Were you referring to this?
Government and Developers to work within environmental legislation to achieve sustainable development
.. You gotta be kidding.
We're all DOOMED
- Thread starter mentalfloss
- Start date
Were you referring to this?
Government and Developers to work within environmental legislation to achieve sustainable development
.. You gotta be kidding.
You do realize it cost them money to develop that new legislation and formally write up an environmental act?
You gotta really be kidding... EIA's have been around for many years, including S. Africa.
Get back to me when there is a real capital project and plan. OK?
Get back to me when there is a real capital project and plan. OK?
Umm, no.
They came down from the UofT, and stayed in one of our cottages, and brought their 18 ft boats with them the first year, and stored it in our barn. The first year, they drove a LandRover, the next few years it was a Suburban.
So we're going from "not a dime" to "a real capital project and plan" ?
I just want to make sure I've adjusted these goalposts correkitally.
That is the saddest argument you've come up with yet... Considering that they have EIA's already in place, I suppose that they will spend a few dimes on postage to mail the package from one gvt department to another.
You know if you really have that much of a boner over how much South Africa spends on the environment, you can look it up. I was just discrediting your claim that they have no initiatives or don't spend "a dime" on the environment.
You too.
Europe set to revive 30 percent carbon cut debate
* EU has already achieved almost 20 percent
BRUSSELS, Nov 10 (Reuters) - European politicians plan next week to revive debate on raising the target to cut the EU's carbon emissions as the bloc readies to take a leading role in climate change talks in Durban later this month.
Earlier this year, Poland, holder of the European Union's rotating presidency, blocked an attempt to move up from the existing target of a 20 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2020 to a 25 percent goal.
Campaigners and some politicians say the minimum should be 30 percent. It will be part of the discussion in Strasbourg next Tuesday and Wednesday, when members of the European Parliament are expected to debate and vote on a resolution ahead of Durban.
"Already we have a 17.6 percent reduction in 2012," Jo Leinen, chairman of the European Parliament's environment committee told a news conference on Thursday.
"The 20 percent really does not allow us to put any pressure on the rest of the world, because they know that we have already achieved 17.6 percent, so for the remaining nine years, 20 percent is not really an objective at all."
Also this week, Rebecca Harms, president of the Green group in the European Parliament, said a 30 percent cut should be a minimum goal.
"The lowest limit should be 30 percent. It would be useful if we could get political debate organised around that target," she said on Wednesday.
That debate is likely to be spurred by the motion for a resolution on the Durban climate change conference.
"It is in the EU's own interest to aim for a climate protection target of over 20 percent, since this would have the simultaneous effect of creating green jobs, growth and security," the proposal says.
The wording of "over 20 percent" paves the way to broach 30 percent, Leinen said.
The EU accounts for only around 11 percent of carbon emissions, which globally hit a record last year, driven mainly by booming coal-reliant emerging economies. It has set itself at the forefront of efforts to get a new global, binding deal on climate change once the first commitment phase of the Kyoto Protocol runs out at the end of next year.
In October, the 27-member bloc adopted a set of conclusions saying it would sign up for a second commitment period but on the condition that the bigger emitters provided firm evidence that they would join in, too.
An EU diplomat noted the conclusions adopted in October contained an offer to move to a 30 percent cut that would be conditional on developing countries pledging comparable reductions. The EU was not entirely united at the October environment meeting. It struggled to agree wording on allowances to produce greenhouse gases under the Kyoto Protocol known as Assigned Amount Units (AAUs).
Earlier this week, Denmark's Climate and Energy Minister Martin Lidegaard said 30 percent would be politically very difficult.
"I have not given up," Lidegaard told Reuters on the sidelines of a panel discussion. "But I'm looking at the political climate and thinking it's going to be hard to achieve 30 percent." ($1 = 0.736 Euros)
UPDATE 1-Europe set to revive 30 percent carbon cut debate | Reuters
...easter egg for those who care...
South African government expenditure on environmental issues has increased steadily over the last decade. The budget allocation for the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism is reflected in Figure 7.1.
Europe set to revive 30 percent carbon cut debate
* EU has already achieved almost 20 percent
BRUSSELS, Nov 10 (Reuters) - European politicians plan next week to revive debate on raising the target to cut the EU's carbon emissions as the bloc readies to take a leading role in climate change talks in Durban later this month.
Earlier this year, Poland, holder of the European Union's rotating presidency, blocked an attempt to move up from the existing target of a 20 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2020 to a 25 percent goal.
