There is a new wave of entrepreneurs aiming to get rich by
saving the rainforests. Richard Lofthouse reports
Ever wanted to get rich by doing absolutely nothing? In a bizarre way that’s what a bunch of new entrepreneurs and large corporations are trying to do. The formula is ridiculously simple: buy up or lease a tract of rainforest, prop up a deckchair and watch it grow. Put a financial price on its mere existence and sell a range of ‘products’ – called ecosystem services – to polluters. If trees could hear, they’d be setting up trade unions.
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Let's recycle toilet paper! Part 1There was some interesting debate going on. American "soft" toilet tissue seems to be a problem to some people in the US...
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Let's recycle toilet paper! Part 2Toilet paper may not be the sexiest environmental issue, but it really is one of the most important considering the manufacturing of that product causes deforestation, which causes more global warming pollution than all the combined emissions of cars, trucks, buses, airplanes and ships in the ent
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Stimulus Plans to foil Climate Change ProgramsEconomic stimulus plans being rolled out across the world could commit countries to rapid growth in greenhouse gas emissions, cancelling some of the green initiatives included within them, analysis has found.
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Climate killer toilet paper You can find the related articles >>here<< and >>here<<
Soft toilet paper is ruining the planet--huh?
Allen Hershkowitz, Senior Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and (I perceive) a long time enemy of the forest products industry, pronounced last week that using soft toilet paper is harmful to the planet's health.
On one hand, I am encouraged that we have cleaned up our act to the point that what we use to clean our behinds is all Hershkowitz apparently has left to complain about. On the other, thanks for hitting our fine industry when it's down, Allen.
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Apr 23, 2009: New study warns that forests are at risk of becoming net sources of carbon instead of net sinks
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House panel approves climate change bill
Reporting by Tom Doggett and Richard Cowan, Source: Copyright 2009, Reuters, Date: May 21, 2009
Original URL
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Friday, 26th of June 2009: The bill (HR 2454) passed 219-212, with eight Republican "yes" votes tipping the balance. Forty-four Democrats voted against the bill.
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Freitag, 26. Juni 2009: Der Gesetzesentwurf zum Klimaschutz (HR 2454) passierte mit 219 zu 212 Stimmen das US-Repräsentantenhaus wobei 8 Republikaner dafür und 44 Demokraten dagegen gestimmt haben.
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UK kicks Climate debate in front of CopenhagenGordon Brown puts $100bn price tag on climate adaptation. Prime minister attempts to move stalling political talks on global warming away from targets and towards the cost of mitigation.
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Implications of the Markey-Waxman billImplications of the American Clean Energy and Security Act for conservation
June 26, 2009:Following today's passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) by the House of Representatives, The Nature Conservancy released a set of questions and answers with Mark Tercek, its chairman and CEO.
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Historical background of REDDJune 29, 2009: A New Idea to Save Tropical Forests Takes Flight and then in 2005, a small group of countries changed everything. Papua New Guinea teamed up with Costa Rica and a handful of other countries to make a formal plea to the United Nations.
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4.7.2009: America's 4 July bonfires served a dual purpose yesterday. They burned the wood of trees destroyed by a trio of bugs that are devastating parts of the nation's forests.
With 750 million acres of forests in the United States, the scale of the problem is massive. Since 1999, the country has lost, on average, 1 per cent of its tree cover per year. This means these small insects have killed about 10 per cent of all US forests in 10 years.
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4.7.2009: Die USA leiden unter dem schlimmsten Waldsterben seit 150 Jahren
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July 15, 2009: The UK has released its Low Carbon Transition Plan. The Plan plots out how the UK will meet the cut in emissions set out in the budget of 34% on 1990 levels by 2020.
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Waxman-Markey: How US lobbying works
July 14, 2009: The landmark American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 that narrowly passed through Congress on June 26 has come under fire by environmental critics who see the pared down measure as too little, too late. Originally proposed by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Edward Markey (D-MA), the bill went through the wringer on the Hill, coming out with a number of amendments and omissions.
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Carbon Cap and Trade - green gambling?You've heard of credit default swaps and subprime mortgages. Are carbon default swaps and subprime offsets next? If the Waxman-Markey climate bill is signed into law, it will generate, almost as an afterthought, a new market for carbon derivatives. That market will be vast, complicated, and dauntingly difficult to monitor. And if Washington doesn't get the rules right, it will be vulnerable to speculation and manipulation by the very same players who brought us the financial meltdown.
