Papa Hemingway probably didn’t see this coming.

When he wrote “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” in the 1930s, Ernest Hemingway described the summit of that African mountain as “wide as all the world, great, high, and unbelievably white in the sun.”

It’s still wide, but may not be white much longer, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that says the remaining ice fields atop Kilimanjaro in Tanzania could be gone in 20 years or less, a casualty of climate change. Changes in clouds and precipitation play a minor role but the scientists say it’s mostly due to global warming.

Here’s the trail of data released by the National Science Foundation, which helped fund the research:

– 85 percent of the ice that covered the mountain in 1912 had been lost by 2007, and 26 percent of the ice there in 2000 is now gone.

– A radioactive signal marking the 1951-52 “Ivy” atomic tests that was detected in 2000 some 1.6 meters (5.25 feet) below the surface of the Kilimanjaro ice is now lost, with an estimated 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) missing from the tops of the current ice fields.

– Elongated bubbles trapped in the frozen ice at the top of one ice core show surface ice melted and refroze, apparently the only time there’s been sustained melting in this core in the last 11,700 years.

– Even a 300-year-old drought some 4,200 years ago didn’t melt the ice, though it did leave an inch-thick layer of dust.

These observations confirm that the current climate conditions at Mount Kilimanjaro are unique over the last 11 millennia. The same changes are happening on Mount Kenya and the Rwenzori Mountains in Africa, in the South American Andes and in the Himalayas.

Read more about it here.

Might be something for climate negotiators in Barcelona and on Capitol Hill to think about.

Photo credit: Lonnie Thompson, Ohio State University (Ice fields atop Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro glow golden in the last of the afternoon sun.)

The headline in the Gulf News English language daily reads 'UAE tops world on per capita carbon footprint'.

For a place so reliably bathed in sunlight, the Dubai property explosion seems to have generated enough construction noise to drown out the environmental debate raging elsewhere in the world.

For the first-time visitor, the scale of the global construction superlatives - The Palm, made from reclaimed land jutting out defiantly into the Gulf, the skyscrapers built in a region where there is no shortage of space - is staggering.

The amount of environmentally 'sinfull' concrete poured over the last decade is ncalculable. Billboards lauding the benefits of solar power look like a bit of an after thought.

Climate change was just beginning to take hold as an issue for property developers when the economic downturn struck and put paid to nascent environmental ambitions.  "Green is not cheap," says Markus Giebel, chief executive of Dubai property group Deyaar Development. "Dubai was on the right track, but there's no money now. People are thinking about survival."

Remember the Christian Coalition of America?

Under the political operative Ralph Reed in the 1990s it was an electoral force to be reckoned with as it mobilized millions of conservative Christians to vote for mostly Republican Party candidates and causes.

It has since lost influence and political ground to other "religious right" groups such as the Family Research Council. But it remains a sizeable grassroots organization and is still unflinchingly conservative.

So it will no doubt surprise some to see that this week it has joined with the National Wildlife Federation -- whose 4 million members and supporters includes 420,000 sportsmen and women -- to run an ad urging the U.S. Senate to pass legislation that among other things addresses the pressing problem of climate change.

"Defending the status quo is no longer an option. We need swift action
to ensure America is the world leader in clean energy technology.
We can put Americans to work making and installing the clean,
renewable energy technologies that reduce our dependency on
foreign oil and address climate change.
Senators should work together to move forward with a clean energy plan for America," says the ad, which ran this week in Politico.

It comes as the U.S. Senate considers a bill to curb the greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming.

Other U.S. Christian groups and prominent evangelicals such as Florida mega-pastor Joel Hunter have urged action on climate change -- a top priority of President Barack Obama -- on the grounds that the poor will bear the brunt of warming temperatures. They also see a biblical responsibility to care for God's creations.

(PHOTO: Vanishing Arctic Sea ice is one of the most visible signs of global warming. REUTERS/NASA/Handout)

But influential conservative Christians such as Richard land of the Southern Baptist Convention have spent the past months assailing the cap and trade provisions of the bill as a massive tax hike. In many religious right circles the climate change issue is seen as downright hysterical or an attempt by leftists to cripple the U.S. economy.

But even the most hard-line conservative Christians are no longer united on this issue.

Lindsey Graham, a conservative Republican Senator from South Carolina, broke ranks with his party and recently outlined a compromise to limit carbon emissions in a New York Times op-ed piece he co-wrote with Democratic Senator John Kerry.

That won him praise from national hunting groups and local ones in his home state, which has a robust shooting and fishing culture woven into its rural fabric.

