By Maria Surma Manka •
September 11, 2007
Last week China reiterated its commitment to renewable energy, particularly hydropower. The Asian nation plans to triple its hydropower production to 300,000 megawatts by 2020.
Chinese officials also asked the world to cut them some slack in their efforts to cut global warming pollution.
China’s contribution to global warming has been relatively small compared to the more developed Western nations, they argue, and they shouldn’t be held overly accountable. According to Chen Deming
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By Joshua S Hill •
September 6, 2007
Editor’s note: Please join us in welcoming Joshua S. Hill to the Green Options writing team. Based in Donvale, Australia, Joshua is a freelance writer who’s published articles on global warming/climate change at Mongabay.com, and the Canada Free Press. He’ll be contributing to our coverage of these issues, as well as delving into green technology.
It’s been two days since negotiators from
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By Maria Surma Manka •
September 3, 2007
There was a questionable bit of progress this past Friday at the Vienna Climate Change Talks, where negotiators agreed on loose targets for cutting the emissions that cause global warming.
The 158 nations represented agreed that industrialized countries should cut global warming emissions by 25-40 percent of 1990 levels by 2020. But nations like Canada, Japan, and Russia delayed the talks, arguing instead for a more "open approach" rather than setting hard and fast targets.
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It’s been a busy week for international climate change negotiations. A meeting of the United Nations and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) have some watchers feeling cautiously optimistic of future global agreements, while others are less than impressed with the semantics.
The Vienna Climate Change talks saw more than a thousand people from government, industry, and research gather in the Austrian capital to discuss ways to fight global warming. This United Nations-backed meeting is
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By Mike Garofalo •
August 29, 2007
Editor’s note: We’re very happy to welcome Mike Garofalo and SmartPower to GO! Every Wednesday, Mike’s "Power to the People" column will look at the energy proposals of the declared candidates for President of the United States.
Hello GO Community! My name is Mike Garofalo and I am the Communications Director for SmartPower, a national non-profit marketing organization that promotes clean energy use all across the United
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A survey of citizens in nine of the world’s most powerful economies has revealed stark differences in their concerns about climate change and the optimism that it can be slowed.
HSBC – one of the largest banking and financial service organizations in the world – surveyed nine thousand citizens across Brazil, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, the UK, and the US for the HSBC Climate Confidence Index 2007. Those in the developing
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel visits China again this week, marking her second official visit to the nation. While she traveled with a delegation of business interests eager to make headway into the burgeoning Asian economy, Merkel’s trip also included some serious talk about climate change solutions.
On Monday, she urged Chinese leaders to do more to cut heat-trapping emissions. That led to the Chinese rebuttal that the West has been polluting the planet much longer
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A U.S. District Court Judge has ruled that the Bush Administration broke federal law when it failed to produce two required global warming reports on time.
The ruling was based on a 1990 law - the Research Plan and National Assessment required by the Global Change Research Act - directing the President to regularly issue two global warming plans: one that guides research and another explaining global warming’s possible impacts on the U.S.
The research
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A joint goal among eight western U.S. states and Canadian provinces was formalized this week when the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) announced a goal to cut global warming emissions by 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.
The goal is the cumulative total of individual reductions goals for each state and province: for example, Washington has a more ambitious goal of reducing levels of the gases to 1990 levels by 2020.
California, [...]
Two proposed coal-fired power plants in Iowa could negate the state’s efforts to cut emissions with clean, renewable power.
LS Power Group wants to build a 750-megawatt (MW) plant near Waterloo, and Alliant Energy wants a 630 MW coal plant near Marshalltown. A new MidAmerican Energy coal plant just began operation near Council Bluffs on June 1.
Local and regional supporters of clean and efficient energy will fight the plants.
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Australian farmers have teamed up with environmentalists to create the Agricultural Alliance on Climate Change, a group that wants to cut emissions up to 60 percent by 2050.
Although they may not agree on all environmental issues, climate change is problem that they know requires immediate action and can be slowed. Farming groups like the South Australian Farmers Federation and Agforce are on the front lines of having
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