Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Climate change and global warming are adversely affecting the world and recent heavy downpours that broke the 35-year-old records caused by global climate change, said Federal Minister for Environment Hameedullah Jan Afridi on Wednesday.

He was addressing a two-day workshop on “environment and climate change”, organised by the Ministry of Environment in collaboration with United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and University of Peshawar. “Despite the fact that Pakistan is not a major contributor to the global warming, emitting only 0.4 percent of total GHG emissions and ranks 135th in per capita per day emissions, the country is severely being effected by the impacts of climate change,” said Afridi.

Food, water and energy security have also been threatened by the global warming. According to modern studies, wheat yield would be reduced by 5-6 percent by 2080 because of the climate change.

The Minister said that being vulnerable to the consequences of this change the country was in growing need to protect itself from the adverse impacts of climate change. “National Environment policy 2005 provides guidelines and priorities for implementation of climate change issues”, he added.

He underlined that inter-ministerial committee has also been established under the Prime Minister to address the environmental problems and The Global Change Impact Studies Center that was secretariat for the committee undertaking comprehensive research on climate-related issues. “Preparation of Environment and Climate Change Outlook report will be very helpful and policy aspects of the report will assist in reducing risks, developing robust coping strategies and creating synergies between various governmental agencies and other factors dealing with climate change.”

He wished that this workshop would be an initiative for all of us, not only to discuss the various issues pertaining to the environment and climate change rather actively participating in the process.

A group of major investors are calling on oil companies to disclose their plans to prevent and respond to spills caused by deep-water drilling operations.

They said Thursday that they were prompted to act by the major financial losses that BP PLC will suffer from the spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

In a letter to the CEOs of 27 oil and gas companies and 26 insurance companies, they wrote that all companies involved in drilling must be “open and transparent with investors and stakeholders at this crucial historic moment.” They asked the CEOs to respond by Nov. 1.

The 58 investors, who claim to manage $2.5 trillion in assets, include the New York state comptroller, the California state treasurer and a U.K. pension fund authority. The letter-writing campaign was organized with the help of Ceres, a group of investors and environmentalists.

Among the companies getting the letters are the major deep-water producers Petrobras of Brazil, Texas-based Exxon Mobil Corp. and Netherlands-based Royal Dutch Shell PLC.

The investors said they did not send letters to BP, which was operating the rig that exploded and triggered the massive oil spill, or Anadarko Petroleum Corp., a 25 percent partner in the well.

BP shares have fallen sharply since the April 20 blowout, which killed 11 workers.

California Treasurer Bill Lockyer said the nation’s two largest public employee pension funds, both based in his state, have seen the value of their BP holdings plummet by $349 million.

“The Gulf tragedy provided dramatic evidence that investors and pensioners have high stakes in deepwater oil exploration,” Lockyer said.

A solar tsunami generated by solar flares brought beautiful auroras to earth this week. Scientists and stargazers are keeping an eye on the sky as there is a chance the solar flare activity may bring new auroras tonight.

Earlier this week, the sun emitted a C-class solar flare, or a large explosion in the suns’ atmosphere, that released energy and plasma to earth. The effects were beautiful and displayed a brilliant display of auroras seen in various parts around the world. The auroras were best seen on August 3, and August 4, particularly around Antarctica known as Aurora Australis. Some of the auroras displayed were visible in Iowa and Wisconsin.

It is believed that a second coronal mass ejection (CME) may occur tonight, August 5, 2010 bringing more auroras into view. The beauty of the August 3, 2010 Solar tsunami was clearly visible over Quebec where many said the entire sky appeared to be painted with vivid rays of green and purple.

According to Space.com, the solar flare that erupted on August 1 was responsible for bringing the beautiful lightshow to earth. The solar flare created a CME that hit the earth’s magnetic field on Tuesday. NASA captured the event on film.

According to NASA, on August 1, 2010 nearly the entire side of the sun which faces earth had erupted in activity.

Early Wednesday morning, people in the northern USA were able to see the effects of the solar flares storm and solar tsunami light up the sky; the northern lights will continue tonight in North America from Oregon to Maine and north to Canada.

About every 11 years a solar flare storm kicks up from the sun and a few days later the effects appear in our skies. If the sky is clear it should be visible from North America, Northern Europe and Russia. The result is a beautiful show of the northern lights in various colors in the sky.

NASA has said that as a result some satellites may be knocked out during the solar tsunami, but it isn’t expected.

NASA describes a solar flare as:
A flare is defined as a sudden, rapid, and intense variation in brightness. A solar flare occurs when magnetic energy that has built up in the solar atmosphere is suddenly released. Radiation is emitted across virtually the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves at the long wavelength end, through optical emission to x-rays and gamma rays at the short wavelength end. The amount of energy released is the equivalent of millions of 100-megaton hydrogen bombs exploding at the same time! The first solar flare recorded in astronomical literature was on September 1, 1859. Two scientists, Richard C. Carrington and Richard Hodgson, were independently observing sunspots at the time, when they viewed a large flare in white light.

