World's Most Important Crops Already Being Affected By Climate Change

The Independent, UK

Published: 19 March 2007

Global warming over the past quarter century has led to a fall in the yield of some of the most important food crops in the world, according to one of the first scientific studies of how climate change has affected cereal crops.

Rising temperatures between 1981 and 2002 caused aloss in production of wheat, corn and barley that amounted in effect to some 40 million tons a year - equivalent to annual losses of some £2.6bn.

Although these numbers are not large compared to the world-wide production of cereal crops, scientists warned that the findings demonstrated how climate change was already having an impact on the global production of staple foods. "Most people tend to think of climate change as something that will impact the future, but this study shows that warming over the past two decades has already had real effects on global food supply," said Christopher Field of the Carnegie Institution in Stanford, California.

The study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, analysed yields of cereals from around the world during a period when average temperatures rose by about 0.7C between 1980 and 2002 - although the rise was even higher in certain crop-growing regions of the world.

There was a clear trend, showing the cereal crops were suffering from lower yields during a time when agricultural technology, including the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, became more intensive. The study's co-author, David Lobell of America's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, said that the observed fall in cereal yields could be clearly linked with increased temperatures during the period covered by the study.

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Maine Climate Summit says Thank You!

We just received this lovely little note from the organizers of the Maine Climate Summit.

Watch these folks for great things in the coming years as they graduate and go on to save the world.

A great blog for keeping tabs on the youth climate movement is www.itsgettinghotinhere.org

also check out www.sustainUS.org for some great youth sustainability movement info.

Can China Go Green?

16.03.2007

Pollution is invariably one of the first impressions visitors form of China. From bicycles to cars in 25 years, urban China rarely sees much in the way of blue sky anymore. Rapid and large-scale industrialization only compounds the problem. The Chinese government knows full well it must take prompt and forceful actions to avoid an environmental crisis. There are encouraging signs it is now rising to the occasion. Can China pull it off while, at the same time, staying the course of its remarkable economic development strategy?

What is the scale of China's pollution problem?

On a per capita basis, China’s pollution problem hardly jumps off the page. Its ratio of carbon emissions per person is less than half the global average and less than one-tenth that of the world’s biggest polluter – the United States. China’s enormous population, of course, distorts those comparisons. On an absolute basis, it’s a different story altogether. China’s total carbon emissions are more than double those of Japan and Russia, fractionally behind the European Union, and a little more than half those of the US. The essence of the Chinese environmental degradation problem is both its scale and growth. Over the 1992–2002 period, CO2 emissions in China have expanded at a 3.7% average annual rate – more than two and a half times the global average of 1.4%. At that rate, according to a recent report issued by the International Energy Agency, China will surpass the United States as the global leader in carbon emissions by 2009.

Read more about China's pollution problems here.

Clean Energy Market Expected To Reach $230 Billion In 10 Years

Revenues from clean energy will grow to $226.5 billion in the next decade, up from $55.4 billion last year, according to Clean Edge. In its annual report on clean energy, the US-based cleantech consultancy said that the market for biofuels, wind power, solar photovoltaics (PV), fuel cells and hydrogen grew 39% in the last year, and is expected to quadruple by 2016.

Much of this growth will come from the biofuels sector, which it expects to expand from a $20.5 billion business in 2006 to an $80.9 billion a year business in 2016.

Solar power revenues are also set to grow to $69.3 billion from $15.6 billion over the same period, with wind expanding more slowly from $17.9 billion to $60.8 billion. Revenues from fuel cells will also rise from $1.4 billion in 2006 to $15.6 billion in 2016, the report projects.

Ron Pernick, a principle at Clean Edge, said that one of the factors behind last year's growth was the growing acceptance of the science of climate change. "The most ardent nay-sayers began to change their tune," he said.

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LogicaCMG, Asia Carbon sign agreement for first Asian carbon credit exchange

KUALA LUMPUR (XFN-ASIA) - LogicaCMG said it has signed an agreement with Asia Carbon (ACX-Change) to set up Asia's first carbon credit exchange and establish national registries for key Asian countries.

Under the terms of the agreement, LogicaCMG will provide the technical expertise to establish a web-based trading platform to facilitate buying and selling in carbon assets.

At the same time, it will also study the possibility of facilitating the setting up of other exchanges in several Asian cities under the Asia Carbon banner, it said in a statement.

EU Sets Green Energy Targets

Dan Bilefsky
Published March 9, 2007

The European Union on Friday drafted a compromise agreement that would make Europe the world leader in the fight against climate change, but that would also allow some of Europe's most polluting countries to limit their environmental goals.

The draft agreement, reached after two days of heated negotiations, commits the bloc to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by the year 2020. It also will require the EU to derive a fifth of its energy from renewable sources like wind and solar energy, while fueling 10 percent of its cars and trucks on biofuels made from plants.

But under pressure from several countries of the former Soviet bloc, which rely heavily on cheap coal and oil for their energy and are reluctant to switch to more costly environmentally friendly alternatives, the EU agreed that individual targets would be allowed for each of the 27 EU members to meet the renewable energy goal.

That means that Europe's worst polluters in the fast-growing economies of the East will probably face less stringent targets than their Western counterparts.

Many of the eight former Communist nations that joined the EU in May 2004 are far behind the rest of the union in developing renewable energy. Poland, for example, derives more than 90 percent of its energy for heating from coal.

During the negotiations, landlocked countries like Slovakia and Hungary argued that developing solar and wind- based energy would burden them unfairly.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said that the agreement would help the EU become a model for the rest of the world. "This text really gives European Union policies a new quality and will establish us as a world pioneer," she said. She said she planned to press the issue in June at a meeting in Germany of the Group of 8 nations, including the United States, Japan and Russia.

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House Approves Global Warming Committee

Associated Press
Published March 9, 2007

WASHINGTON - Democrats in the House of Representatives, intent on making climate change a marquee issue, created a special panel Thursday to study and offer recommendations on how to deal with global warming.

The Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, advanced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat, was approved on a vote of 269-150. A majority of Republicans voted against it, arguing that the committee was unnecessary or that its budget could be used better by the ethics committee.

"Global warming may be the greatest challenge of our time, setting at risk our economy, environment and national security," Pelosi said in a statement. With the new committee, "the House is giving these issues the high visibility they deserve."

The committee, comprising nine Democrats and six Republicans, will be chaired by Democratic Rep. Edward Markey. It will hold hearings and recommend legislation but in a concession to existing committees will not write legislation and will exist for only two years.

Click here to read more about the committee, or here to read Speaker Pelosi's press statement.