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Prince Charles Gives $2.8b To Preserve Rain ForestsKaranganyar, Central Java. Britain’s Prince Charles has set aside 2 billion euros ($2.8 billion) to help Indonesia and other developing countries preserve their rain forests, State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar said on Thursday.
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Fighting climate change might cost 300 billion USD a year from 2020De Boer: Fighting climate change will cost a "phenomenal amount of money - 300 billion dollars a year from 2020. That is the cost for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to impacts from the changing climate, estimates the UN climate chief Yvo de Boer.
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Seeing Through the Haze:How NGOs Work the ForestsAs they do every year, Greenpeace and nongovernmental organizations like “Eyes on the Forest,” which is supported by the WWF and other western environmental groups, have squarely blamed the plantation industry for the seasonal fires in Sumatra.
This generates sympathy for the anti-forestry campaign NGOs have been waging in Indonesia for many years, which pits economic development against the environment.
But this perspective is simplistic and wrong.
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The other black [green] goldIn Brazil’s Amazon basin, farmers have long sought out a special form of fertiliser – a locally sourced compost-like substance prized for its amazing qualities of reviving poor or exhausted soils. They buy it in sacks or dig it out of the earth from patches that are sometimes as much as 6ft deep. Spread on fields, it retains its fertile qualities for long periods.
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Biochar - Menace or Redeemer?Sometimes you have to hand it to capitalism. It’s sheer magic, the way the system takes promising concepts, steeps them in the transformative power of the market – and turns them into howling social and environmental disasters.
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Kyoto-Style pact seems not to be an option for Australia any more
AUSTRALIA'S chief climate change negotiator says a dramatic shift from the design of the Kyoto Protocol could be the best way to reach an international climate change agreement.
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Rainforest Nations hopeful over Copenhagen dealCoalition for Rainforest Nations downplays concerns surrounding plans to include forestry in the carbon market
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On the other hand, as one reads through this newsletter, one can see a number of clear pointers as to how the future is likely to look. These are:
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Study doubts UN calculation of climate change costsThe global cost of adapting to the effects of climate change will be at least two or three times higher than estimated by the UNFCCC, a new report states.
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Global forest destruction seen overestimated?RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - The amount of carbon emissions caused by world forest destruction is likely far less than the 20 percent figure being widely used before global climate talks in December, said the head of the Brazilian institute that measures Amazon deforestation.
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EU Chair lowers expectations to COP152009-08-31: As an agreement that will keep global warming below two degrees C can probably not be found in Copenhagen, instead the EU should see December’s UN conference as a starting point, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt says.
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What is the Strategy of the EU in case of combating climate change?September 10, 2009: Greenpeace and Oxfam International criticize the EU Commission for not being ready to pay Europe’s share of the climate bill.
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EU will Milliarden an Entwicklungsländer für den Kampf gegen den Klimawandel zahlenDie Kommission schlägt vor, den Entwicklungsländern ab 2013 jährlich steigende Beträge zu zahlen, um mit dem Klimawandel zurechtzukommen.
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Carbon Offsets and Human Rights - do they fit into one another?Double Jeopardy: Carbon Offsets and Human Rights Abuses
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Brazil and Guyana to bridge the gap!
Economic incentives for countries such as Brazil and Guyana could provide the answer to a complex environmental problem
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How to combat deforestation in central Brazil?“At regional and global levels, especially in inland Amazonia and other regions in southern central Brazil, if the rate of deforestation is not reduced, removal of plant cover can affect rainfall, as has been scientifically demonstrated.”
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EU and US to dissent on how to agree a new climate dealThe dispute between the US and Europe is over the way national carbon reduction targets would be counted. Europe has been pushing to retain structures and systems set up under the Kyoto protocol, the existing global treaty on climate change. US negotiators have told European counterparts that the Obama administration intends to sweep away almost all of the Kyoto architecture and replace it with a system of its own design.
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Germany to pay $ 650 million in order to protect Rainforests in EcuadorGermany has apparently agreed to fund a significant portion of Ecuador's scheme to leave Amazon rainforest oil reserves in the ground, according to Business Green.
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REDD plans move forward despite concernsAs part of the programme for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD, see Update 57), Guyana, Panama and Indonesia submitted readiness pr
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Africa's first CDM forest projectTrees will return to a vast eroded grassland in Uganda as Africa's first Clean Development Mechanism forestry project evolves.