LOS ANGELES – On a strip of California’s Mojave Desert, two dozen rare tortoises could stand in the way of a sprawling solar-energy complex in a case that highlights mounting tensions between wilderness conservation and the nation’s quest for cleaner power.

Oakland, Calif.-based BrightSource Energy has been pushing for more than two years for permission to erect 400,000 mirrors on the site to gather the sun’s energy. It could become the first project of its kind on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property, leaving a footprint for others to follow on vast stretches of public land across the West.

The construction would come with a cost: Government scientists have concluded that more than 6 square miles of habitat for the federally threatened desert tortoise would be permanently lost.

The Sierra Club and other environmentalists want the complex relocated to preserve what they call a near-pristine home for rare plants and wildlife, including the protected tortoise, the Western burrowing owl and bighorn sheep.

“It’s actually a good project. It’s just located in the wrong place,” said Ileene Anderson of the Center for Biological Diversity, a Tucson, Ariz.-based environmental group.

The dispute is likely to echo for years as more companies seek to develop solar, wind and geothermal plants on land treasured by environmentalists who also support the growth of alternative energy. In an area of stark beauty, the question will be what is worth preserving and at what cost as California pushes to generate one-third of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.

The Bureau of Land Management has received more than 150 applications for large-scale solar projects on 1.8 million acres of federal land in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. In California alone, such projects could claim an area the size of Rhode Island, transforming the state into the world’s largest solar farm.

BrightSource Energy wants permission to construct three solar power plants on the site that together would generate enough power each year for 142,000 homes, potentially generating billions of dollars of revenue over time.

The sun’s power is used to heat water and make steam, which in turn drives turbines to create electricity. Built in phases, the project would include seven, 459-foot metal towers, a natural gas pipeline, water tanks, steam turbine generators, boilers and buildings for administration and maintenance. Each plant would be surrounded by 8-foot high steel fencing.

The site has virtually unbroken sunshine most of the year, and is near transmission lines that can carry the power to consumers.

In November, federal and state biologists reviewing the plan proposed that the company catch and move the tortoises and preserve them elsewhere on 12,000 acres, a proposal that could cost BrightSource an estimated $25 million.

John Kessler, a project manager for the California Energy Commission, said there is disagreement with BrightSource over what the company would pay for long-term maintenance for the land that would be purchased, and the company also believes the cost of buying it should be less.

The company declined to comment directly on those issues.

It will likely be months before state and federal regulators considering the plan make a decision on the tortoises’ fate.

BrightSource President John Woolard warned in government filings released last month that heavy-handed regulation could kill the proposal. He did not mention the tortoises directly but referred to “unbounded and extreme” requirements being placed on the company.

At a time when the White House is pushing for the rapid development of green power, Woolard predicted the outcome in the California desert would reverberate widely.

The large-scale solar industry “is in its infancy, with great promise to compete with conventional energy,” Woolard wrote. “Overburdening this fledgling industry will cause it to be stillborn, ending that promise before it has truly begun.”

The Sierra Club wants regulators to move the site closer to Interstate 15, the busy freeway connecting Los Angeles and Las Vegas, to avoid what it says will be a virtual death sentence for the tortoises. Estimates of the population have varied, but government scientists say at least 25 would need to be captured and moved.

The group argues that the reptiles are the “most genetically distinct” of all of California’s desert tortoises and point to a 2007 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report that found the tortoise population is dropping in parts of a four-state region that includes California.

“The project must not contribute to additional loss of habitat,” the Sierra Club said in government filings.

Roy Averill-Murray, the Fish and Wildlife Service‘s desert tortoise recovery coordinator, said there are insufficient data to make judgments about the population on the BrightSource site.

Tortoise “populations across the board have declined, but we don’t have the same kind of information for this particular patch of ground,” Averill-Murray said.

In a statement, BrightSource spokesman Keely Wachs did not address proposals to move all or part of the complex, pledging that the company “will continue to work with the environmental community to ensure that we establish a good example for projects that follow.”

In government filings, the company depicts the site near the Nevada line as far from untouched: It has been used for livestock grazing, has been crisscrossed by off-roaders and the boundary of a golf club is a half-mile away.

Except for the tortoise, no other federal or state threatened or endangered animal or plant is on the site, the company said. In 1994 the federal government designated 6.4 million acres as “critical habitat” for the tortoise in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah, but the BrightSource site was not included “and is by no means in an area critical to the survival of this species,” the company concluded.

The complicated review is being watched closely.

“At this point, there are zero solar-energy projects on public land,” said Monique Hanis of the Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group. “We are looking for ways to expand the market and reduce barriers … and get more of these projects moving.”

