China announces pledge to curb carbon emissions
By Julian Borger and Suzanne Goldenberg
Tuesday 22 September 2009 20.00 BST
The world inched closer to an elusive deal to combat climate change today when China, the planet's biggest polluter, made its most substantial commitment to curbing its carbon emissions and investing in clean energy.
The proposals, delivered by President Hu Jintao, on the first morning of this week's UN general assembly meeting, included the promise of a "notable" decrease in the carbon intensity of China's economy - the amount of emissions for each unit of economic output - by 2020.
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In today's speech, President Hu said his country would plant forests across an area the size of Norway, and generate 15% of its energy needs within a decade. "China has provided impressive leadership," said Al Gore, the former US vice-president and leading climate activist. "It's not widely known in the rest of the world but China in each of the last two years has planted two and half times more trees than the entire rest of the world put together."
The official US reaction was more muted. Todd Stern, President Barack Obama's special envoy for climate change, said Hu's pledge on carbon intensity was welcome in principle, but added: "It depends on what the number is." |
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Forests fight back as Indonesia tackles illegal palm oil
By Gillian Murdoch
Tue Sep 22, 2009 8:38pm EDT
For decades, the roar of the chainsaw has meant one thing in Indonesia's national parks: illegal loggers ripping down the rainforest.
Now, the whirring blades are part of a fight back to cut out illegal palm oil from the international supply chain and slow the deforestation that has pushed Indonesia's carbon emissions sky high, threatening the destruction of some of the world's most ecologically important tropical forests and their animals.
In the country's first, symbolic action to stop the lucrative crop's march into protected lands a chainsaw-wielding alliance led by the Aceh Conservation Agency (BPKEL), Acehnese NGOs, and police teams are sweeping tens of thousands of hectares of illegal palm from the 2.5 million hectare Leuser Ecosystem. |
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GE Stresses Wind Over Nuclear Power, Senator Says
By Daniel Whitten
Sept. 22
General Electric Co., the biggest maker of power-generation equipment, appears to be focused on renewable energy sources such as windmills rather than the nuclear power needed to combat global warming, Senator Lamar Alexander said.
The Tennessee Republican is a nuclear-power booster who has called for 100 reactors in the next 20 years as the Senate weighs legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions. GE said it remains committed to nuclear energy.
"Have you seen all those GE ads for windmills?" Alexander said yesterday in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. "Now have you seen any GE ads in this day of concern about climate change that says that 70 percent of our carbon-free electricity comes from nuclear power? I haven’t seen any." |
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New Tire Rack Test Confirms Low Rolling Resistance Tires Equal Increased Fuel Efficiency, Reduced Emissions
By (Tire Rack)
September 22, 2009, 8:33 am EDT
Following a recent test at its South Bend, IN test track, Tire Rack, America's largest independent tire tester, today published a comprehensive report analyzing the effectiveness of eco-friendly, low rolling resistance (LRR) tires. In its published report, Tire Rack confirms that using LRR tires is an effective way for consumers to save money while reducing carbon emissions through increased fuel efficiency.
As manufacturers continue to release more and more eco-friendly tire models, Tire Rack conducted a Real World Road Ride Economy Run to determine whether lower rolling resistance tires are effective at increasing fuel efficiency. The test, which used a small fleet of Toyota Prius hybrids outfitted with the Goodyear Integrity all-season radial tires as a baseline, compared its fuel efficiency and traction to other eco-friendly and standard tire models.
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In the case of the Prius, the difference between the lowest and highest recorded miles per gallon would result in an annual difference of about 21 gallons of regular gasoline consumed at a cost of about $52.50 (at $2.50/gallon) for drivers traveling 15,000 miles a year. The fuel economy recorded for each tire and its relative position compared to the Integrity tire's average is available at www.tirerack.com/mpgtest. |
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Aussie oil spill set to continue leaking: company
By (AFP)
Tue Sep 22, 4:45 am ET
The company at the centre of a massive oil spill off Australia's northwest said Tuesday it was still about two weeks away from plugging the leak, which has already been gushing for more than a month.