Campaigners and some politicians say the minimum should be 30 percent. It will be part of the discussion in Strasbourg next Tuesday and Wednesday, when members of the European Parliament are expected to debate and vote on a resolution ahead of Durban.
"Already we have a 17.6 percent reduction in 2012," Jo Leinen, chairman of the European Parliament's environment committee told a news conference on Thursday.
"The 20 percent really does not allow us to put any pressure on the rest of the world, because they know that we have already achieved 17.6 percent, so for the remaining nine years, 20 percent is not really an objective at all."
Also this week, Rebecca Harms, president of the Green group in the European Parliament, said a 30 percent cut should be a minimum goal.
"The lowest limit should be 30 percent. It would be useful if we could get political debate organised around that target," she said on Wednesday.
That debate is likely to be spurred by the motion for a resolution on the Durban climate change conference.
"It is in the EU's own interest to aim for a climate protection target of over 20 percent, since this would have the simultaneous effect of creating green jobs, growth and security," the proposal says.
The wording of "over 20 percent" paves the way to broach 30 percent, Leinen said.
The EU accounts for only around 11 percent of carbon emissions, which globally hit a record last year, driven mainly by booming coal-reliant emerging economies. It has set itself at the forefront of efforts to get a new global, binding deal on climate change once the first commitment phase of the Kyoto Protocol runs out at the end of next year.
In October, the 27-member bloc adopted a set of conclusions saying it would sign up for a second commitment period but on the condition that the bigger emitters provided firm evidence that they would join in, too.
An EU diplomat noted the conclusions adopted in October contained an offer to move to a 30 percent cut that would be conditional on developing countries pledging comparable reductions. The EU was not entirely united at the October environment meeting. It struggled to agree wording on allowances to produce greenhouse gases under the Kyoto Protocol known as Assigned Amount Units (AAUs).
Earlier this week, Denmark's Climate and Energy Minister Martin Lidegaard said 30 percent would be politically very difficult.
"I have not given up," Lidegaard told Reuters on the sidelines of a panel discussion. "But I'm looking at the political climate and thinking it's going to be hard to achieve 30 percent." ($1 = 0.736 Euros)
UPDATE 1-Europe set to revive 30 percent carbon cut debate | Reuters
...easter egg for those who care...
South African government expenditure on environmental issues has increased steadily over the last decade. The budget allocation for the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism is reflected in Figure 7.1.
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The cap and trade system has been proven a scam for a while now.
A carbon tax is the only way to go.
CIA urged to be more open about climate change
After a year of epic weather, drought, heatwaves, hurricanes and floods, America's intelligence establishment has come out with a bold new suggestion: maybe it's time the CIA stopped treating climate change as a secret.
A new report from the Defence Science Board – a US government agency – urges the CIA to step outside its traditional culture of secrecy and begin sharing the intelligence it has been gathering on climate change.
The report, Trends and Implications of Climate Change for National and International Security, goes as far as to recommend the establishment of a new agency devoted to the study of climate change – one that would operate in the open and transparent manner so alien to the CIA.
The report is the latest in the series of blows to CIA's climate centre, which has been struggling to justify its existence to the public since its establishment in 2009.
Republicans in Congress have derided the very notion of climate change as a national security threat, despite the Pentagon's view that it is a threat multiplier. Now it faces criticism that it has been hoarding data.
The report does not call for scrapping the CIA climate centre, but it does suggest that CIA's climate experts have been going about their business the wrong way.
The CIA's insistence on classifying the climate centre's reports have cut it off from university research on the cutting edge of climate science as well as other government agencies working on the issue, it said. "Compartmentalising climate change impact research can only hinder progress," the report said.
The CIA's secrecy on climate change has long irked other government agencies working in the same area. The climate centre last year turned down a freedom of information request for copies of its reports on climate impacts.
Although much of the data on climate change is gathered by satellites, the agency – citing the need to protect intelligence sources – said it was unable to release a single document. It declared the material "currently and properly classified".
Two analysts from the CIA climate centre did venture out to an off-the-record briefing with environmental groups earlier this year. But the analysts, who insisted they went unnamed, kept to generalities, a number of people at the briefing said.
Instead, a much more effective approach would be for the CIA climate centre to "make extensive use of open sources, seek to co-operate with other domestic and international intelligence efforts, and report most of its products broadly within governmental and non-governmental communities, the report said.
It went on to propose that the CIA climate centre produce an analysis of global hotspots where climate change and water supply was destabilising government and economies.
