Climate Change News
Below are news items on climate change – many with relevance to aviation
Big Economies Try to Break Climate Impasse Before G8
Ministers and senior officials from the Major Economies Forum meeting in Rome are hoping to break the deadlock between rich and poor nations over 2050 goals for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions - before the G8 summit. The MEF nations account for 80% of world emissions. If deadlock persists President Barack Obama would end the July 9 meeting with just a "chair's summary" rather than a statement agreed by all 17 MEF leaders.
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Publication of the Committee on Climate Change’s Aviation Report – will be 8 Dec 2009
The CCC is producing a review of UK Aviation emissions on the request of the Secretary of State for Transport. This report will assess future demand and aviation emissions and comment on airport expansion, modal shift to other forms of transport i.e. high-speed rail, the use of sustainable biofuels and hydrogen and improvements that can be made to the carbon efficiency of planes. It will report in December 2009. (CCC)
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US Seen Backing Climate Target At G8
The US will agree to a goal to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius at next week's Group of Eight summit. "The 2 degrees may even be included in the MEF (17-member Major Economies Forum) text. But at the moment, it is bracketed," an official said ahead of the July 8-10 meeting in Italy. Next week's climate summit is meant to help drive global agreement on a new UN-led climate pact in Copenhagen in December, to replace Kyoto.(Planet Ark)
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“We can either heat our homes and have hot baths, or fly but not both”
A meeting of experts at the Royal Society said the government must invest hugely to create a new low-carbon economy. The group's vice-chairman, Lord Redesdale, said the UK would never reach its climate change targets unless it radically improved policies on existing homes. He said: "A billion tonnes will have failed to be saved from domestic carbon emissions and this is equivalent to the CO2 pollution from Britain's aviation sector over the next 25 years."
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Barack Obama’s US climate change bill passes key Congress vote
The US Congress has voted to reduce the carbon emissions. The House of Representatives has voted 219 to 212 to bind the US to cutting CO2 emissions by 17% from 2005 levels in 2020 and 83% in 2050. It will also set up a national cap and trade system. Democrats claimed the bill as an important victory. It must still clear the Senate before it can be signed into law. The vote also helps the prospects of reaching an agreement at Copenhagen. (Guardian)
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Government’s Copenhagen announcement – Friends of the Earth reaction
Responding to the Government's announcement of its manifesto for achieving global agreement at Copenhagen, FoE commented that Government's recognition that finance is key to breaking the deadlock in the stalled UN talks offers some hope of progress, but we will not achieve the necessary cuts by the con of carbon offsetting. Offsetting through expanding carbon markets will neither tackle climate change nor set Britain on a low carbon path to new green future.
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UK to outline emission cut plans
The prime minister is to pledge UK leadership in the international battle against climate change, launching a document showing what the UK will offer to the Copenhagen conference. Climate Secretary Ed Miliband described the conference as "make or break time for the climate". The Road to Copenhagen document will outline plans for ongoing emissions cuts in the UK. However, it excludes shipping and aviation and embodied carbon in imports. (BBC)
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Scotland – Bill to cut carbon emissions 80% by 2050
MSPs have put Scotland on course to go further than any industrialised nation in cutting greenhouse gas emissions after unanimously passing a Climate Change Bill that set targets for cuts at 42% by 2020 and 80% by 2050. The Bill seeks to impose controls on international aviation and shipping emissions, proposes the electrification of railways and greater use of power generated by low-carbon methods. The interim target set in the UK Bill is 34% by 2020. (Times)
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Carbon targets ‘dangerously optimistic’
Professor Kevin Anderson, the director of the Tyndall Centre, has warned MPs that the government's climate change policies are "dangerously optimistic". He said the UK's planned carbon cuts – if followed internationally – would have a "50-50 chance" of limiting the rise of global temperatures to 2C. The two departments most directly involved with climate policy do not have enough power, compared to powerful departments, such as that run by Lord Mandelson. (Guardian)
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Levy on international air travel could fund climate change fight
At the 2nd week in the latest round of UK climate talks in Bonn, it was suggested that Britain and other rich countries are asked to accept a compulsory levy on international flight tickets and shipping fuel to raise billions of dollars to help the world's poorest countries adapt to combat climate change. The aviation levy, which is expected to increase the price of long-haul fares by less than 1%, would raise £6.25bn a year. (Guardian)