Search results for climate change

A strong Mandate at the next major round of climate negotiations in Bali is a first critical step towards the negotiation of essential agreements that can peak emissions by 2015. Without this step the world cannot have confidence that the international community is seriously tackling this issue.

Forests are vital to life on earth. They are the richest of all ecosystems - covering only eight per cent of the planet (1) and are home to two thirds of all known species of terrestrial plants and animals(2). Millions of people rely directly on forests for food, water, medicines and other basic materials. For these forest peoples the forest defines their culture and way of life. Within developing countries, one billion of the world's poorest people depend upon forests for part of their livelihoods, and as many as 350 million people living in and around forests are heavily dependent on forests for their livelihoods and security (3).

A world thrown into turmoil by drought, floods, typhoons. Whole countries rendered uninhabitable. The capital of the Netherlands submerged. The borders of the US and Australia patrolled by armies firing into waves of starving boat people desperate to find a new home. Fishing boats armed with cannon to drive off competitors. Demands for access to water and farmland backed up with nuclear weapons. Sound like the ravings of doom-saying environmental extremists? It's actually from a report commissioned by the Pentagon on how to ready America for the coming climate Armageddon.

The consequences of a two degree centigrade rise in global temperature and how to avoid it.

The Patagonian ice-fields of Chile and Argentina, the largest non-Antarctic ice masses in the Southern Hemisphere, are melting faster than any other glaciers on Earth. They have lost 42 cubic kilometres of ice every year over the past seven years, which is equivalent to the volume of ten thousand large football stadiums. Today, they account for nearly 10 per cent of global sea-level change caused by mountain glaciers, according to a new study by NASA and Chile's Centro de Estudios Cientificos, and the rate at which they are melting is accelerating.

The nuclear industry is in near-terminal decline world-wide, following its failure to establish itself as a clean, cheap, safe or reliable energy source. The on-going crisis in nuclear waste management, in safety and in economic costs has severely undermined the industry's credibility. It is currently desperate to find a valid rationale and justification for renewed state support and funding. It is promoting the claim that as nuclear power stations do not emit carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas, switching from fossil fuels to nuclear power is the only way to cut Carbon Dioxide (CO2) without radically changing consumption patterns. However, even the most perfunctory examination of the issue shows that nuclear power has no role in tackling global climate change. In fact quite the opposite is true; any resources expended on attempting to advance nuclear power as a viable solution would inevitably detract from genuine measures to reduce the threat of global warming. View report as html: http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/no.nukes/nenstcc.html