Then, crucially, it proposed the CIA should share that information.
CIA urged to be more open about climate change | World news | guardian.co.uk
After a year of epic weather, drought, heatwaves, hurricanes and floods, America's intelligence establishment has come out with a bold new suggestion: maybe it's time the CIA stopped treating climate change as a secret.
A new report from the Defence Science Board – a US government agency – urges the CIA to step outside its traditional culture of secrecy and begin sharing the intelligence it has been gathering on climate change.
The report, Trends and Implications of Climate Change for National and International Security, goes as far as to recommend the establishment of a new agency devoted to the study of climate change – one that would operate in the open and transparent manner so alien to the CIA.
The report is the latest in the series of blows to CIA's climate centre, which has been struggling to justify its existence to the public since its establishment in 2009.
Republicans in Congress have derided the very notion of climate change as a national security threat, despite the Pentagon's view that it is a threat multiplier. Now it faces criticism that it has been hoarding data.
The report does not call for scrapping the CIA climate centre, but it does suggest that CIA's climate experts have been going about their business the wrong way.
The CIA's insistence on classifying the climate centre's reports have cut it off from university research on the cutting edge of climate science as well as other government agencies working on the issue, it said. "Compartmentalising climate change impact research can only hinder progress," the report said.
The CIA's secrecy on climate change has long irked other government agencies working in the same area. The climate centre last year turned down a freedom of information request for copies of its reports on climate impacts.
Although much of the data on climate change is gathered by satellites, the agency – citing the need to protect intelligence sources – said it was unable to release a single document. It declared the material "currently and properly classified".
Two analysts from the CIA climate centre did venture out to an off-the-record briefing with environmental groups earlier this year. But the analysts, who insisted they went unnamed, kept to generalities, a number of people at the briefing said.
Instead, a much more effective approach would be for the CIA climate centre to "make extensive use of open sources, seek to co-operate with other domestic and international intelligence efforts, and report most of its products broadly within governmental and non-governmental communities, the report said.
It went on to propose that the CIA climate centre produce an analysis of global hotspots where climate change and water supply was destabilising government and economies.
Then, crucially, it proposed the CIA should share that information.
CIA urged to be more open about climate change | World news | guardian.co.uk
IPCC expected to confirm link between climate change and extreme weather
Report likely to conclude that man-made emissions are increasing the frequency of storms, floods and droughts
Climate change is likely to cause more storms, floods, droughts, heatwaves and other extreme weather events, according to the most authoritative review yet of the effects of global warming.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will publish on Friday its first special report on extreme weather, and its relationship to rising greenhouse gas emissions.
The final details are being fought over by governments, as the "summary for policymakers" of the report has to be agreed in full by every nation that chooses to be involved. But the conclusions are expected to be that emissions from human activities are increasing the frequency of extreme weather events. In particular, there are likely to be many more heatwaves, droughts and changes in rainfall patterns.
Jake Schmidt of the US-based Natural Resources Defense Council said: "This report should be a wake-up call to those that believe that climate change is some distant issue that might impact someone else. The report documents that extreme weather is happening now and that global warming will bring very dangerous events in the future. From the report you can see that extreme weather will impact everyone in one way or another. This is a window into the future if our political response doesn't change quickly."
This special report - one of only two that the IPCC is publishing before its 2014 comprehensive assessment of the state of climate change science - is particularly controversial as it deals with the relationship between man-made climate change and damaging events such as storms, floods and droughts. Some climate change sceptics and scientists cast doubt on whether the observed increase in extreme weather events can be attributed directly to human actions, or whether much of it is due to natural variability in the weather.
The Red Cross warned that disaster agencies were already dealing with the effects of climate change in vulnerable countries across the world. "The findings of this report certainly tally with what the Red Cross Movement is seeing, which is a rise in the number of weather-related emergencies around the world," said Maarten van Aalst, director of the Red Cross / Red Crescent Climate Centre and coordinating lead author of the IPCC report. "We are committed to responding to disasters whenever and wherever they happen, but we have to recognise that if the number of disasters continues to increase, the current model we have for responding to them is simply impossible to sustain."
Insurers are also worried. Mark Way, of the insurance giant Swiss Re, told the Guardian that the massive increase in insurance claims was causing serious concern. He said that between 1970 and 1989, the insurance industry globally had paid out an average of $5bn a year in weather-related claims, but that this had increased enormously to $27bn a year. Although not all of this was attributable to climate change - increasing population, urbanisation and prosperity also play a major part - he said insurers wanted governments to get to grips with the effects of climate change in order to prepare for likely damage and tackle the causes of global warming.