Updated: Thu Dec. 24 2009 07:52:50

CTV.ca News Staff

In the U.S. Senate’s first Christmas Eve vote in more than a century, Democrats have passed a health-care bill that could become a defining piece of Barack Obama’s presidency and extend coverage to millions of Americans.

After months of debate and discussion, the bill passed by a margin of 60-39. Fifty-eight Democrats and two independent Senators voted in favour of the bill, with Republicans voting unanimously against it.

Majority Leader Harry Reid hailed the vote as the first step towards upgrading the country’s health-care system.

“This morning isn’t the end of the process, it’s merely the beginning. We’ll continue to build on this success to improve our health system even more,” Reid said before the vote. “But that process cannot begin unless we start today … there may not be a next time.”

The version of the bill passed in the Senate must now be merged with the version passed by the House of Representatives, which may prove difficult as the two versions differ in some respects. Once merged, Obama would sign the final bill into law in the new year.

Both the Senate and the House bill would bring health-care insurance to some 30 million people in the United States.

Vicki Kennedy, the widow of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, who devoted his political career to health-care reform, watched from the Senate gallery as the vote unfolded.

Meanwhile Republicans continued to rail against the legislation in the lead up to, and after the Senate vote.

“Not even Ebenezer Scrooge himself could devise a scheme as cruel and greedy as Democrats’ government takeover of health care,” House Minority Leader John Boehner said moments after the bill was passed.

It was the first time the Senate has sat on Christmas Eve since 1895, when the upper house was asked to decide on a bill regarding employment of Confederate officers from the American Civil War.

The House of Representatives passed a version of the health-care reform bill in November. With both chambers of Congress having approved a version of the legislation, the U.S. government has become closer to overhauling the country’s national health-care system than any time in the past.

Stephen Farnsworth, a political expert and professor at George Mason University, told Canada AM that while the bill would extend health coverage to more people, it would not come close to creating a public health-care system similar to Canada’s.

“The proposal that we’re looking at today would involve cutting the number of uninsured Americans basically in half,” Fansworth said. “About 20 million uninsured Americans will be unaffected by this bill.”

“It makes it more affordable for people without insurance to get health care,” he added. “But in terms of national health insurance program like that in Canada and so many other Western democracies, that’s another bill, another day, a long way it seems, politically.”

If the legislation becomes law, it would prevent health-insurance companies from denying benefits to people who have medical conditions. It would also keep insurers from charging higher premiums to that group.

The bill would reduce public deficits by $130 billion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office, as long as proposed cuts to insurance companies, and to staff who treat Medicare patients, go through.

Almost all Americans would be required to carry health insurance under the legislation. Low-income Americans would receive subsidies to help them pay. Employers would be encouraged to cover their employees through a mix of penalties and tax credits.

The proposed reforms would cost nearly $1 trillion over the course of a decade. Taxes, fees and Medicare cuts would pay for the overhauled system.

Democrats made a number of deals during the last week before Christmas Eve to secure the 60 votes needed to keep Republicans from launching a filibuster in the Senate.

The 60th vote came from conservative Democrat Ben Nelson. To win his support, the government will pay 100 percent of the cost of a planned Medicaid expansion in his home state of Nebraska, in perpetuity.

As early as next week, the House and the Senate are expected to begin discussing how to merge the two health-care bills. The Senate bill does not contain a government-run option for health insurance, while the House version does. In addition, the Senate version has less strict rules concerning abortion than does the House version.

With files from The Associated Press

posted from Telegraph U.K.

 The two-week summit limped to a conclusion late on Friday night after a row between the US and China overshadowed negotiations. It prompted warnings that not enough will be done to prevent potentially dangerous rises in global temperatures.

Despite some hailing the Copenhagen Accord as “historic”, officials accepted that it did not truly meet any country’s requirements.

In a muted assessment, Gordon Brown said: “We have made a start.”

The Prime Minister added: “This has not been an easy summit, but I do say that the Copenhagen deal offers hope. First steps, sometimes they are faltering, sometimes they take a lot of pain and effort.”

Barack Obama, the US President, hailed the deal, hammered out by the leading industrialised and developing countries, as unprecedented, but admitted that “a deadlock in perspectives” had undermined the talks.

“We have much further to go,” he conceded.

The accord declared that “deep cuts in emissions are required”. But instead of a detailed pledge to halve carbon emissions by 2050, leaders agreed only to the vague promise to limit the rise in global temperatures to 2C, with no specifics on how to achieve that.

The leaders also put off setting emissions targets for 2020, saying they would attempt to agree them by February.

Environmentalists dismissed the deal, and even the White House said: “It is not sufficient to combat the threat of climate change.” Last night it had still to go before a full session of all 192 nations and it was not clear whether they would accept it.

