Caribbean Governments Urged to Set Climate Action Agenda

Regional scientists are calling on Caribbean governments to help develop an emerging research and action agenda on climate change.

KINGSTON, Jamaica, April 9, 2008 (ENS) - Regional scientists are calling on Caribbean governments to help develop an emerging research and action agenda that will prepare the islands for the effects of climate change.
A preliminary agenda was reached after three teams of scientists carried out extensive research on climate change scenarios and modeling, coastal, marine and terrestrial biodiversity in the region.

Fined tuned at a two-day workshop hosted by the Trinidad-based Caribbean Natural Resource Institute at the University of the West Indies, Mona, the agenda identifies gaps in existing capacity in the region to deal with the effects of climate change and outlines measures to correct those deficiencies.
Dr. John Agard, chairman of the Environmental Management Authority of Trinidad and Tobago, says the agenda is long overdue.

"At the climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia last December, the Caribbean had no defined position," he declared. "Other countries had positions, and we, named as the primary targets that are likely to be most affected by climate change, had no regional positions on what we wanted to achieve, while other people were busy lobbying for what they wanted."

"That is absurd and embarrassing and we must not do that again!" said Dr. Agard. More >>>

Food Security in Africa

Long-term food security: investing in people and livelihoods

Sub-Saharan Africa is not on track to achieve a single Millennium Development Goal. It is the only region in the world where malnutrition, a product of food insecurity, is on the rise. Food insecurity in Africa has many complex causes, including HIV/AIDS, climate change, environmental degradation, conflict, a huge increase in population size, and debt.

These factors have had a profound impact on traditional livelihoods, making them unsustainable and, for many people in constant crisis, restricting their ability to access sufficient food. Coping strategies used in response to crisis further contribute to the erosion of livelihoods. The International Federation is focusing its support on food security in Africa in response to such particularly highlevel needs in the continent. More >>>

Models look good when predicting climate change

April 2 2008 - The accuracy of computer models that predict climate change over the coming decades has been the subject of debate among politicians, environmentalists, and even scientists. A new study by meteorologists at the University of Utah shows that current climate models are quite accurate and can be valuable tools for those seeking solutions on reversing global warming trends. Most of these models project a global warming trend that amounts to about 7 degrees Fahrenheit over the next 100 years.

The study titled "How Well do Coupled Models Simulate Today's Climate?" is due to be published this Friday in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. In the study, co-authors Thomas Reichler and Junsu Kim from the Department of Meteorology at the University of Utah investigate how well climate models actually do their job in simulating climate. More >>>

Nobel scientist issues warning on global warming

MIAMI, April 5 (Reuters) - The Nobel Prize-winning scientist who rang the first alarm bells over the ozone hole issued a warming about climate change on Saturday, saying there could be "almost irreversible consequences" if the Earth warmed 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees F) above what it ought to be.

"Things are changing and there's no doubt that it's as a result of human activities," said Mario Molina, a Mexican who shared a Nobel prize in chemistry in 1995 for groundbreaking work on chlorofluorocarbon gases and their threat to the Earth's ozone layer.

"Long before we run out of oil, we will run out of atmosphere," he said.

Molina told a panel discussion on climate change at an annual Inter-American Development Bank meeting in Miami that the increasing intensity of hurricanes was among the worrisome changes that scientists had linked to a rapid global warming trend over the past 30 years. More >>>

Kevin Rudd speaks on climate change at Policy Centre Briefing, Brussels

Thursday April 3, 2008 - Brussels - The biggest challenge the world faces in the decades ahead is climate change.

It is the great moral and economic challenge of our time.

It will require concerted global action to overcome.

We need the right domestic policies – such as cap and trade carbon markets and policies to promote energy efficiency. And we need the right international policies too.
Australia’s ratification of the Kyoto Protocol underlines the fact that we are ready for the serious action required to address climate change.

I was pleased that Australia and the European Union could work effectively together (and with others) in Bali to help launch negotiations on a new, international post-2012 framework that will see all countries contribute. We want to see “top-down” emission reduction targets for advanced economies and specific commitments to action by developing countries.
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IPCC underestimates global warming challenge, researchers say

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has seriously underestimated the technological challenges involved in lowering man-made greenhouse gas emissions, a Canadian economist and two U.S. experts on climate change argue in the journal Nature.

Assumptions in the IPCC's climate models divert attention from greenhouse gas reduction policies, they allege in a commentary published online Wednesday.

The authors are McGill University economist Christopher Green, University of Colorado climate policy expert Roger Pielke Jr. and U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research climatologist Tom Wigley.

Last year, reports by the panel, which was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme, spelled out the consensus on climate change from scientists and policy makers, arguing global warming was unequivocally occurring and was very likely man-made in origin. More >>>

Endangered Islands

LONDON, England (CNN) -- With every click of his camera, Japanese photographer and activist Shuuichi Endou hopes to draw attention to the plight of Tuvalu, a remote nation of people whose home is slowly disappearing.

Tuvalu is the world's fourth smallest country behind Vatican City, Monaco and Pacific Ocean neighbor Nauru. He's taking 10,000 photos, one of each person who lives there, to show the world the human face of climate change.

"Tuvaluans do not ask much, neither goods nor money," he says.

"In Japan, people sacrifice their time and life to get more goods and money. I hope the viewers see the contrast by looking at the photos. We're sacrificing peaceful Tuvalu."
At first glance, Tuvalu is an island paradise, 26 square kilometers of white sand and lush foliage in the Pacific Ocean, north of Fiji.
But the sea level is rising, so much so that the nation's water has become too salty to drink and to grow vegetables, especially taro, a vegetable that was once the island's staple food.

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