CLIMATE
1.1. Climate change could force 1 billion from their homes by 2050
29 april 2008, The Independent
As many as one billion people could lose their homes by 2050 because of the devastating impact of global warming, scientists and political leaders will be warned today.
They will hear that the steady rise in temperatures across the planet could trigger mass migration on unprecedented levels.
Hundreds of millions could be forced to go on the move because of water shortages and crop failures in most of Africa, as well as in central and southern Asia and South America, the conference in London will be told. There could also be an effect on levels of starvation and on food prices as agriculture struggles to cope with growing demand in increasingly arid conditions.
Rising sea levels could also cause havoc, with coastal communities in southern Asia, the Far East, the south Pacific islands and the Caribbean seeing their homes submerged.
North and west Africans could head towards Europe, while the southern border of the United States could come under renewed pressure from Central America.
The conference will hear a warning from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that the developed world should start preparing for a huge movement of people caused by climate change.
The event, which is being organised by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), will also be addressed by a Kenyan farmer and a United Nations worker based in Sudan. They will give first-hand accounts of previously fertile land that has already become parched in recent years as the desert spreads.
Craig Johnstone, the UNHCR deputy high commissioner, said yesterday that humanity faced a "global-scale emergency" whose effects would accumulate over the next four decades. He said it was impossible to forecast with confidence the numbers of people who would lose their homes through climate change. But he pointed to assessments of between 250 million and one billion people losing their homes by 2050. He said: "This will be a global-scale emergency, but … it will take place gradually and over a long period of time."
Mr Johnstone rejected the suggestion that the industrialised West should shoulder the burden because it was to blame for much of climate change. But he said: "It’s the obligation of the people who have the means to be helpful to help. They have an obligation to humanity to help."
He said the UNHCR already assisted in natural disasters such as earthquakes and the Asian tsunami of 2004 and added: "Perhaps even more challenging and more inevitable are the consequences of global changes."
Currently the status of refugees – defined as people escaping personal persecution by the state – is controlled by the Geneva Convention of 1951. The agreement, however, would not cover people who become homeless, or even stateless, because of changes to global weather patterns.
Pressure is therefore growing for the international community to reach a formal consensus on ways of dealing with the issue. Mr Johnstone said: "We’re strongly in favour of there being adequate international mechanisms to cope."
Danny Sriskandarajah, head of migration at the IPPR, said: "The displacement of millions of people will be one of the most dramatic ways in which climate change will affect humankind."
Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, said a global agreement must be reached. "Climate change is the most serious long-term threat to development in poor countries, and if unchecked millions of people may be forced to migrate to escape the effects of drought, flooding, food shortages and rising sea levels," he said.
Link: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climate-change-could-force-1-billion-from-their-homes-by-2050-817223.html
1.2. Asian leaders issue poverty warning
4 May 2008, Herald Tribune
Soaring food prices may throw millions of people back into poverty in Asia and undo a decade of gains, regional leaders said Sunday while calling for increased agricultural production to meet rising demand.
Asia – home to two-thirds of the world’s poor – risks rising social unrest as a doubling of the price of wheat and rice in the past year has hurt people spending more than half their income on food, Fukushiro Nukaga, the Japanese finance minister, said during the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank.
If food prices rise 20 percent, 100 million poor people across Asia could be forced back into extreme poverty, the Indian finance secretary, D. Subba Rao, warned. "In many countries that will mean the undoing of gains in poverty reduction achieved in the past decade of growth," Rao said at the bank’s meeting in Madrid.
A 43 percent rise in global food prices in the year ended in March set off violent protests in Cameroon and Burkina Faso as well as rallies in Indonesia following reports of starvation deaths.
Many governments have introduced food subsidies or export restrictions to counter rising costs, but they have only exacerbated price rises on global markets, Nukaga said. "Those hardest hit are the poorest segments of the population, especially the urban poor."
"It will have a negative impact on their living standards and their nutrition, a situation that may lead to social unrest and distrust," he added.
The bank, an international financial institution, tries to help its developing member countries reduce poverty and improve the quality of life of their people. It estimates the very poorest people in the Asia-Pacific region spend 60 percent of their income on food and a further 15 percent on fuel – the crucial basic commodities of life that have been subjected to relentless price increases in the past year.
Japan is one of 67 bank members gathered in Spain to discuss measures to counter severe weather and rising demand that have ended decades of low-cost food in developing nations.
The Asia-Pacific has three times the population of the European Union – around 1.5 billion people.
