The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen is just under three weeks away (Dec 7th to Dec 18th) and the last few days have seen some high stakes political games going on behind the scenes. UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband has described the negiotiations as:
………..the most complex set of international negotiations ever, on any issue
With a conference dealing with such complex issues it can be difficult to track what exactly is going on – opinion on what will actually be achieved at the conference seems to be shifting constantly. There are screeds of Copenhagen coverage around the web – these are what we will be checking in the run up to and during the conference itself.
Hopefully there will be a channel that will provide you with the latest news from Copenhagen to meet your requirements. We are aiming to post on all the major developments as they happen.
The IEA has warned everyone to brace themselves for the biggest energy revolution the world has ever seen. The economic crises gives us and the electricity suppliers the opportunity to make things right in the world by spearheading a worldwide low carbon energy surge that will fight global warming and ensure we have enough energy supplies around the globe.
A Very little amount of people actually realize the size of the tasks we face in the next few decades to tackle global warming whilst still supplying the energy that we have become so reliant on over the last 100 years.
The International Energy Agency said:“But it can and must be met,” it said. “The time to act has arrived.”
The reality of the damages that climate change “will” cause is starting to became clear, yet while everyone is making a lot of noises about it and setting targets the question has to be asked: Are we doing enough? We all know the answer to that is no, but countries who laughed at the idea 10 years ago (including the United States of America) are starting to come round and year by year we have more and more countries signing up to agreements to reduce our carbon footprint.
Just next month (December 2009) the landmark international Conference will be held in Copenhagen. The IEA is expected to tell the top 30 industrialized countries that they along with the rest of the planet will face dire consequences if they continue with their current policies on energy and climate change.
Change is needed, and now.
Read and rewritten byGavin Boyd with his own views added.
It has been reported by British researchers that the Antarctica is melting faster than previously thought and it looks like there is evidence to back it up. It looks like the first estimates of rising sea levels due to global warming were under-estimated.
It is now estimated that in the last 50 years there has been around 13,000 square kilometers of sea ice has melted.
The glaziers are now moving towards the sea at an alarming 6 times faster than before and the western side of Antarctica is showing evidence being eroded from underneath by the warm currents from the sea. It has been estimated the sea levels will rise by about 4in by the turn of this century causing havoc across the globe.
The current increase of yearly sea levels stands at around 2mm at the moment, we know that we need to try and combat global warming by whatever means possible but it is still not known and probably never will be if this is a natural process or the result or our industrialization over the last 300 years.
A desperate bid to win green votes or a pioneering move to tackle climate change?
In the latest Cabinet Reshuffle Gordon Brown has created a new Energy and Climate Change Department, to be headed up by Ed Milliband. This has to be seen as a positive move, as the previous line of climate change responsilbility was always rather conveniently blurred between DEFRA and BEER. Now there can be no doubt as to where blame will be apportioned if the green energy message doesn’t begin to make a significant impression. At the very least we can look forward to a slew of new energy initiatives and announcements over the coming weeks. We will be watching with interest.
For the unititated TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a conference which brings together some of the world’s greatest minds and challenges them to deliver the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (no pressure then!). The best of these are available online. Obviously the theme most relevant to us at Greener Power is ‘A Greener Future’. There are a total of 28 talks here on green issues and climate change, including big hitters such as Al Gore and Norman Foster. Our favourites include Juan Enriquez on ‘growing energy’, Edward Burtynsky’s photography and Marjora Carter’s heartfelt speech on greening her neighbourhood in the South Bronx-inspiring stuff. It would be great if the movers and shakers in the UK Energy industry could be influenced by these. There is also a great blog on TED, which is regularly updated with the latest happenings in Science and Technology. We haven’t had the time to go through the entire site yet, are there any others we should be watching?
It has been reported by British researchers that the Antarctica is melting faster than previously thought and it looks like there is evidence to back it up. It looks like the first estimates of rising sea levels due to global warming were under-estimated.
