001. Obama has set a goal of reducing US emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and by 80 percent by 2050, using a cap-and-trade system and a 10-year programme worth 150 billion dollars in renewable energy.

Copyright 2008 -- Agence France-Presse

The Atlantic hurricane season officially ended Sunday, marking the close of the second-most-costly season since 2005, and the fourth-busiest season overall since 1944. This year was "the only year on record in which a major hurricane existed in every month from July through November in the north Atlantic," according to the National Climatic Data Center.

source: CNN

On the eve of the next round of United Nations climate-treaty talks in Poznan, Poland, U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer warned the world's nations against a "cheap and dirty" fix for the economy that could set back climate progress. "We must now focus on the opportunities for green growth that can put the global economy onto a stable and sustainable path," he said.

sources: Reuters, Associated Press

BERLIN, Nov 26 -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged the EU Wednesday not to water down its climate protection goals in the face of a global recession and called for a worldwide deal on slashing CO2 emissions.

"I say here very clearly that I do not believe it would be right to sacrifice the well-founded climate goals of the European Union," Merkel told parliament during a debate on the federal budget.

The EU has fixed an ambitious triple objective for itself to achieve by 2020 the so-called 20-20-20 goals: a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels, bringing renewable energy use up to 20 percent of the total, and an overall cut of 20 percent in energy use.

Merkel originally launched the climate change/energy plan during Germany's EU presidency last year.

"That was our goal and that remains our goal," Merkel said.

A compromise on a binding deal may be reached on the issue during an EU summit in Brussels in mid-December.

The current text calls for some energy-intensive industries to pay for pollution rights starting in 2013.

Nearly 10,000 European firms currently benefit each year from free emissions rights when they exceed authorised pollution levels and some have called for diluting the EU plan until the economic crisis has passed.

Making companies pay for those rights is particularly contested in Germany, which is still home to several heavy industries, in particular the chemicals sector.

An unpublished economy ministry report leaked to the German press Tuesday said Germany could lose more than 100,000 jobs if the EU makes industries pay for pollution rights that are free at present.

Merkel acknowledged that Europe should not hobble itself in international competition considering that "outside Europe there is no (emission-rights) certificates system on a major scale".

"This must be negotiated... so jobs are not endangered," she said.

She said Germany was "pleased" that US president-elect Barack Obama "makes the impression that he is more open to climate protection" than President George W. Bush.

"We will have many opportunities to test that out this year and next year but we of course need an even playing field worldwide," she said.

The Polish city of Poznan will host a UN climate conference from December 1-12 to prepare the ground for talks in Copenhagen in December 2009 to complete a draft international treaty on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

The aim of the international accord, which will be the most complex and ambitious environmental deal ever attempted, is also to channel funds, technology and expertise to poor countries bearing the brunt of climate change.

Copyright 2008 -- Agence France-Presse

The 2,400 solar panels covering the roof of a giant concert hall in the Vatican were activated on Wednesday. And seeing that now the pope is open to solar systems, Galileo shook his fist in his grave.

sources: Reuters, Catholic News Service, Agence France-Presse
see also, in Grist: 
• Pollution is on Vatican's updated list of moral sins
• Pope urges youth to care for the planet
• A Grist special series on God & the Environment

Broadway went green on Tuesday with the official announcement of the creatively named Broadway Goes Green effort. Think neon signs lit with energy-efficient bulbs, costumes washed with eco-friendly detergent, and programs printed with water-soluble ink. Oh, the drama!

source: The New York Times

The Bureau of Land Management on Tuesday partially backed off from unpopular plans to open land near Utah national parks to oil and gas drilling. BLM deferred leasing about one-third of the 93 tracts that the National Park Service had objected could contaminate parks with noise, water, and air pollution; the rest will still go on the auction block Dec. 19.

sources: Associated Press, The Salt Lake Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Deseret News
see also, in Grist: Obama looks to reverse Bush's drilling efforts in Utah

Los Angeles will source one-tenth of its energy from solar power by 2020 under a plan unveiled Monday by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Considering the town's many celebrities, a plan to tap star power is certainly forthcoming.

source: Los Angeles Times

Big Auto cannot sue to keep Rhode Island from enforcing tighter vehicle emissions standards, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Ernest Torres said, essentially, that pending cases were pointless and a waste of time, seeing as automakers have already lost similar battles in California and Vermont.

sources: The AM Law Daily, Associated Press

Children who moved into FEMA trailers after losing their homes in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have alarming rates of sickness and mental health problems, according to an in-depth review of medical records. Forty-two percent of the children studied suffer from respiratory troubles that may be linked to formaldehyde in the trailers.

sources: USA Today, Newsweek

A new legal quota set Monday for Atlantic bluefin tuna is a "mockery of science" and may cause the tuna population to collapse, green group WWF warned. The 46 member nations of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas set the annual quota at some 24,000 tons, defying scientists' recommendations that it be lowered to 16,500 tons.

sources: BBC News, Associated Press, The Guardian

An eight-year study of ocean pH levels off the Northwest coast of the United States found that pollution is increasing the ocean's acidity about 10 or 20 times faster than previously thought and that the process is already significantly disrupting ocean ecology.

source: BBC News

Independent bookseller Powell's Books, based in Portland, Ore., will go partly solar next month with a 100-kilowatt solar system affixed to its warehouse that will provide enough juice to power about one-quarter of its online bookstore, Powells.com, that's housed inside.

source: Solar Daily

The Humane Society of the United States has sued a handful of fur retailers and designers for allegedly misrepresenting some real fur products as fake fur and for improperly labeling other fur products as coming from foxes, rabbits, or raccoons when they're really made from a species of dog in Asia, according to the suit.

source: Associated Press

The environmental community is mourning the death last week of Joan Bavaria, a pioneer of socially responsible investing and founder of Ceres. In 2007, she opined in Grist about the future of SRI.

source: SustainableBusiness.com

A mob of some 3,000 people trashed a government office in Paragominas, Brazil, on Monday to protest the government's crackdown on illegal logging. Environment Minister Carlos Minc says the riot will not deter anti-logging efforts.

sources: Associated Press, Associated Press

In its 10th Guide to Green Electronics, Greenpeace deems Nokia the greenest company, followed by Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and Toshiba. But, says Greenpeace, neither those companies nor most of their techie brethren are supporting global efforts to cut greenhouse-gas emissions or making much headway on cutting their own.

source: Greenpeace

The federal government has poured billions of dollars into building up a fleet of 112,000 flex-fuel vehicles capable of running on an ethanol blend -- but the attempt to move away from fossil fuels has so far largely failed, as 92 percent of the vehicles still run on straight gasoline.

source: The Washington Post