Australia carbon laws in doubt

CANBERRA, Dec. 1 (Reuters) - Australia's plans to cut carbon emissions were set for defeat in a hostile Senate after the election of a new opposition leader opposed to carbon-trade laws, setting the stage for a possible early 2010 election.

New Liberal opposition leader Tony Abbott, elected Tuesday, said conservative Senators, many climate change skeptics, would reject the government's carbon emissions trading laws if they are not deferred until early 2010.

Mr. Abbott said he believed in climate change, but told reporters he was opposed to the government's emissions trading scheme model, and was not afraid of fighting an election on the issue.

"As leader, I am not frightened of an election on this issue. This is going to be a tough fight. But it will be a fight. You cannot win an election without a fight," said Mr. Abbott, a boxer in his university days who once studied for the priesthood.

Greg Combet, assistant climate change minister, said the government would still push for its carbon trade laws to be passed this week. He hoped some opposition lawmakers would side with the government and defy Mr. Abbott.

"The extremists have gained control of the Liberal Party. They are opposed to taking action on climate change, they dispute the science," Mr. Combet told reporters.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has struggled to have his climate change legislation passed in the Senate before parliament adjourns until February.

Mr. Rudd, who was in Washington on Monday meeting President Barack Obama, was keen to take a lead role at next week's Copenhagen summit on climate change by enacting a "cap-and-trade" scheme requiring polluters to buy permits for their emissions.

Mr. Rudd wants emissions trading to start in Australia in July 2011, covering 75 percent of emissions in the developed world's bigger per capita emitter. The planned carbon-trade scheme would be the biggest outside Europe.

The United States is closely watching Australia's debate and a political agreement on carbon trading in Australia would help garner support for action from other countries.

If the Senate ends up rejecting the carbon scheme for a second time, Rudd will have a trigger to call an early 2010 election on climate change, most likely for March of April, with polls suggesting his government would win an increased majority.

Business, election uncertainty
Mr. Abbott said while the opposition rejected the emissions trading scheme, it still backed the government's emissions reduction target of at least 5 percent from 2000 levels by 2020, with a 25 percent target if nations agree on an ambitious climate pact in Copenhagen.

The prolonged political debate has caused some dismay among companies, coal and power firms in particular, who see some sort of scheme as inevitable and are looking for pricing certainty.

Banks and fund managers see the emissions trading scheme, the biggest economic policy change in modern Australian history, as a boon for traders, investors and new green technologies, while major polluters generally oppose it as a tax on heavy industry.

International Power Australia, a unit of International Power and Australia's largest private-sector generator, says the uncertainty has impinged on talks with its lenders.

Major miners such as BHP Billiton and oil and gas firms such as Woodside Petroleum have criticized the scheme, though have been mollified somewhat by government pledges last month to raise state compensation.

"This is the worst possible outcome for us, as this guy (Mr. Abbott) is the figurehead for the climate change skeptics within the conservative party," said Tim Hanlin, managing director Australian Climate Exchange Limited.

"Australian industry is now thrown into total uncertainty regarding a price on carbon and therefore cannot make any informed investment decisions," said Mr. Hanlin.

"This is going to put Kevin Rudd under enormous pressure to call an election on this issue."

But Monash University analyst Nick Economou said Rudd would now miss his Copenhagen deadline and be in no rush for an election, putting the chances of an early poll at 20 percent.

"They may as well play the long game, the patient game," Mr. Economou said, saying Mr. Rudd would prefer a normal election later in 2010, giving him time to build up an attack against Mr. Abbott's Liberals, with the carbon laws waiting to be passed.

Mr. Rudd has repeatedly said he does not want an early poll and would prefer elections to be held on time in late 2010.

If Mr. Rudd wins a double dissolution election of both houses of parliament, he can then push his climate policy through a special joint sitting of the houses.
Australia carbon laws in doubt

0 comments RSS Posted by Krasugir & Co at 3:24 AM

California unveils draft cap-and-trade rules

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 25 (Reuters) - California released on Tuesday draft rules for its landmark greenhouse gas cap-and-trade plan that will be the most ambitious United States effort to use the market to address global warming.

State law requires California to cut its carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Measures will range from clean vehicle and building rules to the cap-and-trade system that lets factories and power companies trade credits to emit gases that heat up the earth.