We have recently blogged and written on U.S. hunters and anglers -- many of whom are evangelical Christian, conservative and Republican -- urging action on climate change, not least because of its threat to the game they pursue.

Roberta Combs, the president of the Christian Coalition, told me in a telephone interview that her group joined forces with the NWF on this issue because it saw a biblical need to look after God's creation. But she said it also wants America to pursue alternative energy policies to reduce its independence on foreign oil including expanding its use of nuclear power -- a stance sure to make many greens see red.

"We don’t agree with environmental groups on everything but if we can find things we agree on this will be a better bill…I’m real proud of Senator Graham. He’s a man of lots of wisdom,” she said.

Republicans are mostly skeptical of any move to "cap and trade" U.S. carbon emissions that result from burning coal and oil, decrying it as a massive job-killing tax by forcing the use of more expensive wind and solar power.

But a big chunk of their base seems to be parting company with them on this issue though climate change skepticism still runs deep in the U.S. heartland.

According to a Pew Research Center poll released on Thursday, 36 percent of Americans say global warming is a result of human activity, down from 47 percent in April 2008.

Some politicians are mentioning “Copenhagen” and “Doha” in the same breath — a worrying lament less than 2 months to go before a U.N. climate deal is meant to be wrapped up in the Danish capital.

So is there a risk – if negotiators are not smart — that the new U.N. accord to fight global warming will stall like the long-running Doha round on freeing world trade, launched in 2001?

India’s Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, for instance, said on Oct. 10 that negotiators should aim for a realistic agreement in Copenhagen from Dec. 7-18 that was not too ambitious. He said there was a risk of repeating the “mistake of the Doha round”, saying that “the basic problem of the Doha round was ‘all or nothing’.”

And British Finance Minister Alistair Darling said on Oct. 21 that he wanted to ensure that the climate talks do not keep dragging on like the Doha round.

The WWF environmental group says there’s a lack of leadership in the run-up to Copenhagen, with a rise in whispered suggestions that the talks might fail.

One week of formal climate negotiations remains before Copenhagen, in Barcelona from Nov. 2-6, after almost two years of meetings.

“The world doesn’t want Copenhagen to come to mean another Doha,” said Kim Carstensen, head of WWF’s Global Climate Initiative.

Talks on the existing Kyoto Protocol for curbing emissions, agreed in Japan in December 1997 also often looked bleak in the run-up, especially after the U.S. Senate voted that year by 95-0 against some of the basic principles of an accord. 

WWF accused industrialised nations of trying to lower expectations for a deal “as they continue to dodge the hard decisions on slashing their emissions and funding the transition to a low carbon economy.”

So will Copenhagen echo Doha?

((Picture: Top: Smoke rises out of a cement plant in Baokang, Hubei province September 12, 2009. REUTERS/Stringer. Right: A Qatari security policeman guards the WTO conference centre during the 2001 conference in Doha. REUTERS/Nayef Hashlamoun))

While solar power has investors on Wall Street seeing green, countries in the developing world also see a bright future in solar technology.

They believe solar power systems that convert sunlight into electricity can help power developing areas without going the route of dirty coal-fired power plants.

Solar companies like China’s solar panel maker Suntech and California-based eSolar, have recently announced forays into the developing world.

Suntech is teaming up with Pakistan’s alternative energy development board, which the company’s chairman and chief executive Zhengrong Shi called “a clear example of the promise of solar energy.”

Solar thermal company eSolar said last week that it is expanding in Africa and earlier this year it partnered with an Indian company to build solar power plants in India over the next 10 years.

And a $400 billion euro plan is gaining steam to power Europe with Sahara sunlight, despite critics.

Today’s top solar market — and lots of profits — are found in Germany while the United States and China are fast-growing alternative energy sectors. Will countries like South Africa join their ranks one day? How will countries and governments make good on the promise of solar energy for the developing world?

Photo: Workers build a thermo-solar power plant in Beni Mathar August 20, 2009. Photo credit:REUTERS/Rafael Marchante

If there’s one person the Canadian government would perhaps rather not hear from right now, it’s Tim Flannery, the vocal Australian climate change campaigner. Canada, which over the last 20 years or so has largely preferred to let economic development trump environmental concerns,  is trying to keep a low profile in the run-up to the Copenhagen meeting in December charged with producing a successor to the Kyoto accord.  Canada’s Conservative government — following the lead of former U.S. President George W. Bush – walked away from Kyoto on the grounds that it would damage the economy. Canada has made an enormous amount of money shipping oil to the United States, much of it from the tar sands in the western province of Alberta. Developing those sands burns up a huge amount of carbon and Canadian emissions are rising steadily, so it’s no coincidence that Canada says it is for action on climate change while allowing responsible economic development.  Environment Minister Jim Prentice told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp on Wednesday that Canada would bring “a reasonable constructive approach” to Copenhagen.  This is a message which wins few friends among environmentalists.