An estimated 400 barrels of oil has spilled daily into the Timor Sea since the West Atlas drilling rig began leaking on August 21, forcing the evacuation of 69 workers, according to Bangkok-headquartered PTTEP Australasia. |
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China's largest oil producer vows for another 50 yrs prominence
By (Xinhua)
2009-09-22 17:23
Daqing Oilfield, China's largest oil producer, vows for another 50 years prominence in the country's petroleum industry.
Wang Yongchun, general manager of Daqing Oilfield Co Ltd, said Tuesday the oilfield would remain an important energy base and continue to contribute a large proportion of China's energy supplies up to 2060.
Wang said factors such as adequate underground fossil resources, scientific progress and well-trained personnel would help achieve this end. |
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Green power line to Los Angeles hits roadblock
By Laura Isensee
Tue Sep 22, 2009 8:30pm EDT
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa wants to make Los Angeles the "cleanest, greenest big city" in the United States, but a key project to bring renewable energy across the desert to the city could change under pressure from environmental groups.
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the largest U.S. municipal utility with 4 million customers, wants to build an 85-mile transmission line for clean energy, called the Green Path North transmission line.
Activists have decried a proposed path that would cut through the Yucca Valley, two wildlife preserves and the San Bernardino National Forest.
Building transmission lines to bring in power from solar and wind farms has raised environmental and permitting issues across the nation. |
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Saudi Aramco Commits to More Gas Exploration
By Margaret Coker
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Saudi Arabian Oil Co., the world's biggest oil company, will continue exploring for natural gas resources in the country as it seeks to meet rapidly rising demand in the Middle East's largest economy, its top executive said Tuesday.
"The kingdom is committed to further natural gas exploration because the kingdom needs more gas" for its own internal consumption and demand, Saudi Aramco's chief executive Khalid Al Falih said, speaking at the new King Abdullah University for Science and Technology campus, located north of Jeddah on the Red Sea coast.
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He added that there were also positive signs from Aramco's joint venture with Russia's Lukoil, better known as Luksar, which is exploring parts of the kingdom's giant Empty Quarter desert for gas. |
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Refitted to Bury Emissions, Plant Draws Attention
By MATTHEW L. WALD
September 21, 2009
Poking out of the ground near the smokestacks of the Mountaineer power plant here are two wells that look much like those that draw natural gas to the surface. But these are about to do something new: inject a power plant’s carbon dioxide into the earth.
A behemoth built in 1980, long before global warming stirred broad concern, Mountaineer is poised to become the world’s first coal-fired power plant to capture and bury some of the carbon dioxide it churns out. The hope is that the gas will stay deep underground for millennia rather than entering the atmosphere as a heat-trapping pollutant.
The experiment, which the company says could begin in the next few days, is riveting the world’s coal-fired electricity sector, which is under growing pressure to develop technology to capture and store carbon dioxide. Visitors from as far as China and India, which are struggling with their own coal-related pollution, have been trooping through the plant. |
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Book Review - Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil
By Robert Rapier
September 22, 2009 - 2:00pm
The subtitle of the book is The Violent Twilight of Oil. The book talks about the twilight of oil, but as the chapter titles imply the focus is less on the twilight and more on the seedy side of the business. The book notes that there are some countries like Norway, Canada, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Brunei to which oil appears to have generally benefited the population as a whole. But then there are also many cases in which the discovery of oil seems to have brought many problems to the population. (The book suggests that countries with established democracies and strong self identities are less likely to suffer following the discovery of oil).
