Al Reino Unido no le salen las cuentas (si ellos en solitario tomaran medidas contra el cambio climático)

Fecha: 23 - nov - 2006
Fuente: The Guardian

Comentario: Parece quedar demostrado que contra el cambio climático tiene que tomar medidas todos los países de la tierra. Lógicamente, empezando por el que más contamina (EEUU). Parace claro que esto tiene que ser un acuerdo global para que precisamente aquellos que tomen las medidas, no sean los más perjudicados

Unilateral action on climate change could ruin economy, says CBI chief

The government will put jobs and investment at risk if it adopts a go-it-alone approach to tackling climate change, says the new director general of the Confederation of British Industry.

Richard Lambert, preparing for next week's CBI conference in London - his first at the helm of the country's leading employers' organisation - said ministers must find a way of cutting carbon emissions "without destroying our economy".

In an interview with the Guardian, Mr Lambert said: "There are very legitimate concerns that unilateral action by the UK could seriously damage the competitiveness of our economy, with consequences for jobs and investment. CBI members don't say you shouldn't be talking about this. They all recognise it as a challenge and some see it as a business opportunity.

"But there are serious competitiveness issues. The biggest challenge in policy terms is to arrive at a sensible balance between averting climate change and protecting jobs on the other hand."

CBI members thought the European Union's emissions trading system was flawed, but saw it as "the only game in town". Ideally, it should provide incentives for the good and punish the bad, but he said the system - in its second year - should be given time to bed down. "We should be working like anything to tackle its shortcomings because we need to arrive at a robust price for carbon if everything else is going to flow from that."

Mr Lambert said the right incentives were needed to provide the resources for big new investment in electricity capacity, including nuclear, and to ensure there were international partnerships that could "bring about emissions reductions in a way that does not destroy our economy".

Britain faced the threat of an energy crisis over the coming months, he said. "There is a risk of a very sharp [cold] spell in the first half of the winter that could cause problems." But the risks reduced during the second half as Britain's capacity to import energy increased with new infrastructure projects coming on stream.

During his first few months in the job, the CBI chief had picked up growing discontent among members about a range of issues, including tax and regulation.

"There is a sense that people are fed up out there," he said, citing 35 new items of employment law since 1997, higher taxes, pensions, red tape and the "cack-handed" extradition treaty with the United States that had seen British businessmen hauled before US courts. "There is a bunch of stuff that concerns them. They have seen a loss of momentum in government as we wait for change to take place."

Business was equally uncertain about David Cameron's Conservatives. "Everybody understands that he wants to put the party into a different place, but there are some areas of concern about the way he's doing it." He cited the recent hardline stance taken by Tory MEPs on environmental law that had "raised eyebrows in our sister organisations across Europe".

Some firms were thinking of moving to lower-cost tax jurisdictions. "Some are going to Dublin. I imagine that more are considering it. The chancellor has lots to think about. We need to compete; he needs the money. He can't promise miracles. It's like turning a supertanker around. But it's time to signal a change of direction."

Importing labour to deal with the UK skills shortage was not the solution. "Our members felt - not all of them but enough - that while it may be rational for a company to solve skill shortages by bringing in foreign workers, it was not rational for society to do that. We need to be investing heavily, both government and business, in raising the skills of our workforce."

Britain had benefited from immigration in terms of raising demand, easing labour bottlenecks and keeping down inflation. There now needed to be a pause while the government assessed whether Britain had the schools and homes to cope with a further inflow in migrant labour.

On balance, Mr Lambert said Britain's liberal approach to foreign takeovers had been beneficial. There were issues about the loss of research and development and design to the new owners' home bases, but overall "we're well up on the game".

He cited the case of the City. "I would not have bet 25 years ago that it would be in the position it finds itself in today - it's really putting the breeze up New York as an international financial centre."

Todavía habría tiempo para parar ésto

9 - nov - 2006
Fuente: The Guardian

Comentario: nadie podrá decir que no se estaba avisando.

Only a decade left to avoid climate change, says thinktank

The world has less than a decade to reverse the growth in greenhouse gas emissions if dangerous climate change is to be avoided, according to a report from a thinktank that goes further than the landmark Stern review last week.

Lord Stern's report said that unless greenhouse emissions were tackled the world faced an economic downturn on a par with the great depression.

Yesterday's report from the Institute of Public Policy Research suggests Lord Stern's analysis was too conservative and governments need to move further and faster. To minimise the risk of a 2C rise - seen as the threshold for dangerous climate change - the authors say global carbon dioxide emissions would need to peak between 2010 and 2013.

By 2015 to 2020 the world would need to be cutting carbon emissions by 4%-5% annually and by mid century CO2 levels should be 70%-80% below what they were in 1990, say Paul Baer and Michael Mastrandrea, experts in risk analysis. The government's "aspiration" is to cut carbon emissions by 60% by 2050. "It is the timetable for action, above all, that our research shows we urgently need to rethink," wrote Simon Retallack, head of the IPPR's climate change team, in a foreword to the report. "We do not have decades in which to bend the CO2 curve: we have less than 10 years. The gap between what is necessary and what seems feasible clearly looms large. But if we want to avoid significant risks of appalling global harm we will need to re-examine what is feasible."

