In order to cut harmful emissions from maritime vessels, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the next steps of its coordinated effort on Wednesday. The steps include creating a rule under the Clean Air Act that would establish tough engine and fuel standards for U.S. flagged ships. The proposed rule would harmonize with international standards and lead to improved air quality throughout the country.

The new proposal follows a proposal made between the United States and Canada in March that would set aside thousands of miles of coast between the two countries as an Emission Control Area (ECA). The International Maritime Organization (IMO), a United Nations agency, will begin review of the ECA plan this month. The passage of the ECA plan would result in the enforcement of stringent standards placed on large ships that operate within 200 nautical miles of U.S. or Canadian coasts.

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But concrete action has been slow, and whilst the world continues to talk, emissions continue to rise. However, another small but significant step has been made during the past week with an agreement between EU leaders to commit to legislation setting firm targets for a 20% reduction in Co2 emissions before 2020.

Janez Jansa , Prime Minister of Solvenia who currently holds the rotating EU presidency told reporters that EU leaders have taken a “huge step forward” with this agreement.

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Under the plan, all new construction at Princeton will have to use half as much energy as is required under current building codes. The plan also aims to reduce campus car traffic by 10 percent by 2020.

“We feel that we have an obligation as an institution to create an environment where students, faculty and staff can see the institution trying out new technologies … or trying to change behavior,” said Mark Burstein, Princeton’s executive vice president.

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The only way to stabilize Earth’s climate, according to new research, is to cut carbon emissions to zero … and to do it quick.

Climate scientists Ken Caldeira and Damon Matthews reached that conclusion after taking a new approach to future climate modeling. Rather than analyze what it would take to stabilize carbon dioxide levels, they crunched data to determine how much carbon we could continue pumping into the air without warming the Earth any further.

The answer they got was: none.

“Most scientific and policy discussions about avoiding climate change have centered on what emissions would be needed to stabilize greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” Caldeira said. “But stabilizing greenhouse gases does not equate to a stable climate.”

In Caldeira’s and Mathews’ model, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations slowly begin dropping only if emissions go to zero. And, even in that case, the Earth remains warm for another 500 years.

On the flip side, any emissions more than zero result in further warming of the planet.

“What if we were to discover tomorrow that a climate catastrophe was imminent if our planet warmed any further?” Caldeira asked.

That might be a question we’ll have to answer soon. Amazingly, though, Caldeira remains hopeful.

“It is just not that hard to solve the technological challenges,” he said. “We can develop and deploy wind turbines, electric cars, and so on, and live well without damaging the environment. The future can be better than the present, but we have to take steps to start kicking the CO2 habit now, so we won’t need to go cold turkey later.”

So it was of little surprise that the German auto industry, represented by brands such as Mercedes, BMW, Porsche and Volkswagen Audi vigorously lobbied its government for concessions on new European fuel economy standards (see box text below). Manufacturers were chiefly concerned with loosing their dominance of the luxury car segment through being forced to manufacture smaller, more efficient cars.

“We don’t want Germany to became a nation of small car owners”

President of the German automotive industry association, Matthias Wissmann, told a news conference recently “We don’t want Germany to became a nation of small car owners”. The German government has backed its automakers, claiming that the EU proposals place an unfair burden on German industry in comparison to the French and Italians.

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