Despite brisk economic growth, averaging about 6 percent annually across the Asia-Pacific region in recent years, more than 600 million people still live in absolute poverty, surviving on less than $1 a day.
According to the bank’s statistics, almost half of the world’s poor live in South Asia alone. In China, 452 million people earn less than $2 a day, a figure that reaches 868 million in India. Child malnutrition is high and almost half of the children in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India and Nepal are undernourished. Some 1.9 billion people in the region do not have access to basic sanitation.
Rice is a staple food in most Asian countries and any shortage threatens instability, making governments extremely sensitive to its price.
High inflation, driven by food and raw materials costs, topped the agenda of the bank’s annual meeting. The bank, based in Manila, has had to defend itself from U.S. criticism that it is focused on middle-income countries and has neglected Asia’s rural and urban poor.
Such smaller countries as Cambodia urged the bank to focus its lending on the poorest Asian states.
The bank on Saturday called for immediate action from global governments to combat soaring food prices and coupled it with a pledge of fresh financial aid to help feed the region’s poorest nations. Japan, China and India backed the bank’s long-term strategy of providing low-cost credit and technical assistance to raise agricultural productivity.
The United Nations said the rural poor represented a political time-bomb for Asia that could only be defused by higher agricultural investment and better technology.
"Unless you can look at the plight of the poorest farmers in the region and how they are going to add to the numbers of very poor, very deprived people, we are unnecessarily going to create a problem that will erupt into a political crisis," said Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN panel on climate change.
Link: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/04/business/adb.php
1.3. U.N. sees world climate change deal in 2009
4 May 2008, Reuters
MADRID – The world can reach a significant new climate change pact by the end of 2009 if current talks keep up their momentum, the head of the United Nations climate panel said on Sunday.
The United Nations began negotiations on a sweeping new pact in March after governments agreed last year to work out a treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol by the end of next year.
"If this momentum continues you will get an agreement that is not too full of compromises," said Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, during a seminar at the Asian Development Bank annual meeting in Madrid.
Without a deal to cap greenhouse gas emissions around 2015, then halve them by 2050, the world will face ever more droughts, heatwaves, floods and rising seas, according to the U.N. panel.
The United Nations hopes to go beyond Kyoto by getting all countries to agree to curbs on emissions of greenhouse gases that fuel global warming.
Only 37 rich nations were bound to cut emissions under Kyoto. The United States, one of the world’s biggest polluters, refused to join the agreement.
The next talks, to be held in Germany in June, will address funding technology to mitigate climate change — a key demand from developing countries who say rich countries should foot much of the bill.
Getting the private sector on board with a well regulated carbon emissions trading system is key to long-term financing, according to delegates at the ADB seminar.
"Investors need some certainty they will get some return," said Simon Brooks, vice president at the European Investment Bank.
India’s Pachauri said popular awareness of global warming had risen sharply over the last 12 months and put pressure on Washington and other governments for action.
He said he believed it would be very difficult for any country to remain outside a climate change pact.
"There’s a question of national prestige involved," said Pachauri, head of the U.N. panel that last year shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former President Al Gore.
President George W. Bush pulled the United States out of Kyoto in 2001, saying the pact would hurt the economy and was unfair since it excluded big developing nations from committing to emissions cuts.
Key to a new agreement is Asia, notably China, said Odin Knudsen, a managing director for JP Morgan & Chase.
"China is making tremendous progress," said Knudsen, a specialist in climate change. "It’s in China’s interests and they want to be energy efficient."
In the last 3 decades Asia’s energy consumption has grown 230 percent and the region has gone from producing one tenth of world greenhouse gas emissions, to a quarter, according to the Asian Development Bank.
The United Nations calculates global warming will cause a 30 percent decline in crop yields in central and south Asia by 2050 and decrease freshwater availability for over a billion people.
Faced with such threats, China is switching over to renewable energy sources which are expected to provide more than 30 percent of its power needs by 2050, according to the United Nations.
Link: http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2008/05/04/un_sees_world_climate_change_deal_in_2009/
1.4. Poor children main victims of climate change – U.N.
LONDON (Reuters) – Millions of the world’s poorest children are among the principal victims of climate change caused by the rich developed world, a United Nations report said on Tuesday, calling for urgent action.
The UNICEF report "Our Climate, Our Children, Our Responsibility" measured action on targets set in the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, aimed at halving child poverty by 2015. It found failure on counts from health to survival, education and gender equality.