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First developing countries proposals for LULUCF in BangkokAfter nearly two years of developed countries discussing different options for rule changes for this sector, and not getting much farther than more clearly articulating the options that suit each country best, G77 and China said enough is enough and drew a line in the sand:
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U.S., Brazilian and Indonesian Governors Urge Their Presidents to Include Forest Protection in Climate Change PoliciesLOS ANGELES, Oct. 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and 10 other governors from the United States, Brazil and Indonesia are sending a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono urging them to include forest protection in international and national climate change policies, according to Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5910GJ20091002).
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Offset potential from forests hugely overestimatedBolivian flagship project in forest conservation has only achieved 11 percent of its planned carbon offsetting. Greenpeace: A scam.
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A confidential letter from the Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh (above) to the Prime Minister suggests a U-turn in the nation’s climate policy.
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Global forest monitoring to help mitigate climate change20 October 2009, Rome - For the first time worldwide, free and ready-to-use high-resolution satellite data is now available to monitor forests and help reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. The monitoring system has been launched by FAO and other partners as part of the Global Forest Resources Assessment.
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Bäume fällen für das KlimaEine kluge Forstwirtschaft könnte Deutschlands CO2-Ausstoß deutlich senken
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EU Position for the Copenhage Climate ConferenceThe European Union has published it's Position for the Copenhave Climate Conference.
Here are the Forests related parts.
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The planet never needed more than now world forestry managementWorld Forestry Congress produces a message to be presented at COP 15
in Copenhagen
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Emissions from forest loss overstatedTHE recent climate talks in Bangkok, Thailand, highlighted the clear differences between developing countries and some developed countries and NGOs on forestry.
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EU has agreed to accept burden sharing on climate change mitigationThe EU is reportedly willing to begin its funding next year, although a new global climate deal replacing the Kyoto Protocol is not expected to become effective before 2013. The new EU move is an attempt to signal willingness to reach a global deal at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen in December.
According to the web edition of the Danish daily, Politiken, the European Union suggests a global sum of annually five to seven billion euro during the period 2010-2012. EU expects to fund around a third of the total amount.
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CO2 from forest destruction overestimated?
The carbon dioxide emissions caused by the destruction of tropical forests have been significantly overestimated, according to a new study. The work could undermine attempts to pay poor countries to protect forests as a cost-effective way to tackle global warming.
The loss of forests in countries such as Brazil and Indonesia is widely assumed to account for about 20% of all carbon dioxide produced by human activity – more than the world's transport system. The 20% figure was published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 and was widely quoted after being highlighted by the Stern review on the economics of the problem. It is repeatedly used by Prince Charles and others as an incentive to push efforts to include forests in carbon trading.
Curbing emissions from deforestation is one of the main issues being discussed at a UN climate meeting in Barcelona this week, before crucial talks in Copenhagen next month.
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Ever thought about on how climate negotiations are be done?At 8am on Wednesday 7 October, a smartly dressed fiftysomething Filipino woman took the escalator to the first floor of the UN building in Bangkok and merged into a throng of diplomats, civil servants and environmentalists arriving for the eighth day of the ninth session of the global climate talks. She was met with a few respectful nods.
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Mini ice age took hold of Europe in months JUST months - that's how long it took for Europe to be engulfed by an ice age. The scenario, which comes straight out of Hollywood blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow, was revealed by the most precise record of the climate from palaeohistory ever generated.
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On the Copenhagen Agenda, Reducing Deforestation May Still SucceedThis month, the journal Nature Geoscience published a study calculating that deforestation is responsible for about 15% of global carbon emissions, down from earlier estimates of 20% or more. Most of the world's deforestation is concentrated in a few tropical nations, like Brazil and Indonesia where trees are disappearing fast — when these trees die or are burned, they release into the atmosphere all the carbon they've sucked up while they were alive. According to the Nature Geoscience study, the problem of deforestation is becoming a lot less dire than previously thought.
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US-Report highlights deforestationA new bipartisan coalition of business, government and environmental leaders is asking the Senate to make deforestation a centerpiece of the climate bill by allocating billions to fund tropical forest preservation programs in developing nations.
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Forests' crucial climate role also seen by the USA great deal has been learned over the past 15 years about how to reduce carbon emissions from tropical deforestation in ways that benefit local people and the global environment.
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Ecotourism may be a solution to the tourism industry’s climate threat Tourism is considered to be a highly climate-sensitive economic sector similar to agriculture. This has encouraged industry players to look at new ways to respond effectively to these problems.
