All the efforts currently being made to halt the loss of biodiversity could be fruitless because of the global climate change, considered as a serious threat to vulnerable ecosystems such as rain forests (or Yungas)
The Princeton proposal establishes a uniform "cap" on emissions that individuals should not exceed (represented by the green line). If, for example, an international treaty caps global emissions at a certain level, the necessary reductions in global emissions could be achieved if no individual's emissions could exceed a certain "cap." By counting the excess emissions of all the individuals who are projected to surpass the "cap" (red arrows), the proposal provides emissions reduction targets for each country (blue arrows).
Recent commitments about innovation systems in Colombia and South Africa are encouraging. They send a powerful signal to other developing countries that systems of innovation must form the heart of development policies. Challenges to implementing systems of innovation are acute for developing countries, yet so are the benefits — not only for local businesses, but for public services such as health, agriculture and environmental protection.
The bill allows for up to 2 billion tonnes of offsets a year, split 50/50 between domestic and international activities. Domestic offsets – generated by unregulated sources of greenhouse gases, not covered by the carbon cap – would mainly come from forestry and agriculture. International offsets would be generated from activities that reduce forest loss, as well as sectoral crediting mechanisms, and other programs.
...However, something quite remarkable has occurred in less than 12 months.
The convergence of first the food and fuel crises followed by the financial and now economic crisis have triggered a global response in terms of political cooperation and the mobilizing of stimulus packages of almost unimaginable proportions. The question now is how will the around $3 trillion-worth of stimulus packages be spent-on the old brown economy or a new Green one that might set the stage for a truly sustainable century? An economy able to deal with multiple challenges-from food and fuel to climate change, employment and natural resource constraints-as integrated and inter-linked ones....Investing one per cent of global GDP, or around $750 billion, into five key sectors could be the key to a Global Green New Deal. Broadly those five sectors are:-
Raising the energy efficiency of old and new buildings
Renewable energies including wind, solar, geothermal and biomass
Sustainable transport including hybrid vehicles; high speed rail and bus rapid transit systems
The planet's ecological infrastructure including freshwaters, forests, soils and coral reefs
Sustainable agriculture including organic production
The Policy Brief also calls for a range of specific measures aimed at assisting poorer countries to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and green their economies.
A new report from the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements outlines several promising ideas that could succeed the Kyoto Protocol. The report also provides guidance on the most intractable challenges facing global climate negotiators, including participation by developing countries, how to reduce deforestation, and how to prevent a "collision" between climate policy and international trade law.
Natural resources are approximately 60% of total exports in the subregion
Countries are not isolated environmentally: 11 of 55 ecoregions are shared
and transnational
Study was launched in the framework of the Ninth Meeting of Ministers of
Environment of the Mercosur and Associated States, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. November 14, 2008.
Energy needs a thorough makeover.
The 20th century energy paradigm is not sustainable in a carbon-constrained world.
A clean energy transformation can be the equivalent of the New Deal, which got people off breadlines to build bridges, stadiums and schools, and the Apollo project, which put a man on the moon. Energy is the public works project of our time, to create jobs, clean our environment, and improve the competitiveness of our businesses.
The author comments on a recently published book by THomas Friedman "Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution-and How It Can Renew America"
In fact, as it is now, based on the governmental mantra about liberalization of the international market of such commodities, Brazil exports land – wood products, iron and ore, raw agricultural
products and alike. In other words, Brazil basically mines natural resources and the government made of this mining a center piece of its development strategy. Not very wise, not at all creative.
A post-2012 international agreement on climate change must break new ground in
international cooperation. It will require consciously promoting a collaborative atmosphere of
trust and a sense of common interest similar to the ‘spirit of Montreal’ that has characterized
twenty years of international cooperation since the Montreal Protocol on protecting the ozone
layer. A post-2012 agreement must aim to promote a global technological revolution that will
transform the world’s energy system within a few decades. While the scope is huge, it can be
focused, recognizing that only about 25 nations – including both developed and rapidly
industrializing nations – account for about 85 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas
emissions.
In this letter we present the key messages coming from the Conference for your consideration.
While these are meant to contribute to the consideration of technology and finance issues in
the course of international negotiations leading up to the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties
in Copenhagen in 2009, they should also be useful in the discussion of these issues in other
fora.
At this stage, available information indicates that Brazil will keep its role in the production of agricultural products with little aggregated value – based on its large territorial availability – while paying royalties for technology that has a high aggregated value. Put in simple words, only more of the same.
NGO PRISMA proposes a feasible and replicable model to supply power to small isolated communities in the Amazone. It addresses properly community ownership, involvement of the local utility, and renewable energy solutions; it gathers all key elements to promote sustainable development and local social inclusion.
In the last decades, the mining and metallurgical industries worldwide, including Chilean companies, have had to modify their technological processes to meet the environmental regulations required by their governments, as well as to deal with the public opinion. For example, between 1989 and 2002, the five State Chilean copper smelters invested over US$ 1.5 billion in their operations to comply with the new air quality standards (particulate matter and sulfur dioxide) and of arsenic emissions regulation. These investments generated an important market for gases handling systems.
Type 2 energy partnerships are young, but seem to be finding a role in the global clean energy marketplace. At times this is a precarious spot located between the private sector, development banks, NGOs and the regions and communities who desperately require access to clean, affordable energy.
The economic success in Central and South American has been accompanied by a steady increase in energy demand. The present article sets out to assess how governments are dealing with this new matter.
Energy security looks possibly for the present at least, to become a greater concern to many governments than climate change. The recent G8 summit in St. Petersburg, for instance, manifested this. The present article sets out to assess this prospect--and also to see where UN agreements, such as CDMs, fit in to current and future possibilities.
The Energy Efficiency Investment Forum (EEIF), attended by over 110 international experts on EE, held in New York last month, provided an excellent forum for presentation and debate on the state of the global EE market, coming as it did alongside the wider debate on future energy needs at the CSD within the United Nations. If there was one theme that emerged from the EEIF, it was that while energy savings could provide perhaps a 50% reduction in global energy demand, the realisation of such savings is still an uphill battle.
