Why Care About Copenhagen?
by Jennifer Berry

Copenhagen. You’ve probably heard the name of the Danish capital about a thousand times in the past month or two. Or maybe you haven’t, and it’s just starting to pop up in your local nightly newscast.

What happens at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this month could very well alter the future of businesses and lifestyles around the globe. No matter where you fall on the spectrum of environmental concern (or if you’re on it at all), Copenhagen is going to be a big deal.

More than 10 years ago, countries around the world joined an international treaty, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), working to reduce global warming and to cope with whatever temperature increases are inevitable. Representatives from these 192 countries will meet at the Conference to work toward a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

The Convention on Climate Change establishes a setting to discuss legally binding means of addressing these issues, and it “recognizes that the climate system is a shared resource whose stability can be affected by industrial and other emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.”

The Copenhagen Diagnosis: 2°
The recently released Copenhagen Diagnosis is a compendium of the most current, peer-reviewed science behind climate change theory. Its research is an update of the information previously released in the groundbreaking Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report published in 2007.

According to the Diagnosis, “The atmospheric CO2 concentration is more than 105 [parts per million] above its natural pre-industrial level. The present concentration is higher than at any time in the last 800,000 years, and potentially the last three to 20 million years.”

Additional findings from the report:

**Satellite and direct measurements now demonstrate that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass and contributing to sea level rise at an increasing rate.

**Sea level has risen more than 5 centimeters over the past 15 years, about 80 percent higher than IPCC projections from 2001. Accounting for ice-sheets and glaciers, global sea-level rise may exceed 1 meter by 2100, with a rise of up to 2 meters considered an upper limit by that time.

**In 2008, carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels were approximately 40 percent higher than those in 1990.

“The reconstruction of past climate reveals that recent warming in the Arctic and in the Northern Hemisphere is highly inconsistent with natural climate variability over the last 2000 years,” said Dr Alan Haywood, reader in paleoclimatology at the University of Leeds, U.K., and one of the authors of the Copenhagen Diagnosis.

The take-home message: The report concludes that global emissions must peak then decline rapidly within the next five to 10 years for the world to have a reasonable chance of avoiding the very worst impacts of climate change. This means that global temperature changes should not exceed a 2 degree Celsius increase above pre-industrial values.

OK, so all this jargon sounds great, but what does it mean for us?

Climate Change Policy and You
Even though polar bears on melting ice, and even Denmark, may seem too far away to be relevant to life here in the U.S., the decisions reached at the Conference will have resounding effects across the global economy.

The Diagnosis recommends that to stabilize the climate, “a decarbonized global society, with near-zero emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, needs to be reached well within this century. More specifically, the average annual per-capita emissions will have to shrink to well under 1 metric ton of CO2 by 2050.”

To put it in perspective, this figure is 80 to 95 percent below the per-capita emissions in developed nations (that’s the U.S.!) in 2000.

At this point in time, educated speculation is our only means of guessing, but one thing is for sure, change is in the air.

Governments have cautioned that the conference is unlikely to produce a binding agreement to substantially cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases at this point.

However, others disagree with this forecast. “To me, there is enough reason to have a sense of optimism right now that a deal could be made in Copenhagen that is not just a political deal, but is meaningful in terms of the scientific targets,” said Achim Steiner, director of the UN Environment Program.

“We just hope we can work together in a way to avoid the mistakes that we made that have created a large part of the problem that we face today,” said Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Systems to mitigate carbon emissions may be put in place here in the U.S. New technologies and cleaner power will probably be in the mix with these adjustments. However, what will actually happen here at home is still part of a cloudy future.

Even if the environment doesn’t fall on your top 10 list of priorities, discussions about climate legislation at national and international levels will affect your lifestyle in the long run. The important factor is to be as educated as possible about the politics, policies and science at hand, and to decide what aspects are most important to you.

“Global climate change is by far the most complex issue we’ve taken on,” said Kevin Tuerff, president of EnviroMedia, a green marketing firm. “But we have faith Americans will contribute to the solution if they take time to understand the connection between our everyday lives as consumers and important issues like cap and trade being discussed in Copenhagen at the United Nations climate change conference.”

Rebecca
Country Meadow Ltd.
Eco Friendly Shea Butter Spa Products

www.countrymeadowltd.com

Sea Level Rise of Up to 1.9 Meters (6′3″) This Century?
Written by Zachary Shahan

Sea level may actually rise much faster than previously expected, a new scientific study shows.

The study shows that by 2100, sea level could rise between 75 and 190 centimeters (about 2′6″ to 6′3″). The study uses very up-to-date data collected from satellites and builds on previous work by one of the authors. It is now published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The findings continue the scientific warnings that if we do not do something, climate change will take us on a snowball’s path to widespread and incomparable destruction.

Using measurements of sea level and temperature from the last 130 years, the researchers, Martin Vermeer of Helsinki University of Technology in Finland and Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, predict that sea level is likely to rise much more than previously predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) if swift and strong action is not taken to keep the temperature down.