"It is clear that a failure to address climate change is a failure to protect children," said UNICEF UK director David Bull. "Those who have contributed least to climate change — the world’s poorest children — are suffering the ost."
The report said climate change could add 40,000-160,000 child deaths a year in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa through lower economic growth.
It also noted that if temperatures rose by two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, up to 200 million people globally would face hunger — a figure that climbs to 550 million with a temperature rise of three degrees.
The UNICEF report said economic damage due to climate change would force parents to withdraw children from schools — often the only place they are guaranteed at least one meal a day — to fetch water and fuel instead.
Environmental changes wrought by climate change will also expand the range of deadly diseases such as malaria, which already kills 800,000 children a year and is now being seen in previously unaffected areas.
Scientists predict global average temperatures will rise by between 1.6 and 4.0 degrees Celsius this century due to carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels for power and transport, causing floods, famines, violent storms and droughts.
An international agreement is being sought on action to ensure temperatures do not rise more than 2.0 degrees.
INEVITABLE
But some environmentalists say a 2.0 degree rise is inevitable whatever action is taken now. That is partly because of the 30-year time lag in climate response to emitted carbon, and partly because nations like China, which opens a new coal-fired power station a week, cannot and will not stop burning carbon.
China, with vast coal reserves and an economy growing at 10 percent a year, is set to overtake the United States as the world’s biggest carbon emitter.
Developing nations, under pressure to sign up to new curbs on carbon emissions at the end of next year, say there is no reason they should keep their people in poverty when the problem has been caused by the developed world.
"Rich countries’ responsibility for the bulk of past emissions demands that we give our strong support," said Nicholas Stern, whose 2006 report on the economic implications of the climate crisis sparked international concern.
"Business-as-usual or delayed action would lead to the probability of much higher temperature increases which would catastrophically transform our planet," he wrote in a foreword to Tuesday’s report.
"It will be the young and the poor and developing countries that will suffer earliest and hardest.
"We cannot allow this to happen."
Link: http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-33288220080428
ENERGY
2.1. Africa’s biggest oil producer goes green
4 May 2008, AFP
LAGOS (AFP) — In his office in Lagos, Alain Salleras, a Frenchman of about 50 for whom biofuels are something of a crusade, is working away at his pet project — producing ethanol from sweet sorghum in Nigeria.
Salleras, executive director of Global Biofuels Ltd, which has partnered with India’s Praj Industries and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for its project, is at pains to pre-empt any questions on the growing controversy over the alleged impact of biofuels on agriculture.
"Contrary to manioc, sorghum, of which Nigeria is the world’s leading producer, has no impact on food supply," Salleras emphasised.
Indeed, if he is to be believed, sweet sorghum has only advantages over sugar cane, another crop often grown for biofuels.
He says sorghum requires one quarter of the water that sugar cane needs, it produces two or three harvests a year, you get far more ethanol per hectare under cultivation — nearly four times as much in fact — and there is no wastage.
"To make the ethanol we only take the stalks, which are rich in sugar. The grains go for food and the rest for animal fodder," he says.
Even the fibrous residue from the crushed stalks, known as "bagasse," is recycled. This biomass is boiled to produce steam to make electricity.
Global Biofuels has taken on a Nigerian specialist Babatunde Obilana, who spent 20 years with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), working notably on Zimbabwe and Kenya.
Salleras, a former executive with French construction company Vinci, the former Société Générale d’Entreprises, and compatriot Jean Lamoliatte aim to be producing their first litre of sorghum-based Nigerian ethanol next summer.
In Ondo state to the west of Lagos the sorghum seeds have been sown at Arigidi Akoko and the processing plant will be built by Praj Industries, a biofuels technology company.
Initally Salleras is expecting daily production of 9,000 litres. That is estimated to rise to 240,000 litres a day when the full 10,000 hectares of sweet sorghum are ready for harvest.
By this summer 300 hectares will be ready for harvest and by April or May of next year between 3,000 and 6,000 will be ready.
This is still a far cry from the 30 million litres of fuel consumed every day in Nigeria, but the boss of Global Biofuels has big ambitions.
In three to five years’ time he is aiming to produce five percent of Nigeria’s total consumption, that is around 1.5 million litres a day.
Global Biofuels plans to establish seven ethanol refineries, each with an associated plant for livestock feed production, in various parts of Nigeria. Each refinery/feed plant will jointly employ 8,000 Nigerians and create an additional 40,000 indirect jobs, the company says.
"It’s the first in a long series of projects, in line with the Kyoto Protocol engagements which stipulate that by 2020 10 percent of energy consumed must be of non-fossile origin," Salleras explained.
Construction work on the second of the seven plants will start in June in Ekiti, a state sharing a common border with Ondo.
The Ondo state project alone represents an investment of some 70 million dollars, 65 percent of which is from private investors. The rest will be financed by credits.
NNPC has undertaken to buy all Global Biofuels’ production in Nigeria and plans to use it for automobile fuel and for powering breweries and pharmaceuticals plants.
Nigeria, which despite being Africa’s biggest oil producer, suffers from a chronic fuel shortage, is counting on biofuels to help solve the problem.
NNPC in 2005 created a Renewable Energy Division (RED) tasked with developping biofuels from manioc or sugar cane, two crops that are abundant in Nigeria.
The unit aims to have a prosperous national biofuels industry up and running by the middle of 2012.
Link: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jyMqBW1AH_yRymGauLEp7pVwtCuA
2.2. Oil industry accused of undermining emissions reduction efforts
29 April 2008, FOEE
Fuel Quality Directive target achievable without agrofuels, new report shows
Brussels – Oil companies have the potential to achieve more than 10 per cent cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 without using agrofuels, reveals a report launched today by Friends of the Earth Europe.
Released on the day Shell and BP announced combined quarterly profits of 14.4billion US dollars, ‘Extracting the truth: Oil industry efforts to undermine the Fuel Quality Directive’ uses industry’s own data to show how oil companies are falsely claiming that the target proposed by the European Commission in revisions to the Fuel Quality Directive is unachievable. It shows that at least 10 per cent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions could be realised through reduced gas flaring, improved energy efficiency and fuel switching at refineries, and without the need for agrofuels which can have negative environmental and socials impacts and have not been proven to reduce emissions overall.
Darek Urbaniak, extractive industries campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe said: "The oil industry is saying that it lacks the financial and technological resources to decrease its greenhouse gas emissions, but according to our research it has the potential to meet, and even exceed, the 10 per cent CO2 reduction target of the Directive. And this is without resorting to harmful agrofuels.
"The false statements being made by oil companies are blatant attempts to undermine the legislation. Instead of taking responsibility for its contribution to climate change, the oil industry is trying to wriggle out of its obligations."
Friends of the Earth Europe’s report calculates that reductions in greenhouse gas emissions of between 10.5 per cent and 15.5 per cent are possible through measures including less flaring and venting, energy efficiency improvements and fuel switching in refineries.
The report comes at a time of record profits for oil companies and increasing attempts to portray themselves as environmentally responsible. In 2007, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, TOTAL, BP and ENI together earned together over 125billion US dollars.
Paul de Clerck, corporates campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe said: "Despite their sky-high profits oil companies are not willing to bear the costs of reducing emissions. It seems that since these investments are not profitable, companies will not make them unless they are forced by a regulatory body. The EU has to oblige companies to take the necessary steps. The report shows that it is possible and they have more than enough money to pay for it."
The analysis released today puts oil industry attempts to obstruct the Fuel Quality Directive in the context of increased ‘greenwashing’. Behind the scenes oil companies are lobbying against environmental legislation whilst in public they use advertising to suggest that they are reducing emissions. In 2007 Shell was found guilty of misleading advertising for an advert in which it claimed it used waste CO2 to grow flowers.
Darek Urbaniak said: "Oil companies are not serious about their environmental performance. While they brand themselves as environmentally responsible, their CO2 emissions continue to rise. In reality the emissions of almost all of them are rapidly increasing and they are all investing heavily in energy-dirty tar sands, while their investments in renewable energy remain negligible or decrease."
Link: http://www.foeeurope.org/press/2008/Apr28_Oil_industry_undermining_emissions_reductions.html
2.3. Nuclear’s CO2 cost ‘will climb’
30 April 2008, BBC News
The case for nuclear power as a low carbon energy source to replace fossil fuels has been challenged in a new report by Australian academics.
It suggests greenhouse emissions from the mining of uranium – on which nuclear power relies – are on the rise.
Availability of high-grade uranium ore is set to decline with time, it says, making the fuel less environmentally friendly and more costly to extract.
The findings appear in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
A significant proportion of greenhouse emissions from nuclear power stem from the fuel supply stage, which includes uranium mining, milling, enrichment and fuel manufacturing.
Others sources of carbon include construction of the plant – including the manufacturing of steel and concrete materials – and decomissioning.
The authors based their analysis on historical records, contemporary financial and technical reports, and analyses of CO2 emissions.