Flannery rolled into town on Wednesday and loudly announced that Ottawa’s role in the talks leading up to Copenhagen so far had been very unhelpful. “We desperately need Canada to play a much more positive role in the coming months . . . the Canadian government is largely isolated in its stand vis-a-vis the Copenhagen agreements. It would be tragic, I think, to see a country like this standing in the way of agreement,” he told reporters.

If the truth be told, Canada is not doing much of anything on the environment right now, in part because of last year’s U.S. presidential election and the victory of Barack Obama, who vowed tough action on climate change.  Ottawa had promised to introduce rules to cut emissions starting in 2010 but those are on hold until Washington decides what approach it will take on climate change. The same goes for Canadian plans to set up a carbon trading market: let’s wait for Obama.  While this is understandable — there’s little point taking the time and trouble to craft a green policy only to see it wrecked because your main trading partner decided to go off in a different direction — it only adds to the impression of inertia.

“Canada needs to get its domestic policies in order. It’s concerning to see the Canadian government say it will follow the U.S. lead in terms of carbon trading and so forth,” said Flannery. “But then we enter a period of a lull where there is very little activity to follow that up . . . time is exceedingly short for Canada — with its very different economy and very different approach to this problem — to be able to follow the lead of the U.S. in any meaningful way.”

The Conservatives’  main power base in is Alberta, home to most of the tar sands projects, so the party has to tread carefully when it comes to cutting emissions. Ottawa would rather talk about carbon capture and on Wednesday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the Canadian and Alberta governments would invest C$779 million ($756 million) in one such project.

This development also pleased Flannery, who described the news as excellent. “That is exactly the sort of leadership that’s required of the Canadian government in future,” he said.

((A worker rides his bike near Syncrude’s expansion mine, which remains shut after residents complained of odors coming from the site, north of Fort McMurray, Alberta May 24, 2006  Stringer photo))

When people think of hunting and fishing politicians in America — at least prominent ones – two things spring to mind: 1. Republican and 2. Climate change skeptic. Former President George W. Bush, his vice president Dick Cheney and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin all fall into both categories.

But the hunting and fishing crowd — widely seen as reliably Republican because of that’s party’s successful portrayal of itself as the defender of God and guns — has also started to take note of climate change. After all, hunters and anglers are in the outdoors in pursuit of wildlife season after season, year after year.

But what may concern some Republican strategists is that many of them also accept the science of climate change, which overwhelmingly points to fossil fuel emissions as the main cause driving global warming.

This may help explain why Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina broke ranks with his party to outline a compromise to limit carbon emissions in a Sunday New York Times opinion piece he co-wrote with Democratic Senator John Kerry. Hunters and anglers in the U.S. South are widely seen as part of the Republican base and his call for action was saluted on Wednesday during a teleconference call hosted by the South Carolina Wildlife Federation (SCWF) and involved other outdoor groups.

“I have observed things in my life time that suggest that significant impacts have already been felt here in our state,” said Clinch Heyward, the 60-year-old chairman of the SCWF.

He noted that in a life time of duck hunting he had noticed a decline in the state’s duck population while Virginia, where one of his sons now lives, had more and more ducks.

“I was deer hunting last weekend and here it is October and it is 90 degrees (about 32 Celsius),” he said in his thick southern accent.

The SCWF said in a statement that: “Sportsmen are calling for passage of comprehensive climate and energy legislation“.

Such legislation is currently being considered in the U.S. Senate and is one of President Barack Obama’s top domestic priorities.

 The shooting and fishing crowd is not always seen as a natural ally of the bunny and tree-hugging crowd. Do you see at least some of them uniting on this issue? And what might the political implications for the Republican Party be?

(PHOTO: A young hunter takes aim at the Cabela’s store in Fort Worth, Texas June 26, 2008. REUTERS/Jessica Rinaldi (UNITED STATES)

The high tech industry regularly sees lawsuits fly over intellectual property rights.

Time will tell if clean technology will see a similar play, but a settlement this week between California-based solar power company SunPower Corp and SunLink Corp may shed light on things to come.