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Crude World was released today, September 22, 2009. The general theme of the book is that the world's dependence on oil has come at a very high price. This is not a book on peak oil, climate change, or renewable energy. It is not a technical book on the oil industry (for that see Morgan Downey's Oil 101). The book covers the misery - the wars, the corruption, and the ruined lives - brought about primarily by greed from the lure of black gold. The book highlights the irony that oil could be used to improve the lives of a country's citizens, but in far too many cases a country's citizens end up being worse off after oil is discovered. The book was a fascinating read, and I couldn't put it down once I started it. Now I can get back to my regularly scheduled reading. |
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Water damage in the Pacific
By Elizabeth Tuttle
September 22, 2009 20:06 ET
The Republic of Kiribati — whose 33 tiny, low-lying islands are sprinkled across an enormous swath of the Central Pacific — will be the first country to completely disappear under the waters of global warming, according to climate change experts.
I-Kiribati, as it is known, is tropical paradise decorated by clear waters, languid palm trees and blazing sunsets. But it has also suffered from overcrowding, a longstanding problem exacerbated after residents of the lowest-lying atolls were forced to relocate to other islands due to overcrowding.
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As rising sea levels flood backyards and creep into living rooms, refugees have left Kiribati, taking with them its economy and culture. Mass emigration from overcrowding has scattered an ever-increasing diaspora of Kiribati’s people across New Zealand, Australia and Asia, where they often struggle to earn even a living wage. |
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Japan's new government stands by whaling
By (AFP)
September 22, 2009
Japan's new government urged Australia on Tuesday to help prevent violent attacks by activists on Japanese whalers as it stood by the country's traditional support for whaling, an official said.
Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada met his Australian counterpart Stephen Smith on the sidelines of this year's UN General Assembly.
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Smith stopped short of replying to the request, only saying Australia wants to resolve the dispute through dialogue to avoid straining relations.
"Our minister did not clearly state that the new Japanese government supports whaling, but I understand that his remarks were quite in line with the stance held by our previous cabinet on the subject," the official said. |
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China's climate pledge is more terminology than substance
By Jonathan Watts
Tuesday 22 September 2009 17.43 BST
The "c word" entered the vocabulary of a Chinese president for the first time today, as Hu Jintao promised his country would set its first carbon target for 2020. Overall greenhouse gas emissions will not fall, but the fossil fuels burned in powering each surge of the economy will decline - a cut in so-called carbon intensity.
For the moment, it is a breakthrough of terminology more than substance. But in promising such a goal, Hu has effectively declared that China - the world's biggest polluter - has an important card to play in negotiations towards a global climate change treaty in Copenhagen.
Until now, China has not included carbon emissions in its economic planning, though government officials have been working on a new methodology, based primarily on existing targets for energy efficiency.
How significant this new target proves to be will depend on the amount. During his speech to the United Nations, Hu coyly kept that figure close to his chest, saying only that China would reduce the quantity of its carbon emissions relative to GDP by a "notable margin". |
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Electricity costs should move to reflect demand: Chu
By Ayesha Rascoe
Tue Sep 22, 2009 3:35pm EDT
As the United States' power grid becomes more sophisticated, electricity rates will need to rise to reflect periods of intense energy use and to encourage consumers to change their electricity habits, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said on Monday.
Chu said currently most local electricity rate commissions view themselves as consumer advocates and try to keep electricity prices as low as possible.
"Hopefully that will evolve somewhat, so that they begin to fold in some of the real costs of electricity generation and electricity use," Chu said at conference focused on creating a "smart grid." |
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Storing CO2 in soil should be on U.N. agenda: Gore
By Timothy Gardner
Tue Sep 22, 2009 6:03pm EDT
Developing emissions markets to encourage farmers in poor countries to store more carbon dioxide in soil should be a key topic on the U.N. climate talks agenda, global warming activist Al Gore said.
"I think that soil carbon conservation and recarbonizing of soil must be the next stage in this negotiating process," former U.S. Vice President Gore told reporters on the sidelines of a climate conference at the United Nations.
Agriculturists can store more carbon in soil through techniques such as no-till farming that leaves crop residue on the ground instead of plowing it up and releasing the carbon into the atmosphere, or through crop rotations. |
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