Environment Forum
Global environmental challenges
from Davos Notebook:
Africa feels the heat on climate change
It may have contributed less than any other continent to CO2 emissions, but Africa is on the front line when it comes to the impact of climate change.
Just ask Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete.
"It is a threat for us," he told a panel at the World Economic Forum. "On Kilimanjaro the snow is fast disappearing, sea levels are rising -- we have one island that has already been submerged -- and we've towns around the coast where we have to incur huge costs of adaptation to erect walls."
In theory, Africa is also in a strong position, given its virgin forests that represent one of the world's great carbon sinks. But setting up workable offset-trading schemes is easier said than done. "I can assure you, it is so difficult to access these facilities," Kikwete said.
Reuters photo: A truck passes Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania's Hie district
Factbox: Renewable energy targets around the world
(Reuters) – Several countries have introduced subsidies or incentives to encourage clean energy production, such as feed-in tariffs or green certificates. Listed below are countries which have established renewable energy targets from 2013 to 2020.
Source: Reuters, Renewable Energy Policy network (www.ren21.net) (1) See individual EU member state targets here
http://ec.europa.eu/energy/renewables/targets_en.htm)
(2) The Japan target may be subject to change as the Japanese government plans to submit Climate Change Law to parliament in coming months (3) In pending climate change legislation, the United States has proposed a target of 15 pct by 2020. Twenty-nine out of 50 U.S. states have set targets for minimum amounts of electricity generation from renewable sources, while another five states have voluntary goals. (Compiled by Nina Chestney; Editing by Sara Ledwith)
from Davos Notebook:
A climate deal: easier than trade?
Conventional wisdom has it that if the leaders of the world can't agree on a round of negotiations to liberalise world trade then there's no chance they will agree on measures to tackle climate change.
After all, a pact to cut greenhouse gas emissions will involve re-tooling vast swathes of industry and impact the way companies do business from Boston to Beijing.
But is that view right? British economist Nicholas Stern - author of a seminal report in 2006 on the economic fallout of global warming - thinks not.
"Actually, agreement on climate change, I think, will be easier than agreement on trade," he told reporters in Davos. "People understand climate change much better than trade."
The crunch will come in December, when world leaders meet in Copenhagen to hammer out a replacement for the current Kyoto protocol which expires in 2012.
from Davos Notebook:
Even in crisis, NGOs pull no punches in Davos
Though a financial crisis and global recession have left many of the world's biggest companies uncharacteristically humbled, that didn't stop NGOs from taking shots at a few of them at the World Economic Forum.
U.S. gold company Newmont Mining and Swiss utility Bernische Kraftwerke picked up a couple of pretty dubious honors from Greenpeace Switzerland and the Berne Declaration.
Newmont received two awards -- the Global Award and People's Award -- for its mining project in eastern Ghana. According to the NGOs, Newmont "is ignoring the environmental and social damage" the planned mine will create.
"If the project goes ahead, 10,000 farmers will lose their land and livelihood and cyanide, used to extract the gold, will poison the soil, water and wildlife," they said in a statement.
Bernische Kraftwerke, on the other hand, received the Swiss Award "for pushing for the construction of a coal-fired power plant in Germany... Its plans blatantly contradict its self-promotion as a forward-looking company that promotes renewable energy and energy efficiency."
There was one positive award given out on Wednesday, for "most courageous employee of the year." Two Colombian union leaders, Jairo Quiroz Delgado and Freddy Lozano, shared that award for their fight for workers' rights at Colombia's El Cerrejon coal mine.