In February 2008, SunPower sued SunLink, saying SunLink had violated patents protecting several of SunPower’s rooftop systems. Under the settlement, SunPower licensed its patents to SunLink but did not disclose the financial details.

Some believe that solar power companies who successfully defend their intellectual property could win additional revenue streams. That could benefit SunPower and innovative companies both with upstream and downstream technologies, Deutsche Bank analyst Steve O’Rourke wrote in a note.

We were wondering what role readers think IP and patent lawsuits will play as the solar industry continues to develop. Do you think they will help bigger companies defend their market share? Or could a litigious environment stifle newcomers to the industry?

The surprise award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama just nine months into his presidency on Friday may put pressure on him to visit a 190-nation meeting on a new U.N. climate treaty in Copenhagen.

The prize will be handed over in Oslo on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of the award’s founder Alfred Nobel, and the U.N. talks will run in Copenhagen from Dec. 7-18. It takes about an hour to fly between the two Scandinavian capitals.

And the Norwegian Nobel Committee heaped praise on Obama, including his climate policies, in its citation.

“Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting,” the secretive five-member committee said.

 Some Norwegian politicians said they hoped the award would stiffen Obama’s resolve to push the U.S. Senate to pass early legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the years to 2020.

Former U.S. President George W. Bush dropped efforts to get the Senate to ratify the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol, a pact adopted by all other industrialised nations for curbing greenhouse gas emissions until 2012. Obama wants the United States to have a bigger role in a new global treaty to be agreed in Copenhagen.

Environmental group Greenpeace said Obama should visit Copenhagen.

“In accepting the award in Oslo on 10th December President Obama has an incredible opportunity, and responsibility, to then travel to the UN Copenhagen Climate Summit to help avert climate chaos and conflict,” Greenpeace’s International Executive Director Gerd Leipold said in a statement.

And Denmark’s Climate Minister Connie Hedegaard also expressed hopes that Obama would come to Copenhagen: “It’s hard to imagine that he will be receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Dec. 10th and then come empty-handed to Copenhagen a week later.” 

And what a difference a week makes — the award of one of the world’s top accolades in Oslo is a stunning turnaround just a week after Obama went to Copenhagen and suffered a defeat by unsuccessfully lobbying for Chicago to get the 2016 Olympic Games.

But a problem is that the first week of the Copenhagen talks will be run only by senior government bureaucrats — environment ministers from around the world are due to turn up only from Dec. 16 to decide on a new pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. 

So, to have the most impact on the negotiations, should Obama go for a few days’ vacation skiing in Scandinavia after collecting the Nobel Prize before travelling to Copenhagen?

(Picture credits: top - U.S. President Barack Obama (R) and first lady Michelle Obama arrive for an event to look at the stars with local middle school students and astronomers from across the country on the South Lawn at the White House in Washington, October 7, 2009. REUTERS/Jim Young. Right: The Nobel Peace Prize medal awarded to South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu)

The U.S. "Religious Left" -- which has been active at the grassroots level to support President Barack Obama's drive for health care reform -- has now launched a campaign in support his other major domestic initiative: climate change legislation.

Faithful America, a coalition of progressive evangelical, Catholic, mainline Protestant and Jewish groups, unveiled a video on Thursday urging viewers to "TELL CONGRESS: STOP CLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS EFFECTS." The campaign is called Day Six.

You can see the video below:

A climate bill aimed at reducing America's emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming is being crafted in the U.S. Senate. The House of Representatives earlier this year passed its own version.

The Day Six campaign also asks people to sign an online petition that urges senators to : "... support a climate bill that addresses the root causes of climate change and makes needed investments in vulnerable communities already experiencing its devastating effects."

The organizers say that: "'Day Six' is a reference to the creation story in Genesis, when God made human beings stewards of creation."

Many left-leaning and liberal groups of faith see a biblical imperative to curb the effects of climate change because poor and developing regions like Africa are seen bearing the brunt of its consequences. 

One the other side, the religious right -- a loose network of conservative Christians that is a key Republican Party base -- has been at the forefront of conservative efforts to rally public opposition to climate change legislation aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming.

 Conservative Christian radio stations have spent the summer saying its "cap and trade" provisions are the biggest tax increase in U.S. history.

Which side do you think will have its prayers answered?

(PHOTO: A buffalo skull is pictured in Lake Naivasha, Kenya, the only fresh water ecosystem in the eastern Rift Valley, June 4, 2009, which is drying up due to drought and other factors/ REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya ).