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Archive for December 3rd, 2012
Dealing with loss and damage
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 3rd, 2012
IRIN: In a formal letter to Qatar - host of the 18th conference of the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) - a coalition of 40 NGOs, backed by academics, has called for urgent action on loss and damage caused by climate change. The NGOs have drawn up a framework to help country negotiators address the contentious issue.
The proposed framework opens the door for developing countries to possibly receive compensation for losses and damages that are incurred when efforts to...
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Greenland and Antarctica ice melt accelerating, pushing sea levels higher
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 3rd, 2012
Mongabay: A massive team of scientists have used multiple methods to provide the best assessment yet of ice loss at the world's poles, including Greenland and a number of Antarctic ice sheets. Their findings-that all major ice sheets are shrinking but one; that ice loss is speeding up; and that this is contributing to the rise in sea levels-add more evidence to the real-time impacts from global climate change. Melting ice sheets at the poles have raised sea levels 11.1 millimeters, or about 20 percent of observed...
First Study of Its Kind Detects 44 Hazardous Air Pollutants at Gas Drilling Sites
Posted by Inside Climate News: Lisa Song on December 3rd, 2012
Inside Climate News: For years, the controversy over natural gas drilling has focused on the water and air quality problems linked to hydraulic fracturing, the process where chemicals are blasted deep underground to release tightly bound natural gas deposits. But a new study reports that a set of chemicals called non-methane hydrocarbons, or NMHCs, is found in the air near drilling sites even when fracking isn't in progress. According to a peer-reviewed study in the journal Human and Ecological Risk Assessment, more...
Antarctic Melting and Sea Level
Posted by Environmental News Network: Andy Soos on December 3rd, 2012
Environmental News Network: Due to its location at the South Pole, Antarctica receives relatively little solar radiation. This means that it is a very cold continent where water is mostly in the form of ice or snow. This accumulates and forms a giant ice sheet which covers the land. New data which more accurately measures the rate of ice-melt could help us better understand how Antarctica is changing in the light of global warming. The rate of global sea level change is reasonably well-established but understanding the different...
United Kingdom: Push for gas-fired power stations
Posted by BBC: Roger Harrabin on December 3rd, 2012
BBC: The government is to unveil its contentious gas strategy this week.
Chancellor George Osborne has ruled that gas should continue to play a role in day-to-day electricity generation beyond 2030.
He has over-ruled official climate change advisers who want gas to be used almost exclusively to back up nuclear and renewables by then.
Also in the next two weeks, DECC will rule on whether controversial drilling for shale gas will go ahead in the UK.
Environmentalists say shale gas could become...
Obama pipeline decision may preview energy policy
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 3rd, 2012
Associated Press: It's a decision President Barack Obama put off during the 2012 campaign, but now that he's won a second term, his next move on a proposed oil pipeline between the U.S. and Canada may signal how he will deal with climate and energy issues in the four years ahead.
Obama is facing increasing pressure to determine the fate of the $7 billion Keystone XL project, with environmental activists and oil producers each holding out hope that the president, freed from the political constraints of re-election,...
Stark evidence of polar ice melt
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 3rd, 2012
Agence France-Presse: The melting of polar ice caps raised sea levels by nearly 11 millimetres in the past two decades, scientists say, calling it the most definitive measure yet of the impact of climate change. There have been more than 30 previous estimates of whether and how much the ice caps are shrinking. But the numbers were often vague, with wide ranges, and different studies sometimes contradicted each other, the researchers said. The new study, released November 30, in the US journal Science, combines data...