“Since 1990 sea level has been rising at 3.4 millimetres per year, twice as fast as on average over the 20th Century,” says Stefan Rahmstorf. If this rate remains steady, that would result in a rise of 34 centimeters by the end of the 21st century. However, the thing is that as the temperature increases, certain feedback loops make sea level rise faster and faster. As Rahmstorf says, “the data show us clearly: the warmer it gets, the faster sea level rises. If we want to prevent a galloping sea level rise, we should stop global warming as soon as possible.”

The projections from this study show that even with a relatively low temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius, sea level will rise over one meter (over 3′3″).

These projections are about three times higher than those from the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 because that report did not fully take into account the results of ice loss in Greenland and Antarctica.

Here is yet another study showing us that humans must make quick and strong changes or else changes will happen in nature with far more serious consequences, and even by the end of this century. Will we act in an environmentally balancing manner?

Rebecca
Country Meadow Ltd.
Eco Friendly Shea Butter Spa Products

www.countrymeadowltd.com

EPA: Greenhouse gases are harmful to humans
Announcement comes as Obama prepares to attend climate conference

WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency took a major step Monday toward regulating greenhouses gases, concluding that climate changing pollution threatens the public health and the environment.

The announcement came as the Obama administration looked to boost its arguments at an international climate conference that the United States is aggressively taking actions to combat global warming, even though Congress has yet to act on climate legislation. The conference opened Monday in Copenhagen.

The EPA said that the scientific evidence surrounding climate change clearly shows that greenhouse gases “threaten the public health and welfare of the American people” and that the pollutants — mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels — should be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

“These long-overdue findings cement 2009′s place in history as the year when the United States government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution,” said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson at news conference.

The action by the EPA, which has been anticipated for months, clearly was timed to add to the momentum toward some sort of agreement on climate change at the Copenhagen conference and try to push Congress to approve climate legislation.

“This is a clear message to Copenhagen of the Obama administration’s commitments to address global climate change,” said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., lead author of a climate bill before the Senate. “The message to Congress is crystal clear: get moving.”

Obama planned to talk with former Vice President Al Gore at the White House on Monday as the president prepares for his appearance on Dec. 18 at the climate summit in Copenhagen. Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work toward combating climate change.

Obama is also meeting on Wednesday with environmental leaders and U.S. business leaders to discuss climate change.

Under a Supreme Court ruling, the finding of endangerment is needed before the EPA can regulate carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases released from power plants, factories and automobiles under the federal Clean Air Act.

The EPA signaled last April that it was inclined to view heat-trapping pollution as a threat to public health and welfare and began to take public comments under a formal rulemaking. The action marked a reversal from the Bush administration, which had declined to aggressively pursue the issue.

Business groups have strongly argued against tackling global warming through the Clean Air Act, saying it is less flexible and more costly than the cap-and-trade bill being considered before Congress. On Monday, some of those groups questioned the timing of the EPA’s announcement, calling it political.

“The implications of today’s action by EPA are far-reaching … individual Americans and consumers and businesses alike will be dramatically affected by this decision,” said Charles T. Drevna, the president of the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association. Drevna, in a statement, said “it is hardly the time to risk the remainder of the U.S. industrial sector in an attempt to achieve a short-term international public relations victory.”

Waiting for Congress to act
Any regulations are also likely to spawn lawsuits and lengthy legal fights.

The EPA and the White House have said regulations on greenhouse gases will not be imminent even after an endangerment finding, saying that the administration would prefer that Congress act to limit such pollution through an economy-wide cap on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Nevertheless, the EPA has begun the early stages of developing permit requirements on carbon dioxide pollution from large emitters such as power plants. The administration also has said it will require automobile fuel economy to increase to a fleet average of 35 miles per gallon by 2016, another push to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

The EPA’s readiness to tackle climate change is expected to give a boost to U.S. arguments at the climate conference opening in Copenhagen this week that the United States is making broad commitments to reduce greenhouse gases.

While the House has approved climate legislation that would cut emissions by 17 percent by 2020 and about 80 percent by mid-century, the Senate has yet to take up the measure amid strong Republican opposition and reluctance by some centrist Democrats.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., lead author of the Senate bill, has argued that if Congress doesn’t act, the EPA will require greenhouse gas emissions. He has called EPA regulation a “blunt instrument” that would pose a bigger problem for industry than legislation crafted to mitigate some of the costs of shifting away from carbon emitting fossil fuels.

The way was opened for the EPA to use the Clean Air Act to cut climate-changing emissions by the Supreme Court in 2007, when the court declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Act. But the court said the EPA must determine if these pollutants pose a danger to public health and welfare before it can regulate them.

Rebecca
Country Meadow Ltd.
Eco Friendly Shea Butter Spa Products

www.countrymeadowltd.com