If the global average temperature rises by more than 2C, the report predicts, more than 2 billion people will be affected by drought and some of the world's most diverse ecosystems, including coral reefs and the Amazon rainforest, will be severely damaged.

But Sir David King, the government's chief scientific adviser, told the Guardian in an interview ahead of publication of the Stern review that it was looking increasingly unlikely that the world would be able to stay below the 2C threshold. Carbon dioxide levels are 383 parts per million and rising at 2ppm per year. He believed it would be politically realistic to stabilise CO2 at between 450 and 550 ppm, which would translate into a global average temperature rise of 2.2 to 3.5C.

Yesterday Tony Blair received a petition signed by 150,000 people and delivered by six children. The petition, from the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition, called for a climate change bill in next week's Queen's speech to cut UK CO2 emissions by at least 3% annually.

El nuevo paisaje energético europeo

Fuente: ambientum

Europa entra en una nueva era energética. Los precios del gas y del petróleo se han casi duplicado en los dos últimos años. Se prevé que la dependencia europea de las importaciones llegará al 70 por ciento en 2030 por la disminución de nuestras reservas de hidrocarburos y el aumento de la demanda, lo que afectará a nuestra seguridad energética. Tenemos que mejorar nuestras infraestructuras: en los próximos 20 años necesitaremos un billón de euros para cubrir la demanda energética prevista y sustituir las infraestructuras obsoletas. Y nuestro clima está cambiando debido al calentamiento del planeta

Son desafíos comunes a todos los ciudadanos y países europeos. Exigen una respuesta europea común. La UE está en buena posición. Tenemos el poder de compra que supone ser el segundo consumidor mundial de energía. Somos uno de los continentes con mayor eficiencia energética. Somos líderes globales en formas nuevas y renovables de energía, en desarrollo de tecnologías bajas en carbono y en gestión de la demanda.

Y sin embargo, el planteamiento europeo en materia de energía ha sido disperso, no ha sido capaz de conectar políticas y países diferentes. Esto tiene que cambiar.

La Comisión Europea publica hoy un Libro Verde sobre el desarrollo de una política energética europea coherente. Nuestro objetivo es una energía sostenible, competitiva y segura. Si la UE es capaz de adoptar un planteamiento común y articularlo con una voz coherente y unida, Europa podrá liderar la búsqueda mundial de soluciones para la energía.

No hay respuestas fáciles. Pero el Libro Verde abrirá un gran debate público sobre la forma de afrontar la nueva realidad energética.

¿Qué proponemos?

Unidad. La UE debe hablar con una sola voz en el plano internacional, especialmente con los grandes productores y consumidores de energía. Debemos utilizar el tamaño de nuestro mercado y todos nuestros instrumentos para manejar nuestra dependencia energética, diversificar nuestro abastecimiento y conseguir apoyos internacionales para hacer frente a los nuevos retos. Será esencial un nuevo partenariado con nuestros proveedores más próximos, incluida Rusia. Debemos capitalizar el interés mutuo de Europa y de sus principales proveedores más próximos por crear mercados de energía seguros, abiertos y en expansión. Y debemos intensificar nuestra cooperación con nuestros principales socios de Oriente Medio, Asia y América.

Integración. Debemos crear un mercado verdaderamente único de la electricidad y el gas. Sería una garantía de seguridad, competitividad y sostenibilidad. Los mercados abiertos benefician a los consumidores. Crean la plataforma a largo plazo que es esencial para la inversión. Son el contexto adecuado, paneuropeo, para los proyectos de fusiones en curso. En energía, como en otros ámbitos, Europa prospera cuando suprime barreras, no cuando las refuerza.

Solidaridad. La integración debe ir acompañada de solidaridad. Europa debe responder mejor a las fluctuaciones de los mercados y del abastecimiento, y además replantearse su política de reservas de emergencia de petróleo y gas.

Fuente: ABC

Los ríos de todo el mundo agonizan por las presas y el cambio climático

Fuente: 13 mar (Noticias 24 horas)

Además, los 20 ríos más grandes del mundo son interrumpidos por grandes presas y una quinta parte de las especies de agua dulce están en peligro de extinción. Éstas son algunas de las conclusiones del Informe del desarrollo mundial del agua del Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Medio Ambiente (PNUMA) que será publicado esta semana y que ayer adelantó el diario británico The Independent.

Mientras que ríos como el Nilo o el Indo llegan muy reducidos al mar, otros como el Colorado o el Río Amarillo rara vez llegan al mar y algunos como el Río Grande o el Jordán están secos en gran parte de su cauce.

El informe será presentado durante una conferencia internacional que se iniciará el próximo jueves en Ciudad de México. Entre sus datos se señala que unas 45.000 grandes presas bloquean los ríos del mundo, reteniendo el 15% del caudal total de agua que solía fluir de la tierra al mar. De hecho, actualmente los embalses cubren casi el 1% de la superficie terrestre del planeta. Aunque la ONU reconoce que aumentará la demanda de estas infraestructuras, recomienda que no se realicen en los ríos que siguen fluyendo libremente.

Pero también el cambio climático es una amenaza para los ríos, como se ha observado en el Amazonas, que el pasado otoño vivió la peor sequía de la historia. Asimismo, en el río Yukon en Alaska, el mayor cauce del mundo libre de embalses, los salmones están muriendo al aumentar el calor del agua.