Federal rules under debate by Congress could eclipse and pre-empt regional plans, but California and other local governments see themselves as the vanguard of addressing climate change, especially in light of slow national action and setbacks for international talks scheduled in Copenhagen next month.

The draft released on Tuesday shows California, seen as an environmental trend-setter, may take on even more than expected in its first round of cap-and-trade, which will start in 2012.

Gasoline and residential heating fuel suppliers could be included in the first cap-and-trade phase, which had been expected to focus on big pollution sources like power plants and refineries.

"California is the first out of the box," Mary Nichols, state Air Resources Board chair, told reporters on a conference call. The draft rules kick off a comment period that will lead to final regulation next fall.

A less comprehensive Northeastern United States regional trading system is already under way, focusing on carbon dioxide emissions by big emitters. California by contrast plans to include nearly every source of emissions to reach its goal.

California businesses regularly criticize the plan as going too far too fast – and costing too much. Whether the net effect of the plan will be a new green economy or disaster for overburdened businesses is still hotly debated.

Outsize attention
New estimates of plan costs, including suggestions on how much support to give industry, won't be available until an independent advisory group issues a report next year.

The draft avoids what may be the toughest issue – how much to rely on auctions of credits, which would require power companies and the like to buy permission to pollute. The emitters want allowances given to them, especially early on.

But Ms. Nichols said California had shown a strong preference for moving to auction as quickly as possible and that its 2006 global warming law provided clear guidance while politicians in the United States Congress were still raising support for a bill.

"Congress started this, you know, as a political exercise to see how many allowances you had to give out to which groups to get them to buy into the program. They didn't have a climate bill," she said.

"We know how many emissions we have to reduce. The question is how do we do it in a way that costs less," added Ms. Nichols, whose Air Resources Board was appointed by state law as the main regulator deciding on how to cut greenhouse gases.

The cost of a ton of carbon dioxide initially could be around $10, based on how other programs operated, she said. That is about half the current European price. The average American has carbon production of about 20 tons per year, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The cap-and-trade system will account for only about a fifth of California reductions but it draws outside attention, in part because the state, with the largest United States economy and population, is part of the 11-member Western Climate Initiative, which includes American states and Canadian provinces.

China, too, will watch California's action, partly by virtue of the state's partnerships with Chinese provinces, said Derek Walker, climate change director of the Environmental Defense Fund California.

"In many ways this is similar to what you are hearing from international circles now. Everybody is coming to the table with their opening bets," he said. But unlike most, California has committed to cuts and now is working out the details.
California unveils draft cap-and-trade rules

0 comments RSS Posted by Krasugir & Co at 3:21 AM

Quebec sets 2020 greenhouse gas emission targets

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 24 (Reuters) - The Canadian province of Quebec said on Monday it aims to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, the same target as that set by the European Union.

"It is a very ambitious target for the government, given that 48 percent of Quebec's total energy currently comes from renewable energy sources," Quebec Premier Jean Charest said in a statement.

Much of Quebec's power comes from massive hydroelectric projects.

Quebecers emit approximately 11 tons per capita of greenhouse gases, which are blamed for climate change. That is half the Canadian average, Mr. Charest said.

The mostly French-speaking province is a member of the Western Climate Initiative, a group of four Canadian provinces and seven western American states, which is working on implementing a carbon cap and trade system in North America by 2012.

Canada's federal government has pledged to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent from 2006 levels by 2020. However, Ottawa is waiting for the United States to finalize its cap-and-trade program before proceeding with its own.

British Columbia pledged in 2007 to cut its emissions of greenhouse gases by 33 percent by 2020, which would put them 10 percent under 1990 levels.

