Are fish from the Pacific Ocean safe to eat? It’s a question that’s back in the news after revelations of highly radioactive water leaking into the ocean from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership talks, which continue in Singapore today and tomorrow, are "not progressing according to plan," says the U.S. negotiating chief in one of two new leaked documents published online today by Wikileaks. "The results are mediocre" leading up to Singapore, says the U.S. internal briefing note,
Australia must drastically increase its emissions reduction target to 40% by 2020 to avoid “almost unimaginable social, economic and ecological consequences” from climate change, a new book penned by leading scientists and economists, including Ross Garnaut, has warned. The book, Four Degrees of Global Warming: Australia in a Hot World, sets out a series of stark scenarios facing the country should global temperatures rise by 4C above the pre-industrial average.
YENAGOA, Nigeria, Dec 2 (Reuters) - A large oil spill near Nigeria's Brass facility, run by ENI, has spread through the sea and swamps of the oil producing Niger Delta region, local residents and the company said on Monday. ENI said it was not yet possible to determine the cause of the spill. There are hundreds of leaks every year from pipelines that pass through the delta's creeks, damaging the environment and the profits of oil companies including ENI and Royal Dutch Shell , especially when production has to be deferred.
Beijing on Thursday became the third Chinese city to launch a carbon trading scheme to regulate soaring CO2 emissions from its main power generators and manufacturers, with first trades reported to have gone through at 50 yuan ($8.20) per permit. The capital followed newly established markets in Shenzhen and Shanghai, with Guangdong province set to open one in December that will be the second-biggest in the world after the European Union.
The contradictions of world affairs are shifting into sharp relief in Warsaw. As the denouement of the climate conference approaches, political fissures are appearing that even the most diplomatic and experienced of civil service soothers are unable to paper over. The fractured lives and incendiary event of Typhoon Haiyan have been tossed into the most business-friendly COP yet.
“Consumers in countries such as Mexico, Brazil, China and India,” the survey tells us, “tend to be most concerned about issues like climate change, air and water pollution, species loss, and shortages of fresh water … In contrast, the economy and the cost of energy and fuel elicit the most concern among American, French and British consumers.”(2) The more you have, the more important money becomes. My guess is that in poorer countries empathy has not been so dulled by decades of mindless consumption.
It’s been nearly two weeks since Typhoon Haiyan devastated a portion of the Philippines on November 8. A collection of islands in the south of the country that is populated by about four million people took a direct hit. The death toll now stands at more than 5,000. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their homes and their belongings. More disaster looms if emergency shelter, medical aid and food and water provision does not arrive quickly and in greater quantity.
A pair of climate scientists are calling for what some may view as a shocking solution to the global warming crisis: a rethinking of the economic order in the United States and other industrialized nations. Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows-Larkin of the influential Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in England say many of the solutions proposed by world leaders to prevent "runaway global warming" will not be enough to address the scale of the crisis.
Environment and development groups together with young people, trade unions and social movements will walk out of the UN climate talks on Thursday in protest at what they say is the slow speed and lack of ambition of the negotiations in Warsaw. Greenpeace, WWF, Oxfam, 350.org, Friends of the Earth, the International Trade Union confederation and ActionAid have all said they will leave the talks and not return.