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Sustainable Forest Management increasingly important for Climate-Change Mitigation Expert-Level Meeting of the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe (MCPFE) highlights crucial role of European Forests
FOREST EUROPE: New brand name for the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe (MCPFE)
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So what? Is climate heating up or cooling down?For years there has been a strong divide between those that believe mankind is causing global warming and those that don't.
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EU accused of risking Copenhagen climate talks with stance on aid fundingConfidential papers reveal Europeans want assistance for poorer countries to come from existing cash pot. The EU was accused of threatening the global climate talks last night after confidential papers showed it wants existing overseas aid funding to be used to help poor countries adapt to global warming, not new and additional funds.
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Faulty systems at the Bank's Forest Carbon Partnership FacilityAs the Bank seeks to position itself as the vehicle of choice for future climate finance, the experience of the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) calls its competence into question.
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REDD on track for CopenhagenA number of issues still need to be resolved, but the scheme on reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) is likely to make progress at the climate conference, says the chairman of the REDD talks within the UN climate negotiations. The potential is an agreement on a carbon trading scheme worth billions of dollars a year from 2013.
"I think it's a foregone conclusion that REDD will be part of the new agreement. Ironically it's actually the most advanced now," says Tony La Vina, chair of the REDD negotiations, to Reuters.
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REDD - a climate change mitigation strategy on a critical trackThere is a myth about REDD funds, it tells about a lot of funds for many countries.
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Carbon Capitalists Warming to Climate Market Using Derivatives
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Calling WTO to do REDD support?
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The US discovers forest markets...Defining how a forest can generate carbon credits could be the one landmark agreement coming out of the UN climate talks in Copenhagen.
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Climate summit closed to civil society, but remains open to big business
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Climate change has no time for delay or denial
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Do they think we are all idiots?
Falling carbon price could result in higher bills, energy firms warn
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South American Environmental Trusts Join Columbia Center to Create Amazon Forest Carbon CreditsFive environmental trust funds in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have joined with Columbia University’s Center for Environment, Economy, and Society to establish the Amazon Forest Carbon Partnership, a collaboration to reduce carbon emissions and provide an economic alternative for forest dwelling communities and commercial enterprises in the Amazon. The issue of forest carbon credit, in which wealthy countries offset their emissions by compensating land holders for preserving forests, was a core point of negotiations at the global climate summit in Copenhagen.
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TREES are one of the most efficient systems of carbon capture and storage on the planet. They breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen, locking the carbon into their roots, trunk, branches, twigs and leaves and the soil. They are so good at this that about 20% of the greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere can be attributed to deforestation. In the run-up to the climate talks in Copenhagen in December, bright minds around the world are negotiating a formal scheme for reducing the loss of trees as a way of lowering the world’s carbon emissions.
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Programs for Climate Action get underway with $400 m for forests and $300 m for renewablesNew Delhi: A $100 million pledge from the Government of Japan has helped to secure the funding base and launch the operational phase of two new climate programs supporting forest management and renewable energy investments in developing countries.
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Business should get credit for saving forests, coalition says
Power companies should get credit under a climate change bill for forest conservation, a coalition of groups said Monday.
Companies also should get credit for supporting farming activites that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the groups said.
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Organizational Issues in Spotlight as Climate Talks Resume in BonnDelegates to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have gathered in Bonn, Germany, for the first meeting since Copenhagen. This three-day meeting, however, is more about process than product. Ecosystem Marketplace drops in for a quick look at the negotiations.
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Confidential document reveals Obama's hardline US climate talk strategyDocument outlines key messages the Obama administration wants to convey in the run-up to UN climate talks in Mexico in November.
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Tree planting: A key weapon against global warmingTree-planting activities - reforestation and afforestation - have come in for criticism in recent times, giving rise to a debate over whether planting new forests in order to combat climate change is worthwhile, and whether it can be accurately reflected in a system of economic credits.
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Copenhagen Accord - missing the markCurrent pledges to reduce emissions are no where near good enough to keep the planet's warming to below 2°C, argue Joeri Rogelj, Malte Meinshausen and colleagues in an opinion piece in Nature this week.
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EcoSecurities: Forest carbon offsetting report 2010
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Will and equity - does climate alternative offer enough?
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Liberia's EPA: Global Challenges and Benefits The Environmental Protection Agency of Liberia (EPA) is mandated to protect the human health and well-being of the Liberian people and others living within the nation's jurisdiction.
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World Bank Approves First Climate Change Development Policy Loan
25 May 2010: The World Bank approved its first development policy loan dedicated to climate change mitigation and adaptation, in Indonesia.