Quebec sets 2020 greenhouse gas emission targets

0 comments RSS Posted by Krasugir & Co at 3:20 AM

Elevated carbon dioxide levels may mitigate losses of biodiversity from nitrogen pollution

The study, published in December 4 in the journal Science, involved a 10-year open-air outdoor experiment in which 48 plots planted with 16 different species of plants were tested using ambient and elevated levels of nitrogen and carbon dioxide. Researchers measured the number of species observed in each plot, the plant biomass both above and below ground, as well as factors related to soil, water and light that might affect plant growth.
Over time, the diversity of plants growing in the research plots changed significantly, depending on the combinations of plants and the way added CO2 and nitrogen affected the health of different species. One of the study's key findings is that while the combination of ambient carbon dioxide and nitrogen pollution reduces species richness by 16 percent, adding more CO2 to the mix reduces that change by half.
"From a biodiversity perspective, there was no evidence to support the worst-case scenario, in which impacts of rising CO2 and nitrogen deposition combine to suppress diversity by 30 percent, 40 percent or even 50 percent or more," Reich said. "Instead, their interaction ameliorated the diversity loss due to nitrogen enrichment that occurs under ambient CO2. Given the importance of biodiversity to the effective health and function of our ecosystems this is good news, or perhaps better labeled as "not quite as bad" news."
Reich, a Regents professor in the department of forest resources, notes that "while it is a relief to find out that rising CO2 and nitrogen may not directly cause enormous losses of diversity, this finding does not detract from the urgent need for us to curb CO2 emissions given the other critical CO2 effects, such as overheating the planet and threatening marine life through ocean acidification."
Elevated carbon dioxide levels may mitigate losses of biodiversity from nitrogen pollution

0 comments RSS Posted by Krasugir & Co at 2:41 AM

Antarctica served as climatic refuge in Earth's greatest extinction event

The new species belongs to a larger group of extinct mammal relatives, called anomodonts, which were widespread and represented the dominant plant eaters of their time.
"Members of the group burrowed in the ground, walked the surface and lived in trees," said Fröbisch, the lead author of the study. "However, Kombuisia antarctica, about the size of a small house cat, was considerably different from today's mammals -- it likely laid eggs, didn't nurse its young and didn't have fur, and it is uncertain whether it was warm blooded," said Angielczyk, Assistant Curator of Paleomammology at The Field Museum. Kombuisia antarctica was not a direct ancestor of living mammals, but it was among the few lineages of animals that survived at a time when a majority of life forms perished.
Scientists are still debating what caused the end-Permian extinction, but it was likely associated with massive volcanic activity in Siberia that could have triggered global warming. When it served as refuge, Antarctica was located some distance north of its present location, was warmer and wasn't covered with permanent glaciers, said the researchers. The refuge of Kombuisia in Antarctica probably wasn't the result of a seasonal migration but rather a longer-term change that saw the animal's habitat shift southward. Fossil evidence suggests that small and medium sized animals were more successful at surviving the mass extinction than larger animals. They may have engaged in "sleep-or-hide" behaviors like hibernation, torpor and burrowing to survive in a difficult environment.
Earlier work by Fröbisch predicted that animals like Kombuisia antarctica should have existed at this time, based on fossils found in South Africa later in the Triassic Period that were relatives of the animals that lived in Antarctica. "The new discovery fills a gap in the fossil record and contributes to a better understanding of vertebrate survival during the end-Permian mass extinction from a geographic as well as an ecological point of view," Fröbisch said.
The team found the fossils of the new species among specimens collected more than three decades ago from Antarctica that are part of a collection at the American Museum of Natural History. "At the time those fossils were collected, paleontologists working in Antarctica focused on seeking evidence for the existence of a supercontinent, Pangaea, that later split apart to become separate land masses," said Angielczyk. The fossils collected in Antarctica provided some of the first evidence of Pangaea's existence, and further analysis of the fossils can refine our understanding of events that unfolded 250 million years ago.
"Finding fossils in the current harsh conditions of Antarctica is difficult, but worthwhile," said Angielczyk. "The recent establishment of the Robert A. Pritzker Center for Meteoritics and Polar Studies at The Field Museum recognizes the growing importance of the region," he said.
This research is part of a collaborative study of Dr. Jörg Fröbisch (Department of Geology, Field Museum, Chicago), Dr. Kenneth D. Angielczyk (Department of Geology, Field Museum, Chicago), and Dr. Christian A. Sidor (Burke Museum and Department of Biology, University of Washington), which will be published online December 3, 2009 in Naturwissenschaften.
Funding for this research was provided through a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) to J. Fröbisch and grants of the National Science Foundation to C. A. Sidor.
Antarctica served as climatic refuge in Earth's greatest extinction event

0 comments RSS Posted by Krasugir & Co at 2:38 AM