Experts say it is the first such report to draw together such detailed information on the environmental costs incurred at this point in the nuclear energy chain.
Nuclear impact
The report is likely to come under close scrutiny at a time when governments around the world are considering the nuclear option to meet future energy demands and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Lead author Gavin Mudd, from Monash University in Australia, told BBC News: "Yes, we can probably find new uranium deposits, but to me that’s not the real issue. The real issue is: ‘what are the environmental and sustainability costs?’
New uranium deposits are likely to be deeper underground and therefore more difficult to extract than at currently exploited sites, said Dr Mudd.
In addition, he said, the average grade of uranium ore – a measure of its uranium oxide content and a key economic factor in mining – is likely to fall. Getting uranium from lower-quality deposits involves digging up and refining more ore.
Transporting a greater amount of ore will in turn require more diesel-powered vehicles – a principal source of greenhouse emissions in uranium mining.
"The rate at which [the average grade of uranium ore] goes down depends on demand, technology, exploration and other factors. But, especially if there is going to be a nuclear resurgence, it will go down and that will entail a higher CO2 cost," Dr Mudd explained.
Overall, the report suggests that uranium mining could require more energy and water in future, releasing greenhouse gases in greater quantities.
New technology
Thierry Dujardin, deputy director for science and development at the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), said the analysis made an important contribution to clarifying the impact of nuclear energy on CO2 emissions.
"It is the beginning of the answer to a question I have raised in many fora, including within the agency," he told BBC News.
But Mr Dujardin said he did not fully agree with the authors’ conclusions.
"Even in the worst case scenario for CO2 emissions, the impact of nuclear on greenhouse emissions is still very small compared with fossil fuels," he explained.
The NEA official admitted that lower grades of ore might have to be exploited in future, but he added that emissions from mining were only a small part of those produced in the nuclear supply chain as a whole.
He said he was also confident that entirely new deposits would be found as the industry stepped up its exploration effort.
The nuclear industry is carrying out research into recovering uranium from rocks used in the industrial production of phosphates. Various technologies based on solvent extraction can be used to get the element from phosphate rocks.
And in the longer term, some predict that so-called fast breeder reactor technology would increase by up to 50-fold the amount of energy extracted from uranium.
Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7371645.stm
EMISSIONS
3.1. Sweden’s carbon-tax solution to climate change puts it top of the green list
29 April 2008, Guardian.co.uk
Buses and lorries running on dead cows and a train station using commuters’ body warmth to heat an office block are two innovative solutions to lowering carbon emissions that have put Sweden top of an environmental league table.
If there’s a paradise for environmentalists, this Nordic nation of 9.2 million people must be it. In 2007 Sweden topped the list of countries that did the most to save the planet – for the second year running – according to German environmental group, Germanwatch. Between 1990 and 2006 Sweden cut its carbon emissions by 9%, largely exceeding the target set by the Kyoto Protocol, while enjoying economic growth of 44% in fixed prices.
Under Kyoto, Sweden was even told it could increase its emissions by 4% given the progress it had already made. But "this was not considered ambitious enough," explains Emma Lindberg, a climate change expert at the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation.
"So parliament decided to cut emissions by another 4% [below 1990 levels]. The mindset was ‘we need to do what’s good for the environment because it’s good for Sweden and its economy’."
The main reason for this success, say experts, is the introduction of a carbon tax in 1991. Swedes today pay an extra 2.34 kronor (20p) per litre when they fill the tank (although many key industries receive tax relief or are exempted). "Our carbon emissions would have been 20% higher without the carbon tax," says the Swedish environment minister, Andreas Carlgren.
"It was the one major reason that steered society towards climate-friendly solutions," reckons Lindberg. "It made polluting more expensive and focused people on finding energy-efficient solutions."
"It increased the use of bioenergy," concurs Professor Thomas B Johansson from the University of Lund, a former director of energy and climate at the UN Development Programme. "It had a major impact in particular on heating. Every city in Sweden uses district heating [where steam and hot water are piped to a building in a particular area]. Before, coal or oil were used for district heating. Now biomass is used, usually waste from forests and forest industries."
Another reason is that, paradoxically, energy consumption remained relatively stable at a time of high economic growth. "Non-energy-intensive industries, such as the service sector, grew more in Sweden, compared to energy-intensive industries, such as paper mills," states Johansson.