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May/June 2010: BONN CLIMATE CHANGE TALKSThe Bonn Climate Change Talks begin today and are scheduled to conclude on Friday, 11 June 2010.
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Critics slam new climate change proposal in BonnBONN, Germany -- A new round of climate talks ended Friday with rich and poor countries both sharply criticizing a new text meant to pave the way toward a deal to halt global warming.
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Finland puts emphasis on renewable wooden energy in order to mitigate climate changeFinland’s forests are a substantial carbon sink. In 2008 Finland’s forests sequestrated 35 million tons of CO2. In Finland strong emphasis has been put on the mitigation issues by promoting the use of wood.
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David King: No cause for climate despair THE prospect of an international agreement to halt dangerous climate change may seem more remote than ever following the talks that ended last week in Bonn, Germany.
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CDM Critics Demand Investigation of Suspect Offsets UNITED NATIONS -- A broad coalition of activists are charging that as much as a third of all Kyoto Protocol carbon offset credits ever sold to banks and governments could be illegitimate because they were generated by firms manipulating the marketplace.
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Reducing CO2: Vietnam stands at the forefrontVietNamNet Bridge – On the occasion of an international conference on “Payments for Environmental Services and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation” (REDD)
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Initiating Moves To Climate-proof AfricaDiscouraged by the outcome of the Copenhagen climate summit last December as well as how negotiations at the just concluded talks in Bonn in Germany seem to have turned out, developing nations made up of mainly those from Africa are now looking inwards as a way out of the dilemma.
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UNFCCC Publishes Meeting Report on Guidance for Forest Emissions and Removals
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Tackling Deforestation Must Be Key Focus in Fight Against Climate ChangeWhile the global community is fighting wars on many fronts, the Commonwealth Secretary-General has said that there is no greater fight than climate change, "where the battle for the forest represents the front line, and the very thick of the action."
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United Nations warned that corruption is undermining grants to stop loggingCampaigners say countries intend to abuse system by pocketing billions in subsidies while continuing to fell trees
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Amazongate: At last we reach the source
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| Fire in the Amazon, it turns out, was not a 'report' or a scientific paper but, as the WWF now acknowledges, a text published by IPAM? on its website in 1999 |
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Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing Holds Second Meeting13 July 2010: The High-level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing, co-chaired by Prime Ministers Meles Zenawi (Ethiopia) and Jens Stoltenberg (Norway), held its
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US government fails on climate changeNot even intense international pressure, the BP oil spill, worsening floods, or the fact that the last six months have been the warmest on record globally was enough to push US climate legislation through the Senate. In the end the legislation died without a single Republican supporting it and a number of Democrats balking. Democratic Senate leader, Harry Reid, said they would continue to push climate legislation in the fall, but analysts say success then is unlikely given up-coming elections in November.
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Pay the tropics to reverse deforestationAMONG THE MANY NASTY things that humans are doing to the environment, few rank worse than destroying tropical forests. Rainforests sustain an astonishing diversity of species and keep our planet liveable by limiting soil erosion, reducing floods, maintaining natural water cycles, and stabilising the climate. Yet roughly 10 million hectares of tropical forest are destroyed every year – the equivalent of 50 football fields a minute.
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BRIEFING PAPER AWG-LCA and AWG-KP as of August 2010BRIEFING PAPER
The Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) and the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP), 2-6 August 2010, Bonn:
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China mudslides were predicted 13 years agoMonster monsoon rains may have loosened the mud and rock that buried and killed more than 1,000 people in the northwestern Chinese Province of Gansu over the weekend, but the mudslide in Zhouqu was more than a natural disaster.
Official records show that government-run lumber companies cut 313,000 acres of forest from the slopes of Zhouqu county between 1952 and 1990, denuding the geologically vulnerable mountainsides and subjecting them to soil erosion.
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FG to Fast-track Green Energy Devt PolicyThe Minister of Environment, Mr. John Odey, has said that the Federal Government is fast- tracking the implementation of sound policies to promote the development of green energy projects.
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Ancient fertilizer biochar joins modern fight against greenhouse gasesWhat do bone fragments, cow patties and banana peels have in common? They all help gardens grow.
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Clinton’s Cap-and-Trade ConU.S., Pakistani and United Nations officials are not letting Pakistan’s flood crisis go to waste. They are exploiting it for an advantage in the high-stakes climate change debate.
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The Indian Imperative to Act on Climate Change: Unique Blend of Co-benefits Rationale and 'Dharma'
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