Green Options

The week began and ended with major international climate change conferences. The first was a United Nations meeting, prepping world leaders for the December talks in Bali that will be the first step to determining emissions goals after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. The meeting that closed out this week was held by President Bush in Washington. Sixteen nations, the UN, and the European Union were invited.

At the start of the two-day “Major

[...]

There have been some major wake-up calls in the fight against global warming, starting with the United Nations scolding the U.S. for not doing enough to mitigate its contributions to the problem.

U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer told the Associated Press that it’s "very clear" the U.S. is not on the right track, despite the Bush administration’s recent openness to even discussing the problem and the series of meetings President Bush has scheduled with

[...]

Currently over 250 million people experience the direct consequences of desertification. Many of them are the world’s most destitute and vulnerable citizens.

2000 participants are expected in Madrid for the eighth international conference of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which runs from September 3 - 14. Ecologists, representatives from 800 NGOs, and envoys from the 191 countries that ratified the Convention will meet to report on recent developments in the battle against

[...]

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.

[...]

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

[...]

Today the fourth and final assessment from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “Mitigation of Climate Change,” will be released. More than 400 scientists and experts from 120 countries are in Bangkok, Thailand this week to finalize the report. The summary of Mitigation of Climate Change will be posted here; go here for a live webcast around 1PM local time. The full report will be released in September.

[...]

A hugely successful solar power project in India is providing clean, affordable electricity for 100,00 people and will be reproduced in other developing nations.

The $1.5 million United Nations-backed project aims to increase the number of homes using solar power in the Karnataka state of southern India. The number of homes using solar power has risen from 1,400 just four years ago to 18,000 today. Indian banks have also helped out by financing the

[...]

For the first time ever, the United Nations Security Council has put global warming on its agenda and will hold a high-level meeting this month to discuss its potential impacts on international security.

We often hear of climate change’s threat to the environment, health, and the economy. But more and more policymakers and leaders are nervous about the global security issues we could face, such as conflicts over water resources and massive numbers of

[...]