Air Pollution

Near-Term Emissions Choices Could Lock In Climate Changes For Centuries To Millennia; Report Estimates Impacts From Various Levels Of Warming

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WASHINGTON — Choices made now about carbon dioxide emissions reductions will affect climate change impacts experienced not just over the next few decades but also in coming centuries and millennia, says a new report from the National Research Council. Because CO2 in the atmosphere is long lived, it can effectively lock the Earth and future generations into a range of impacts, some of which could become very severe.

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Governments Face Cost Hurdle To Halve CO2 By 2050: IEA

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Country: USA/FRANCE Author: Tom Doggett and Muriel Boselli Governments will have to grapple with sharply higher upfront costs to deploy clean energy technologies and halve carbon emissions by 2050, the International Energy Agency said on Thursday. Action to curb greenhouse gases is going in the "wrong direction," said the energy advisor to 28 industrialized nations, adding that under current trends carbon emissions would instead double by mid-century. Many renewable energy technologies cost more upfront but benefit from fuel savings.

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Global CO2 Emissions To Rise 43 Percent By 2035: EIA

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(Reuters) - The world's emissions of carbon dioxide from burning coal, oil, and natural gas should rise 43 percent by 2035 barring global agreements to reduce output of the gases blamed for warming the planet, the top U.S. energy forecaster said on Tuesday. Global emissions of carbon dioxide from the fossil fuel sources should rise from 29.7 billion tonnes in 2007 to 42.4 billion tonnes in 2035, the Energy Information Administration said in its annual long-term energy outlook.

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International Energy Outlook 2010 - Highlights

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World marketed energy consumption increases by 49 percent from 2007 to 2035 in the Reference case. Total energy demand in non-OECD countries increases by 84 percent, compared with an increase of 14 percent in OECD countries. In the IEO2010 Reference case, which does not include prospective legislation or policies, world marketed energy consumption grows by 49 percent from 2007 to 2035. Total world energy use rises from 495 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) in 2007 to 590 quadrillion Btu in 2020 and 739 quadrillion Btu in 2035 (Figure 1). Figure 1.</body></html>

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World Needs Clean Energy Revolution: UN chief

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UNITED NATIONS — Rich and poor nations need a "clean energy revolution" in order to cut greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said here Wednesday.

 

The Druzhba thermal power station in Sofia

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CO2 At New Highs Despite Economic Slowdown

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Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent OSLO - A man fishes on the ice-covered Kazanka River, with the air temperature at about -25 degrees Celsius (-13 degrees Fahrenheit), in the Russian city of Kazan January 17, 2010. Credit: Reuters/Andrei Rudakov

OSLO (Reuters) - Levels of the main greenhouse gas in the atmosphere have risen to new highs in 2010 despite an economic slowdown in many nations that braked industrial output, data showed on Monday.

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Soot Pollution Melting Glaciers

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Soot Pollution Melting GlaciersThese glaciers are a sign of what is going into your lungs. If we replaced all the world's coal electric power plants with nukes we'd breathe cleaner air and the glaciers wouldn't lose so much ice. WASHINGTON – Black soot deposited on Tibetan glaciers has contributed significantly to the retreat of the world's largest non- polar ice masses, according to new research by scientists from NASA and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Soot absorbs incoming solar radiation and can speed glacial melting when deposited on snow in sufficient quantities.

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Fossil Fuel Production Up Despite Recession

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World production of fossil fuels-oil, coal, and natural gas-increased 2.9 percent in 2008 to reach 27.4 million tons of oil equivalent (Mtoe) per day.1 (See Figure 1.) In the first half of the year, producers strained to meet global demand, but when the recession took hold later in the year the market was swamped by excess supply. Energy prices reflected this shift: oil peaked at $144 per barrel in July, then fell to $34 per barrel in December.2 Continuing a decade-long trend, most of the growth was in the... region.

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Climate Roulette

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They say that everyone who finally gets it about climate change has an "Oh, shit" moment--an instant when the full scientific implications become clear and they suddenly realize what a horrifically dangerous situation humanity has created for itself. Listening to the speeches, groundbreaking in their way, that President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao delivered September 22 at the UN Summit on Climate Change, I was reminded of my most recent "Oh, shit" moment.

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