Once again Ecumenical Advocacy Days in Washington, DC will offer an Eco-Justice track.
Follow links to learn more.
Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 25 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.
Find discounts on energy saving products at http://www.shopipl.org/
Showing posts with label United States politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label United States politics. Show all posts
Friday, January 11, 2008
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Rate the Candidates on the Environment
As primaries and caucuses unfold around the country, it's time to learn how your favorite presidential candidate stands on environmental issues. Check out the scorecards at the League of Conservation Voters website.Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 25 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.
Find discounts on energy saving products at http://www.shopipl.org/
Friday, December 14, 2007
Bali Climate Talks Still Tense
Things are still tense between the US and EU in Bali, according to this article in Bloomberg (excerpt below.)The European Union and developing nations have pushed for the agenda to state that industrialized nations should reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by 25 to 40 percent by 2020. That would give future negotiations a clear goal, they said.
The U.S. argues that talks should first focus on ways to reduce emissions blamed for climate change, and then discuss specific targets. Delegates meeting on the Indonesian island of Bali are trying to bridge the gap between the EU and U.S., the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide gas, and salvage the UN talks on their final day.
The U.S. argues that talks should first focus on ways to reduce emissions blamed for climate change, and then discuss specific targets. Delegates meeting on the Indonesian island of Bali are trying to bridge the gap between the EU and U.S., the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide gas, and salvage the UN talks on their final day.
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who earlier this week was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for raising awareness of climate change, urged delegates yesterday to move ahead on the new treaty without the U.S., with the understanding that President Bush will be leaving office in almost a year. Gore shared the prize with a UN panel of scientists that reported global warming is very likely caused by humans.
``The United States is the world's most powerful economy, the largest emitter of greenhouse gasses and therefore it has to be part of the solution,'' said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which organizes the talks.
Delegates from more than 150 countries are in the final hours of talks to hammer out a two-year negotiating agenda leading to the signing of a new global treaty to fight global warming to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
The conference has made progress in some areas. Delegates agreed on how to manage a pool of money that draws its income from United Nations emissions markets, and will pay grants to developing nations to help them adapt to the effects of global warming such as flooding and drought.
``The United States is the world's most powerful economy, the largest emitter of greenhouse gasses and therefore it has to be part of the solution,'' said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which organizes the talks.
Delegates from more than 150 countries are in the final hours of talks to hammer out a two-year negotiating agenda leading to the signing of a new global treaty to fight global warming to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
The conference has made progress in some areas. Delegates agreed on how to manage a pool of money that draws its income from United Nations emissions markets, and will pay grants to developing nations to help them adapt to the effects of global warming such as flooding and drought.
Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 25 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.Find discounts on energy saving products at http://www.shopipl.org/
Gore Urges US to Cooperate in Bali
According to an article in the New York Times, Al Gore is adding his voice to those urging to US to stop stalling on climate change action. (See and excerpt of the article below):
By THOMAS FULLER and ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: December 14, 2007
NUSA DUA, Indonesia — Amid growing frustration with the United States over deadlocked negotiations at a United Nations conference on global warming, the European Union threatened Thursday to boycott separate talks proposed by the Bush administration in Hawaii next month.
Humberto Rosa, the chief delegate from Portugal, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, said the discussions next month would be meaningless if there were no deal at the conference here this week on the resort island of Bali.
Germany’s environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, told reporters, “No result in Bali means no Major Economies Meeting.” He was referring to the formal name of the proposed American-sponsored talks.
The goal of the Bali meeting, which is being attended by delegates from 190 countries and which is scheduled to end Friday, is to reach agreement on a plan for a future deal to reduce greenhouse gases.
The escalating bitterness between the European Union and the United States came as former Vice President Al Gore told delegates in a speech that “My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali.”
Mr. Gore arrived at the conference from Norway, where he, along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, received the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to alert the world to the danger of global warming. He urged delegates to agree to an open-ended deal that could be enhanced after the Bush administration leaves office and the United States policy changes.
“Over the next two years the United States is going to be somewhere it is not now,” Mr. Gore said to loud applause. “You must anticipate that.”
There appears to be broad consensus among the delegates that a new agreement on climate change should be ready by 2009, in time to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the current agreement that limits emissions by all wealthy countries except the United States, which signed the Kyoto agreement but has refused to adopt it. Gaping differences remain between countries over how to share the burden of switching from types of energy that contribute to global warming.
