Washington new center of global warming battle

CLIMATE SCIENCE

India offers hand to US on climate change
Confident about a warming relationship with the United States, India hopes to work closely with Washington in the fight against climate change, its ambassador said Wednesday. Ambassador Ronen Sen, who is leaving his post after four and a half years in Washington, said New Delhi was looking for new areas of cooperation after a breakthrough nuclear energy deal with former US president George W. Bush. 'We have a vested interest in working as partners in tackling this problem of climate change," Sen told a luncheon with business leaders. "I would like to say that you will find us cooperative in this joint endeavor," he said. He said India and the United States shared concerns in climate policy, including reducing the environmental damage caused by rising temperatures and finding ways to reduce dependence on energy imports. "This is one area where I think our interests converge more than any two countries that I can think of," Sen said. US President Barack Obama has vowed to take a leadership role in drafting a new treaty on global warming, marking a drastic change in policy. Bush was a sworn opponent of the Kyoto Protocol, arguing that it was unfair by forcing only rich nations to cut emissions blamed for global warming while making no demands of growing developing countries such as India and China. While Sen did not go into detail on ways to cooperate, he stood by New Delhi's position that poorer nations should have different obligations than rich countries bearing greater historic responsibility for global warming. "We can't tell an electorate when you are going into elections that when you have something like in excess of 300 million people without any access to electricity at all that you have to put a cap on this," he said. A December conference in Copenhagen is scheduled to approve a new treaty on fighting global warming for the period after 2012, when Kyoto's obligations expire.

by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) March 4, 2009
European ministers are flocking to Washington drawn by the new administration's pledge to help lead the fight against climate change, an issue largely put on ice for eight years here.

Ministers from across Europe as well as Canada are taking part in a whirl of meetings here this week to gauge prospects of Congress adopting key climate-change legislation ahead of a major UN climate conference in December.

US President Barack Obama has called on Congress to draw up legislation setting out a carbon cap-and-trade system to limit greenhouse gas emissions and pump billions of dollars into renewable energy programs.

A European-style mechanism which penalizes pollutants and rewards green industry should, in concert with the development of new sources of clean energy, reduce US gas emissions by 14 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, according to the Obama administration.

British and Danish ministers of climate and energy Ed Miliband and Connie Hedegaard expressed optimism Tuesday that a deal could be concluded on reducing emissions at the UN conference in Copenhagen. They said a commitment from the US administration could inspire other countries.

"President Obama's commitment is a very significant and very welcome advance on previous US policy and will in that sense have a positive effect on others' willingness to come forward," Miliband said.

"I think it's right to say that in Europe there is a real ... sense of new American leadership on these issues of climate change shown by President Obama and a very welcome sense of movement forward," he added.

Hedegaard said it was "extremely exciting" to sit down with new US officials keen on taking on global warming with international partners.

"Tackling global challenges like ... climate, we can not do it without the US, and for too long others have been hiding behind the American position," the Danish minister said, referring to countries that have refused to institute changes until the world's largest energy consumer takes the lead.

"So we need the US to engage," he added. "As soon as the US administration and this House (of Representatives) and Senate can sort of come up with the American position, the more strong the pressure will be on all of us" at the UN conference.

The European Union sees the arrival of Obama as a boost for the chances of agreeing a global deal on a replacement to the Kyoto protocol in Copenhagen.

Obama's predecessor George W. Bush refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol which expires in 2012.

Also in Washington this week was Canada's Environment Minister Jim Prentice, following up on talks between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Obama last month on clean energy.

Prentice and the Europeans met with members of the House energy and commerce committee, including its powerful chairman Henry Waxman, who despite swirling economic crises insisted that US climate legislation could still be passed by December.

"What we need to do here in the US is complete a bill this year, passed into law, and I would hope we will do it before Copenhagen," Waxman told reporters. "The US has to catch up and become a leader once again on these environmental issues."

Some US experts have said that while action on a bill looks likely in the House, getting it through the Senate before Copenhagen would be difficult, especially with the lukewarm reception some energy initiatives are getting from lawmakers.

French Minister for Sustainable Development Jean-Louis Borloo was to meet Wednesday with US officials in charge of climate and energy issues, while former British prime minister Tony Blair was a guest Tuesday at a Senate panel on global warming.

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CLIMATE SCIENCE

Underwater animals fart greenhouse gas: study

Berlin (AFP) March 3, 2009
Humans and farm animals were known to emit harmful greenhouse gases through digestion, but German researchers said Tuesday that aquatic worms and bugs are also culprits, releasing laughing gas.

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