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Other Environment News
NewScientist: Plugging the ozone hole cut global warming too
Gigatonnes of carbon
Rapid growth
Washington, dc
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Other Environment News


Xinhua: Most Europeans concerned about climate change


BRUSSELS, Mar. 5 (Xinhua) -- The overwhelming majority of European Union (EU) citizens are concerned about climate change, according to a survey whose results were released on Monday.

    According to the Euro barometer survey done on behalf of the European Commission, half of EU citizens are very much concerned about the effects of climate change and global warming, while a further 37 percent say that they are to some degree concerned about the issue.

    Eight out of 10 Europeans are well aware of the impact of energy production and consumption on climate change and global warming. Sixty-two percent feel that the best way to tackle energy-related issues would be at EU level.

    "This survey clearly shows that EU citizens expect the EU to shape a common European response to face energy and climate change challenges," said European Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs.

    EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said: "Climate change is happening. EU citizens expect EU leadership on this issue. The EU must use this political momentum in order to put Europe and the World on the path to a more energy secure and low carbon future."

    The survey shows that EU citizens are fairly certain that energy prices will increase significantly over the next decade due to ongoing climate change. Seventy-six percent feel that they will need to change their energy consumption habits in the next decade

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NewScientist: Plugging the ozone hole cut global warming too



22:00 05 March 2007

Global warming would be much worse if the world had not put a halt to the destruction of the ozone hole above Antarctica, say researchers.

They say the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which restricts the use of CFCs and other ozone-depleting chemicals, will cut warming by five or six times more than the Kyoto Protocol.

Previous research has shown ссылка скрыта and the protocol was hailed by Kofi Annan, former secretary general of the UN, as "perhaps the single most successful international agreement to date".

At the time, it was known that ozone-depleting halocarbons were also greenhouse gases and therefore were contributing to warming the atmosphere. What was not known was how much the cooling effect of phasing out these chemicals would add to the cooling effect of patching up the ozone hole in the stratosphere.

The new study, led by Guus Velders of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, calculated that effect: "It was quite a surprise to see it was so large."
Gigatonnes of carbon

The ссылка скрыта estimates that stratospheric ozone has a cooling effect of 0.05 Watts per square metre and that the halocarbons currently in the atmosphere have a warming effect of 0.34 W/m2.

Velders and his colleagues used computer models to simulate how the planet would have warmed had it not been for the Montreal Protocol. They conclude the warming caused by halocarbons would be nearly twice that currently seen, i.e. between 0.60 and 0.65 W/m2.

Another way quantifying the effect is to compare it to the amount of carbon dioxide that would have had the same effect. By 2010, the researchers calculate, the Montreal Protocol will have avoided the equivalent of between 9.7 and 12.5 gigatonnes of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere every year. In contrast, Velders calculates that if all countries were meet their Kyoto Protocol targets by 2012, this will have avoided the equivalent of 2.0 gigatonnes of CO2 every year.
Rapid growth

"The gases that were regulated by the Montreal Protocol were growing very rapidly in the atmosphere, so there was clearly potential for very significant contribution" by limiting them, agrees John Pyle, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Cambridge, UK.

Although the Montreal Protocol limited the production of ozone-depleting chemicals, it did not require the removal of equipment containing the gases - refrigerators and air conditioners built before 2000, for instance. Furthermore, some of the chemicals which have replaced CFCs as a result of the Montreal Protocol are also greenhouse gases.

Velders says that removing existing equipment that emit CFCs from circulation and replacing "intermediate substitutes" with chemicals that neither deplete the ozone nor warm the planet, would remove the equivalent of a further 1.2 gigatonnes of CO2 per year. That would more than half the impact of Kyoto.

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Environment News Service: Bush Climate Report Shows U.S. Greenhouse Gases Skyrocketing

WASHINGTON, DC, March 5, 2007 (ENS) - The United States will emit about 20 percent more greenhouse gases by 2020 than it did in 2000, according to a draft report that the Bush administration was scheduled to submit to the United Nations a year ago.

The internal administration report, which was obtained by the Associated Press, estimates that U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases from the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas will rise from 7.7 billion tons in 2000 to 9.2 billion tons in 2020 - an increase of 19.5 percent.

The growth in emissions was expected, but highlights how out of touch the Bush administration is with world opinion and the efforts of other countries to curb climate change.

The White House Council on Environmental Quality, CEQ, which is responsible for the draft report, says that how much the administration can do to cut emissions beyond merely slowing the rate of increase will become clear "as the science justifies."

The report forecasts increasing droughts and "a distinct reduction" in the spring snowpack covering the northwestern states, which supplies most of the region's drinking water.

The United States currently is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases - responsible for about one-quarter of the world's emisssions.

When President George W. Bush took office in 2001, one of his first acts was to repudiate the Kyoto Protocol signed by President Bill Clinton, and it has never been sent to the U.S. Senate for ratification.

The protocol, an amendment to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, requires most industrialized countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by the end of 2012.

The latest projections from pre-2004 EU Member States (EU-15) show that greenhouse gas emissions could be brought down to eight percent below 1990 levels by 2010. An October report by the European Environment Agency, EEA, shows that "if all existing and planned domestic policy measures are implemented and Kyoto mechanisms as well as carbon sinks are used, the EU-15 will reach its Kyoto Protocol target."

The next 10 new EU member states also are on track to achieve their individual Kyoto targets, despite rising emissions, largely due to economic restructuring in the 1990s, says the EEA. The two most recent EU member states were not part of the block last October when the report was produced.

President Bush has said that abiding by the Kyoto Protocol would hurt the U.S. economy. He has argued that voluntary emissions reductions and better technology such as clean coal, nuclear power, and energy efficiency would do the job of limiting global warming.

U.S. scientists, businesses and environmental groups say that if irreversible global warming is to be avoided, binding targets even more stringent than those of the Kyoto Protocol should be set.

On April 14 campaigners will be demonstrating in cities across the United Sttates to call for 80 percent cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The CEQ says its final version of the report will "show that the president's portfolio of actions and his financial commitment to addressing climate change are working."

The draft U.S. report comes one month after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, issued their strongest warning to date - finding that global warming is occurring, that humans are "very likely" responsible, and that warming is expected to continue for centuries, even if greenhouse gas emissions are curbed at once.

Average global temperatures could rise by over six degree Celsius (11 Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, the panel said.

The IPCC report was endorsed by 113 governments, including the United States.

The U.S. states are taking the initiative from the federal government with four regional programs to curb reenhouse gas emissions. California has led the field by aiming to cut its emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and to meet the target of 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

A variety of bipartisan legislation establishing controls on greenhouse gas emissions and cap-and-trade plans for the main greenhouse gas carbon dioxide are making their way through the Democrat-controlled Congress.

James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, has said the administration stands firm on its belief that regulating carbon emissions would undermine the U.S. economy.

"We still have very strong reservations about an overarching, one-size-fits-all mandate about carbon," he said in November. Connaughton said most bills in Congress aimed at cutting emissions of carbon dioxide probably would raise energy prices.

A CEQ spokesperson blamed the delay in submitting the report to the United Nations on an "extensive interagency review process."

The Board of Directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science warned at its annual meeting in February that, "Delaying action to address climate change will increase the environmental and societal consequences as well as the costs. The longer we wait to tackle climate change, the harder and more expensive the task will be," the scientists said.