The United States and the European Union remain at odds on many major points, including whether an agreement signed here should include numerical targets, a move that the United States and a few other countries, including Russia, oppose.
The emerging economic powers, most notably China and India, also refuse to accept limits on their emissions, despite projections that they will soon become the dominant sources of the gases.
“I’m very concerned about the pace of things,” Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is playing host to the meeting, said Thursday.
The United Nations released fresh data on Thursday confirming what it called the planet’s continued and alarming warming.
The 10 years ending in 2007 were the warmest on record, said Michel Jarraud, the secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization, a United Nations agency, citing data taken since the late 1800s from a global network of weather stations, ships and buoys.
“It’s very likely the warmest period for at least the last 1,000 or 1,300 years,” he told reporters.
Published: December 14, 2007
NUSA DUA, Indonesia — Amid growing frustration with the United States over deadlocked negotiations at a United Nations conference on global warming, the European Union threatened Thursday to boycott separate talks proposed by the Bush administration in Hawaii next month.
Humberto Rosa, the chief delegate from Portugal, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, said the discussions next month would be meaningless if there were no deal at the conference here this week on the resort island of Bali.
Germany’s environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, told reporters, “No result in Bali means no Major Economies Meeting.” He was referring to the formal name of the proposed American-sponsored talks.
The goal of the Bali meeting, which is being attended by delegates from 190 countries and which is scheduled to end Friday, is to reach agreement on a plan for a future deal to reduce greenhouse gases.
The escalating bitterness between the European Union and the United States came as former Vice President Al Gore told delegates in a speech that “My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali.”
Mr. Gore arrived at the conference from Norway, where he, along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, received the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to alert the world to the danger of global warming. He urged delegates to agree to an open-ended deal that could be enhanced after the Bush administration leaves office and the United States policy changes.
“Over the next two years the United States is going to be somewhere it is not now,” Mr. Gore said to loud applause. “You must anticipate that.”
There appears to be broad consensus among the delegates that a new agreement on climate change should be ready by 2009, in time to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the current agreement that limits emissions by all wealthy countries except the United States, which signed the Kyoto agreement but has refused to adopt it. Gaping differences remain between countries over how to share the burden of switching from types of energy that contribute to global warming.
The United States and the European Union remain at odds on many major points, including whether an agreement signed here should include numerical targets, a move that the United States and a few other countries, including Russia, oppose.
The emerging economic powers, most notably China and India, also refuse to accept limits on their emissions, despite projections that they will soon become the dominant sources of the gases.
“I’m very concerned about the pace of things,” Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is playing host to the meeting, said Thursday.
The United Nations released fresh data on Thursday confirming what it called the planet’s continued and alarming warming.
The 10 years ending in 2007 were the warmest on record, said Michel Jarraud, the secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization, a United Nations agency, citing data taken since the late 1800s from a global network of weather stations, ships and buoys.
“It’s very likely the warmest period for at least the last 1,000 or 1,300 years,” he told reporters.
Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 25 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.Find discounts on energy saving products at http://www.shopipl.org/
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Climate Talks Stall
The New York Times reports on the stalemate in this article (excerpt below):By THOMAS FULLER
Published: December 12, 2007
This article was reported by Thomas Fuller, Peter Gelling and Andrew C. Revkin, and was written by Mr. Fuller.
NUSA DUA, Indonesia — As a United Nations conference on global warming here entered its final stretch, the United States and the European Union remained deadlocked on Tuesday on whether countries should commit now to specific emissions reductions in an agreement that may not be finalized for two more years.
Over the weekend, officials from the United Nations, backed by the European Union and many developing countries, offered a draft plan for talks over the next two years, including a statement that dangerous warming can be avoided only if industrialized countries cut emissions by 2020 to levels 25 to 40 percent below those of 1990.
But on Tuesday the United States held firmly opposed to such language.
This year’s studies by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that centuries of warming, rising seas and species extinctions would probably result unless there were sharp curbs in climate-warming emissions within a few decades.
“Logic requires that we listen to the science,” said Stavros Dimas, the European Union’s environment commissioner. “I would expect others to follow that logic.”
The Bush administration opposes including hard targets at this stage in the talks. Other countries, including Japan and Canada, are beginning to side with the United States on the need for any new climate agreements to include meaningful steps by fast-growing countries like China and India. And calls for concrete limits have consistently been refused by those nations.
Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 25 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.
Find discounts on energy saving products at http://www.shopipl.org
Find discounts on energy saving products at http://www.shopipl.org
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