Guyana forest carbon plan struggle to get off paper

2011-12-19T10:00:25Z

FAIRVIEW VILLAGE, Guyana (Reuters) - After decades of depending on bauxite, timber and gold for revenue, Guyana proposed five years ago that wealthy foreigners pay it to protect its tropical South American rainforests.

The idea was hailed as an innovative way to spur economic development while helping prevent destruction of rainforests like the Iwokrama reserve...

Time now the enemy as UN climate talks struggle for deal

2011-12-10T06:30:15Z

UN climate talks on Saturday faced the scythe of Father Time as environment ministers haggled over proposals for a new pact to roll back the threat from greenhouse gases.

The 194-nation parley under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) hurtled into an unsch...

Newest nation South Sudan ravaged by war, climate

2011-12-08T16:30:21Z

The world's newest nation, South Sudan, appealed Thursday for help in healing a land ravaged by war and disruptive weather as it made its maiden appearance at the UN climate talks.

"Climate change in Southern Sudan has very, very serious negative effects. In terms of agriculture, this is really catastrophic," its environment minister, Alfred Lado Gore...

Greenpeace activists arrested in climate demo

2011-12-05T06:30:21Z

Six Greenpeace campaigners were arrested on the sidelines of the UN climate conference on Monday as they protested against corporate responsibility for carbon emissions.

The six were detained as they tried to hang a banner reading "Listen to the People, not the Polluters" at a Durban hotel where a "Global Business Day," hosted by b...

Climate may cause 'substantial' population shifts

2011-12-01T12:30:45Z

Rising sea levels and droughts associated with climate change threaten to force vast shifts of populations, yet states have so far been slow to react, the Global Migration Group (GMG) warned Thursday.

The body, made up of 14 United Nations agencies, the World Bank and the UN talks here.

"I exchanged views with my European colleagues before I came here and told them very clearly that a mandate is too much," Li Gao, speaking on the sidelines of the 12-day negotiations, told AFP late Tuesday.

Under the

Canadian firm bids to commercialize fusion reactor

2011-11-30T13:31:05Z

In the race against world governments and the wealthiest companies to commercialize a nuclear fusion reactor, a small, innovative Canadian firm is hoping to bottle and sell the sun's energy.

In a laboratory in this Pacific Coast city, General Fusion physicists and engineers in bright red smocks are busy assembling an experimental reactor.

They hope to test a prototype in 2014 and eventually become the first to commercialize the technology, offering a safe, cheap, pollution-fr...

Canada won't confirm it's pulling out of Kyoto

2011-11-28T14:30:47Z

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada dismissed the Kyoto Protocol on climate change on Monday as a thing of the past, but declined to confirm a media report it will formally pull out of the international treaty befo...

Canada won't confirm it's withdrawing from Kyoto

2011-11-28T10:00:25Z

Climate change denial still runs strong in US

2011-11-28T07:30:26Z

On the US political stage, skepticism and denial of climate change are as popular as ever, and experts say that world talks which opened Monday in Durban, South Africa are unlikely to turn the tide.

But while a binding deal on harmful carbon output remains elusive by the world's second biggest polluter after China, some small sig...

Climate set to worsen food crises: Oxfam

2011-11-27T16:30:20Z

Storms and drought that have unleashed dangerous surges in food prices could be a "grim foretaste" of what lies ahead when climate change bites more deeply, Oxfam said on Monday.

In a report issued at the start of the UN climate talks here, the British charity pointed to spikes in wheat, corn and sorghum, triggered by extreme weather, that h...

Erratic rains threaten southern Africa food output

2011-11-24T06:30:19Z

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Rainfall patterns in southern Africa are becoming erratic as climate change takes its toll, threatening long-term production of staple and cash crops in the region.

Countries like South Africa, ...

Court upholds Yellowstone grizzly protections

2011-11-22T21:00:46Z

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - Grizzly bears roaming the Northern Rockies still require protection under the Endangered Species Act, despite their growing n...

Greenhouse gas levels hit record in 2010: U.N. agency

2011-11-21T02:30:07Z

GENEVA (Reuters) - The amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached a record level in 2010 and rose faster last year than the average over the past decade, the annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin published by the World Meteorological Organization on Monday said.

Concentrations of...

Get ready for climate change, says UN panel

2011-11-16T19:30:23Z

The toll from ever-more intense floods, drought, and heatwaves will crescendo this century unless humanity anticipates the onslaught, according to a UN report set to be unveiled on Friday.

In an 800-page assessment, the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says global warm...

Climate change 'threatens Nile, Limpopo rivers'

2011-11-14T10:30:34Z

Rising global temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns could affect water flows on Africa's mighty Nile and Limpopo rivers, an agricultural research group said Monday.

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, a g...

Africa's Nile, Limpopo at risk from climate change

2011-11-14T02:30:05Z

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Climate change is likely to lead to increased average rainfall in the world's major river basins but weather patterns will be fickle and the timing of wet seasons may change, threatening farming and foodstocks, experts said Monday.

Furthermore, some river systems in Africa...

Climate to widen sleeping sickness risk to southern Africa

2011-11-08T16:30:53Z

Sleeping sickness could threaten tens of millions more people as the tsetse fly which transmits the disease spreads to southern Africa as a result of global warming, a study published on Wednesday says.

By 2090, an additional 40 to 77 million people could be at risk of exposure to the disease, the study concludes. Currently 75 million people live within its range.

The scientists base the estimate on how the tsetse and the Trypanosom...

Prince Charles tours apartheid history on S.African visit

2011-11-07T09:00:36Z

Prince Charles and his wife Camilla paid tribute to South Africa's struggle against apartheid Thursday, visiting the historic Soweto township and Nelson Mandela's foundation.

In Soweto, they toured a monument to the Freedom Charter, the 1955 document that laid down ...

Risks remain despite Indonesian forest moratorium: study

2011-10-30T00:30:05Z

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A two-year ban on new licenses to clear peatlands and primary forests in Indonesia risks being undermined by the small area protected by the scheme and a host of exemptions, shows a review that calls for the program to be revised.

The ban is the centerpiece of an important climate deal with Reuters) - The world's governments and relief agencies need to plan now to resettle millions of people expected to be displaced by climate change, an international panel of experts said on Thursday.

Resettlement is already occurring at the rate of some 10 million people a year, said the report's lead author, Alex de Sherbinin. Climate-related resettlement projects ar...

Climate change making country's water problems worse: expert

2011-10-26T19:00:14Z

ERIE, Pa (Reuters) - Climate change and population growth in the United States will make having enough fresh water more challenging in the coming years, an expert on water shortages said on Wednesday.

"In 1985-1986 there were historical (water level) hi...

Iceland to help France save trees from global warming

2011-10-25T18:30:40Z

Iceland and France are looking into the possibility of taking French trees endangered by global warming and planting them in Iceland to safeguard them for the future, officials said.

"The main emphasis (in the collaboration) is on research and finding ways to ensure the protection and preservation of the DNA... of the trees in Iceland," Adalsteinn Sigurgeirsson of the Icelandic Forestry Servic...

Asia, Africa megacities top climate change risk survey

2011-10-25T17:30:10Z

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Rapidly growing megacities in Africa and Asia face the highest risks from rising sea levels, floods and other climate change impacts, says a global survey aimed at guiding city planners and investors.

The study by risk analysis and mapping firm Maplecroft, released on Wednesday, comes as the

China's glaciers in meltdown mode: study

2011-10-24T20:30:19Z

Sharp increases in temperature driven by global warming are melting China's Himalayan glaciers, an impact that threatens habitats, tourism and economic development, says a study released Tuesday.

Of 111 weather stations scattered across southwestern China, 77 percent showed significant upticks in temperatures between 1961 and 2008, according to the study, published in a British peer-reviewed journal, Environmental Research Letters.

At...

Crop scientists now fret about heat not just water

2011-10-23T19:30:11Z

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Crop scientists in the United States, the world's largest food exporter, are pondering an odd question: could the danger of global warming really be the heat?

For years, as scientists have assembled data on climate change and pointed with concern at melting...

Ideology trumped science at Texas agency, two lawmakers say

2011-10-19T19:30:28Z

BEAUMONT, Texas (Reuters) - Two Democratic state senators from Texas accused the state's environmental agency of letting ideology trump science when it deleted information about the implications of global warming from a draft report.

The leaders of the agency, the Central America were on high alert as the heavy rain that has pounded the region for more than a week showed no sign of abating.

More than 80 people have been killed over the past week in mudslides and flooding across in mountainous region, home to 42 million people. Rain-swollen rivers have destroyed bridges and damaged highways, while flooding has destroyed crops and damaged thousands of ...

Scarce resources, climate biggest threats to world health

2011-10-17T12:01:06Z

LONDON (Reuters) - The Earth's natural resources like food, water and forests are being depleted at an alarming speed, causing hunger, conflict, social unrest and species extinction, experts at a climate and health conference in London warned Monday.

Increased hunger due to food yield changes will lead to malnutrition; water sca...

UN climate talks 'stupid and endless' - Maldives

2011-10-13T12:30:22Z

The UN's talks on climate change are daft and crippled by finger-pointing and the need for consensus, the president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, was quoted on Thursday by Le Monde as saying.

Nasheed also said emerging economies were as much to bla...

World's highest webcam brings Everest to Internet

2011-10-05T20:30:29Z

The world's highest webcam has been installed in the Nepalese Himalayas, beaming live images of Mount Everest back to scientists studying the effects of climate change on the planet's tallest peak.

The solar-powered camera, set at 5,675 metres (18,618 feet) on Kala Patthar, a smaller mountain facing Everest, will withstand temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees ...

Climate talks eye revenue from shipping

2011-10-05T19:30:43Z

With nations facing gaping shortfalls meeting pledges on climate change, several governments and activist groups are pushing to put a price on shipping emissions to fund aid to poor countries.

Commercial ships virtually always run on fossil fuels and produce nearly three percent of the world's carbon emissions blamed for climate change -- twice as much as Australia -- but are unregulated under the New Hampshire (Reuters) - Texas Governor Rick Perry, struggling to regain his status as front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, expressed fresh doubt on Saturday about whether humans are causing climate change.

"I still stand by that the scienc...

EU lawmakers call for global green energy targets

2011-09-29T09:00:22Z

STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - EU lawmakers recommended on Thursday including a call for global targets on renewable energy and energy efficiency in the European Union's negotiating position for next year's Rio+20 sustainability su...

Global warming: New study challenges carbon benchmark

2011-09-28T15:30:36Z

The ability of forests, plants and soil to suck carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air has been under-estimated, according to a study on Wednesday that challenges a benchmark for calculating the greenhouse-gas problem.

Like the sea, the land is a carbon "sink", or sponge, helping to absorb heat-trapping CO2 disgorged by the burning of fossil fuels.

A conventional estimate is that soil and vegetation take in roughly 120 billion tonnes, or gigatonnes, of carbon each year through the...

Why invest in commodities?

2011-09-26T19:30:12Z

Urbanization is the driving force behind global commodities demand

As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information

We have crossed a critical threshold. The demand we are now placing on our planets resources appears to have begun to outpace the rate at which they can be supplied.

The gap between human demand on our planet’s resources and the supply of those resources is known as ecological ov...

EPA chief sees boiler mercury rule in November

2011-09-14T17:30:11Z

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday said that the agency was reconsidering regulation for mercury emissions from industrial boilers and also expected to announce a new s...

Hosepipe and balloon: think of it as a volcano

2011-09-13T16:30:17Z

LONDON (Reuters) - There will be an unexpected sight high in the skies over the British county of Norfolk next month: a huge balloon attached to the ground by a giant hosepipe.

It isn't obvious, but it is the first small step in an experiment which aims to re-create the cooling effect ...

Food And Farm No Till

2011-01-05T07:31:43Z

FILE - In this Dec. 4, 2009 file photo, a farmer cultivates his recently harvested cornfield near Farmingdale, Ill., turning what remains of the plants back into the soil. A new study that suggests no-till farming, in which fields are left alone between harvest and planting, releases far smaller amounts of a potent greenhouse gas than conventional farming, in which fields are plowed while fertilizers are still breaking down in the soil. The ...

Disastrous Year YE

2010-12-19T08:31:31Z

FILE - In this July 29, 2010 file photo, Moscow's St. Bazil's Cathedral, background, is seen through a smog covering Moscow during a heat wave. The mausoleum of Vladimir Lenin is at right. The excessive amount of extreme weather that dominated 2010 is a classic sign of man-made global warming that climate scientists have long warned about. They calculate that the killer Russian heat wave, set...

SCI Mummified Forest

2010-12-16T11:32:15Z

This undated image provided by Ohio State University shows Ellesmere Island National Park in Canada. Ohio State University researchers and their colleagues have discovered the remains of a mummified forest that lived on the island 2 to 8 million years ago, when the Arctic was cooling. This mummified forest is...

Mummified Forest