At the heart of the often bad-tempered final day was a dispute between the US and China, the two biggest economies, over American calls for international monitoring of China’s carbon output.

President Obama angered China with an open challenge for it to be “transparent” about its plans, or render any deal meaningless. He also made it clear that he would not increase his proposal to cut US carbon emissions by 4 per cent by 2020.

The row was briefly cooled after a meeting with Premier Wen Jiabao of China.

It later became clear that the US had backed down on monitoring, and the final accord only asks signatories to report progress every two years, with no independent verification.

On Friday night, Mr Obama risked antagonising China again by suggesting that the US could use spy satellites to check its compliance.

With the US and China refusing to compromise, the European Union also refused to increase its offer on cutting carbon emissions, from 20 per cent over the next decade to 30 per cent.

Environmentalists say that without that other countries will not increase their cuts, making the 2C target almost impossible to realise. In a blow to Mr Brown, the accord gives little clarity about turning Copenhagen into a legally binding treaty.

He had called for the process to be completed within a year, but the final text dropped the timetable.

Mr Brown hailed backing for a $100billion-a-year (£62bn) fund to help poor countries adapt to emit less, to be in place by 2020. But the accord failed to provide details of where it would come from. Campaigners condemned the accord as inadequate. John Sauven, Greenpeace UK’s executive director, said it “won’t deliver anything close to what the world needs.”

He said: “There are no targets for carbon cuts and no agreement on a legally binding treaty. It seems there are too few politicians in this world capable of looking beyond the horizon of their own narrow self-interest.”

Posted from New York Times:

President Obama remains huddled with other world leaders in the second floor of the Bella Center where talks are being held. On the main floor, it is a scene of high drama and low expectations, with palpable confusion and frustration among negotiators.

In the hours since Obama told the Copenhagen summit, “I came here not to talk but to act,” he has had talks with about a dozen foreign leaders, including a bilateral discussion with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao that aides said “made progress.” Lunchtime conversations involved Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Israeli President Shimon Peres and the leaders of Turkey, Greece, Ghana and the Czech Republic.

Versions of draft negotiating texts are flying around the Bella Center. With only minimal information trickling out of the leaders’ meetings, rumors are ruling the conference. Aid groups wondered if China and India had walked out. The London Guardian passed on speculation that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had asked leaders to stay until tomorrow to secure a deal, but U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe said it is untrue.

The White House did not put a departure time on Obama’s itinerary, and many other world leaders have yet to say when they plan to leave Denmark.

Most negotiators said they expect to work through the night, producing a final document by midday Saturday. “I call it consensus by exhaustion,” predicted Anton Hilber, a member of the Swiss negotiating team.

Albi Modise, a spokesman for the South African delegation, said a deal has to come tonight. “We can’t be here until Saturday night. Our visas expire tomorrow,” he said.

One of the latest declaration drafts to emerge from the high-level talks is the “Copenhagen Accord.” It eliminates the 2010 deadline for a legal agreement and also changes language that once said global temperatures “ought not to exceed 2 degrees” above preindustrial temperatures — the level at which scientists predict catastrophic consequences — to “should be below 2 degrees.” Analysts said the new language is softer and less binding.

“Absolutely vacuous,” one source close to the new text called it. World leaders, the source said, “are up there trying to work out whether they can sell a crap deal as a success or accept a failure.”

Yet the changes are coming fast and furiously, and the reality is that only a select few know what is actually being decided.

Top Capitol Hill Democratic aides, as well as many nongovernment participants, said they were out of the loop in terms of details.

“I wish I knew,” said Steve Eule of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who is also a former Energy Department official from the George W. Bush administration.

House Republicans, meanwhile, made it their mission to tell anyone who would listen that the United States won’t pass a climate bill, and that anything Obama signs here has to meet with their approval. “It’s not something that’s going to be implementable in the U.S. Congress,” said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas).

Many who want a new global treaty are trying to remain optimistic.

Dirk Forrister, managing director of Natsource, acknowledged, “It’s looking pretty rough.” But he added that a deal can be made, “because they’re still up there talking.”

But the evidence is hard to ignore. The United Nations postponed a “family photo” of the record number of world leaders that was to be taken during lunch, just minutes after Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez denounced Obama’s policies during the plenary.

A series of press conferences planned for today were also canceled as Chavez held court for more than an hour. Told that the United Nations wanted him to wrap up, Chavez said “I’m answering questions. Tell them to bring the police.”

Some real work is still being done. Negotiators are working on side issues like the clean development mechanism. But the big question at hand is what to do with the next commitment period of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an issue that is not relevant to the United States but still holds significant weight on Copenhagen’s outcome.

Tensions are high for many of the environmental ministers and their senior staff, many of whom are going on little or no sleep.

“This is Kyoto style,” said Ned Helme, president of the Center for Clean Air Policy. “It’s down to the wire.”