The pledges that countries are making to battle climate change would still allow the world to heat up by more than 6 degrees Fahrenheit, a new analysis shows, a level that scientists say is likely to produce catastrophes ranging from food shortages to widespread extinctions of plant and animal life. Yet, in the world of global climate politics, that counts as progress.
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Volkswagen’s rigging of emissions tests for 11m cars means they may be responsible for nearly 1m tonnes of air pollution every year, roughly the same as the UK’s combined emissions for all power stations, vehicles, industry and agriculture, a Guardian analysis suggests. The potential scale of the scandal puts further pressure on Volkswagen’s board and its chief executive, Martin Winterkorn.
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Volkswagen’s stunning admission that it sold diesel-powered cars that intentionally faked emissions testing results has left many of their owners — who thought they were buying fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly vehicles — angry and feeling betrayed. The deception could prove a major threat to Volkswagen’s reputation in the United States and could break the trust that the German automaker had cultivated with car owners over the years.
The finance stream of the UN climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany, last week showed a clearer narrative emerge about the key elements that should be included in the outcomes of the December climate summit in Paris. Disagreements remain on the detail of finance provisions in the new global climate agreement, so countries will need to be creative in finding convergence.
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Deaths related to emissions from coal cost the UK economy between £2.47bn and £7.15bn in 2013, according to a comprehensive overview of coal production in Europe.
The figure, which includes mortality costs from coal-related respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses, such as heart disease and lung cancer is linked to the 395 kilotons of pollutants emitted by UK coal plants. Europe as a whole had equivalent mortality costs of between €21bn and €60.6bn, according to the authors.
The report, from the NGO umbrella group Climate Action Network Europe (Cane), also found that the UK was the third largest emitter of carbon dioxide from coal burning after Germany and Poland.
“The British government has not caught up with reality,” Kathrin Gutmann, Cane’s coal policy coordinator told the Guardian. “It urgently needs a proactive strategy to manage a coal phase out. Energy utilities are already starting to spend billions of euros to shed some of their coal plants but governments like the UK are just hiding behind this power sector transformation.”
Last month, Germany began a process of mothballing its largest coal plants. The new survey says that it is still Europe’s biggest coal subsidiser though, coughing up €30bn between 1999 and 2011.
In the UK, coal was responsible for some 87 million tonnes of CO2 emissions last year – 16% of all the country’s greenhouse gas output – a figure eight times higher than in France.
Cane calculated the health costs by mapping Europe’s 280 coal power plants and then multiplying their polluting emissions by the European Environment Agency’s estimate of the cost of mortality associated with those emissions. The range of figures reflects different estimates of the cost to the economy of individual deaths.
Read on The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/10/uk-ranks-in-top-3-of-europes-coal-league-of-shame
The Guardian, September 10th
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La Repubblica intervista Robert Engle, economista formatosi al Mit e oggi docente alla New York University, premio Nobel per l’economia nel 2003. Engle si dedica da tempo, con particolare attenzione, alle conseguenze del riscaldamento globale e lancia un allarme: “Su questo tema c’è un’attenzione molto minore rispetto a dieci anni fa. Forse questa è la dimostrazione che finché si impegnavano personaggi ad alta visibilità mediatica come Albert Gore, gli effetti erano positivi. In mancanza di celebrities, l’attenzione viene meno. E’ tempo di riprendere a impegnarsi. Tanto per cominciare, vanno studiate attentamente le interrelazioni fra la risorsa acqua e la risorsa energia”.
Leggi tutta l’intervista a Robert Engle in Pdf.
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