Mike Hulme at the Tyndall Centre said it would be dangerous for governments to use this report in order to justify directing overseas aid only to those countries that could be proved to be suffering from climate change, rather than other problems. In that scenario, he said: "Funding will no longer go to those who are most at risk from climate-impacts and with low adaptive capacity, but will go to those who are lucky enough to live in regions of the world where weather extremes happen to be most attributable by climate models to human agency. These regions tend to be in mid-to-high latitudes, with lots of good weather data and well calibrated models. So, goodbye Africa."
IPCC expected to confirm link between climate change and extreme weather | Environment | guardian.co.uk
Report likely to conclude that man-made emissions are increasing the frequency of storms, floods and droughts
Climate change is likely to cause more storms, floods, droughts, heatwaves and other extreme weather events, according to the most authoritative review yet of the effects of global warming.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will publish on Friday its first special report on extreme weather, and its relationship to rising greenhouse gas emissions.
The final details are being fought over by governments, as the "summary for policymakers" of the report has to be agreed in full by every nation that chooses to be involved. But the conclusions are expected to be that emissions from human activities are increasing the frequency of extreme weather events. In particular, there are likely to be many more heatwaves, droughts and changes in rainfall patterns.
Jake Schmidt of the US-based Natural Resources Defense Council said: "This report should be a wake-up call to those that believe that climate change is some distant issue that might impact someone else. The report documents that extreme weather is happening now and that global warming will bring very dangerous events in the future. From the report you can see that extreme weather will impact everyone in one way or another. This is a window into the future if our political response doesn't change quickly."
This special report - one of only two that the IPCC is publishing before its 2014 comprehensive assessment of the state of climate change science - is particularly controversial as it deals with the relationship between man-made climate change and damaging events such as storms, floods and droughts. Some climate change sceptics and scientists cast doubt on whether the observed increase in extreme weather events can be attributed directly to human actions, or whether much of it is due to natural variability in the weather.
The Red Cross warned that disaster agencies were already dealing with the effects of climate change in vulnerable countries across the world. "The findings of this report certainly tally with what the Red Cross Movement is seeing, which is a rise in the number of weather-related emergencies around the world," said Maarten van Aalst, director of the Red Cross / Red Crescent Climate Centre and coordinating lead author of the IPCC report. "We are committed to responding to disasters whenever and wherever they happen, but we have to recognise that if the number of disasters continues to increase, the current model we have for responding to them is simply impossible to sustain."
Insurers are also worried. Mark Way, of the insurance giant Swiss Re, told the Guardian that the massive increase in insurance claims was causing serious concern. He said that between 1970 and 1989, the insurance industry globally had paid out an average of $5bn a year in weather-related claims, but that this had increased enormously to $27bn a year. Although not all of this was attributable to climate change - increasing population, urbanisation and prosperity also play a major part - he said insurers wanted governments to get to grips with the effects of climate change in order to prepare for likely damage and tackle the causes of global warming.
Mike Hulme at the Tyndall Centre said it would be dangerous for governments to use this report in order to justify directing overseas aid only to those countries that could be proved to be suffering from climate change, rather than other problems. In that scenario, he said: "Funding will no longer go to those who are most at risk from climate-impacts and with low adaptive capacity, but will go to those who are lucky enough to live in regions of the world where weather extremes happen to be most attributable by climate models to human agency. These regions tend to be in mid-to-high latitudes, with lots of good weather data and well calibrated models. So, goodbye Africa."
IPCC expected to confirm link between climate change and extreme weather | Environment | guardian.co.uk
The dollar value is practically meaningless, and I wouldn't trust that the insurance industry isn't leveraging themselves for rate increases. That said, the distribution of these extreme events is what matters, and indications are that the distributions are changing. I guess we'll have to wait and see exactly what the review panels find in the recent literature. There's been quite a bit of research probing this line of inquiry lately.
Ohhhhh, the IPCC. Thank goodness, the globe would be lost without their benevolent and insightful faux science.
Was there ever any question about the conclusions? The IPCC has proven time and time again that they form the 'conclusion' in advance and then fit the science to it.
Where the events are found on the distribution of all events.
eg.
So...your contention is that the IPCC invents the journal articles they cite to fit their conclusions? Even the ones a few years old? The IPCC doesn't do science...they review evidence. That's what panels do.
Delusional.