Sweden also became conscious of its dependency on fossil fuels early on, after the oil shocks of the 70s. "The country switched in the 80s to direct electric heating and in recent years increasingly uses heat pumps, which uses two-thirds less electricity to heat. People were also helped with subsidies to substitute," says Johansson.
And Swedes were perhaps environmentally aware at an earlier time than most. "The general public concern in terms of climate change really arose in the mid-80s. The authorities were very active in the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988," reckons Johansson.
"There was a real wish to turn Sweden into a leading environmental country," agrees Lindberg. "And Swedes are proud that their country is leading on environmental issues."
Today, environmental measures are common throughout the country. Take Linköping, Sweden’s fifth biggest city, which is running its fleet of buses and rubbish lorries, a train line and some private taxis on biogas, from methane produced from the entrails of slaughtered cows.
Similarly, Stockholm’s central station is planning to harness the body warmth of 250,000 daily commuters to produce heating for a nearby office block. The body heat would warm up water that would in turn be pumped through pipes over to a new office block. And King Carl Gustaf XVI last month had all the lights at royal castles turned off for an hour to back an energy efficiency campaign.
But not all is fine and dandy. Swedes are in love with their gas-guzzling estate cars, and are among the worst vehicle polluters in the EU. Environmentalists are also concerned that the authorities’ green enthusiasm is waning. "[Swedish PM] Fredrik Reinfeldt is pushing within the EU for more emphasis on flexibility, ie that a larger proportion of carbon cuts should be done outside of the EU than inside," says Lindberg which, she argues will not help the EU decrease its emissions enough to meet the target of limiting the Earth’s temperature to less than two degrees Celsius.
The environment minister dismisses the claim, arguing that flexibility is the most-efficient way to reduce emissions at the European level and that it will help technology transfers to developing countries.
More broadly, is there anything Britain could learn from Sweden? "Homes have virtually no insulation in Britain. You could do a lot just by doing more of that," says Johansson. "When a building is renovated in Sweden, it can be properly insulated and renovated, cutting energy consumption by at least half."
"Impose a carbon tax," suggests Lindberg. "You would make it more attractive financially to go for green solutions than for carbon options."
"A carbon tax is the most cost-effective way to make carbon cuts and it does not prevent strong economic growth," adds Carlgren.
Cutting carbon emissions Swedish-style
• Swedes get a 10,000 kronor (£860) rebate when they buy a green car, ie a car that consumes less petrol, or runs on biofuels or natural gas.
• Stockholm introduced congestion charging last year. Cars going into or out of the inner city zone pay 10, 15 or 20 kronor, depending on the time of the day (the busier it gets, the more you pay).
• The government hiked the carbon tax by 2.6% in January to 2.34 kronor per litre.
• A climate change bill will be presented in September, which could include measures to promote freight transport by rail at home and a possible increase to the green car rebate. "We will be focusing on the transport sector," says the Swedish environment minister, Andreas Carlgren. In Sweden, most oil and gas is used for transport.
• Sweden gets all its electricity either from hydroelectric power or nuclear plants.
• The Swedish government concluded last week a 1bn kronor (£84m) contract with China to develop wind power there.
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/29/climatechange.carbonemissions
PUBLICATIONS
4.1. CDM technology transfer report
The UNFCCC secretariat has released a study, prepared by a team of consultants, containing an analysis of information on Technology Transfer used in CDM. The full report and summary of key findings are available for download.
# Analysis of Technology Transfer in CDM Projects
# Key findings of Technology Transfer in CDM study
Download it at: http://cdm.unfccc.int/Reference/Reports/TTreport/index.html
CONFERENCES
5.1. European Patent Forum 2008, 6/7 May 2008, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Inventing a cleaner future: Climate change and the opportunties for IP
The drastic changes in world climate can no longer be ignored and the need to find intelligent solutions to mitigate the effects is obvious. That is why the European Patent Forum 2008 is dedicated to finding answers to the question:
How can the fields of patenting and intellectual property support innovations that benefit the environment and counteract climate change?
More info at: http://www.epo.org/about-us/events/epf2008.html
5.2. IPCC Expert Meeting on estimating emissions and removals from land-uses
13-15 May 2008, Helsinki, Finland
More at: http://www.ipcc.ch/
5.3. Sessions of the Subsidiary Bodies, 2-13 June 2008, Bonn, Germany
The twenty-eighth sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will be held from 4-13 June 2008.
The second session of the Ad hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA 2) and the second part of the fifth session of the Ad hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP 5 ) will be held from 2-12 June 2008.
More info at: http://unfccc.int/2860.php
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