Ecologists raised the alarm on Monday over global warming as environment ministers from more than 30 countries met in Warsaw ahead of December’s UN Climate summit focused on slashing greenhouse gases.
“We’re ringing alarm bells — the UN summit in Poznan must deliver a deal that will keep global warming below 2°C to the end of this century,” Kaisa Kosonen from the global environmental group Greenpeace told reporters.
“Five years from now will be too late,” she said as activists rang bells outside of the Warsaw hotel where ministers were gathered.
“We are currently on a pathway that implies temperatures could increase up to 7°C [by the end of the century],” Kosonen said at an earlier press conference. “There is no more time for small steps.”
Greenpeace and the Global Climate Initiative want the UN Poznan summit to agree on binding carbon dioxide emissions cuts of between 25 percent and 40 percent — from 1990 levels — by 2020.
EU leaders are working on a package to cut carbon dioxide emissions from 1990 levels by 20 percent by 2020.
Environmentalists insist the consequences of failure to agree on terms to deeply limit carbon dioxide emissions could include widespread flooding from rising sea-levels as polar icecaps melt and increased morbidity from heatwaves, floods and droughts.
Switching to green energy technologies based on solar, wind, biofuels and hydro power as well as increasing energy efficiency makes both environmental and economic sense, Kosonen said.
“The amount of money world governments have pooled now in the financial crisis is huge and we have no guarantee it isn’t being wasted — it would take just a fraction to spearhead renewable energy technologies,” she said.
World leaders will meet in Poznan, western Poland for the UN Climate Change conference dubbed COP 14 from Dec. 1 to Dec. 14.
Critics say the financial crisis makes it very difficult for industry to make the necessary big investments in clean energy.
“We think this [climate] package is consistent with solving the financial crisis ... At the moment, people are focused on the economic crisis, but our package is part of the solution,” Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said.
“Fighting climate change means investment in energy efficiency, promoting renewable sources and providing incentives to stimulate the economy and contribute to growth,” he said.
The EU also argues that moving to a low-carbon economy will create jobs and reduce the bloc’s exposure to volatile prices of fossil fuels such as oil and coal that lead to global warming.
“Nobody has said we should cut down our efforts [because of the financial crisis]. They all said we should continue. We need to send a strong signal from Poznan on fighting climate change,” Dimas said.
Also See: Low-cost carriers say carbon trading will affect profits、Climate not an issue in US poll
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS