Inside Cop15 is designed to cover the highs and lows of the potentially ground-breaking summit, with round-the-clock coverage and the latest news as it happens and to untangle the meaning of the next global climate change treaty.

Running alongside this is a Vote Earth initiative, which collects signatories for use as part of the WWF's presentation to delegates in Copenhagen, and a similar petition from TckTckTck, a global alliance of organizations such as the Global Humanitarian Forum, Oxfam, ( Read more... )
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RISING SEAS: Sea levels have risen in tandem with global warming, according to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The global average sea level has risen since 1961 at an average rate of 1.8mm (0.07 inches) per year, but accelerated from 1991 to 3.1mm (0.12 inches) per year. The IPCC estimated sea levels would rise 18-59 centimetres (7.2-23.2 inches) by 2100. But added runoff from melting land ice is accelerating. According to Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact ( Read more... )
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GROUP OF 77 AND CHINA

The bloc of developing nations insist rich countries - deemed responsible for today's warming and best placed to tackle it - commit to legally-binding reductions of their emissions by at least 40 percent annually by 2020 over 1990 levels.

They refuse to make binding emissions targets of their own, arguing that they need to keep access to cheap, plentiful fossil fuels to haul themselves out of poverty.

Some, though, have agreed to announce voluntary measures ( Read more... )
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Lou Jost, an American botanist, found the tiny orchid by accident when he was inspecting a plant collected from the Cerro Candelaria reserve in the eastern Andes, which was created by Ecuador's EcoMinga Foundation in partnership with the World Land Trust in Britain.

The plant is just 2.1mm wide, and instantly supercedes the species Platystele jungermannioides as the world's smallest orchid. The petals are so thin that they are just one cell thick and transparent.

The flower is just ( Read more... )
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Most world leaders, from US President Barack Obama down, will attend the meeting in the Danish capital which begins on 7 December and lasts until 19 December; it will be one of the largest international gatherings ever seen, with about 15,000 delegates and diplomats working behind the prime ministers and presidents who will make the final decisions.

But there is another gathering taking place in Copenhagen, running in parallel with the main conference, and that is the coming together of ( Read more... )
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Mr Griffin, who was elected to the European Parliament in June, confirmed that he would travel to Copenhagen as a representative of the parliament's environmental committee. A spokesman for the party said he hoped to expose the "somewhat dodgy" science behind the climate-change movement.

The far-right politician has repeatedly condemned those who warn of the consequences of climate change, most recently last week when he denounced them as "cranks". In a speech to the ( Read more... )
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The rusting remains of a ski lift now dominate what was once the highest ski-run in the world perched on the Chacaltaya glacier at some 5,300 meters (17,390 feet) high.

Only a snowy ice cap of some 50 square meters (538 square feet) remains of the magnificent Chacaltaya glacier which spread over 1,600 square meters in the 1950s.

"That's all there's left: a little piece of ice that is disappearing and will last no more than a year," said Alfredo Martinez, a veteran guide and founder ( Read more... )
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The Daily Green
"The consumer's guide to the green revolution" offers hundreds of green gift ideas in 32 categories, including "Gifts made from old junk," "Cheap green gifts," "Safe green toys," and "How to regift (and get away with it)." Unique ideas such as Adopt an Octopus, yogurt-container earrings,  and a recycled wine-bottle coat rack are sure to provide inspiration.
http://www.thedailygreen.com/living-green/green-gifts

TreeHugger

In under two years, Todmorden has transformed the way it produces its food and the way residents think about the environment. Compared with 18 months ago, a third more townspeople now grow their own veg; almost seven in 10 now buy local produce regularly, and 15 times as many people are keeping chickens.

The town centre is dotted with "help yourself" vegetable gardens; the market groans with local meat and vegetables, and at all eight of the town's schools the pupils eat locally produced ( Read more... )
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Sir Paul said yesterday: "The message that I am taking to the European Parliament is ? less meat equals less heat. I will appeal to world leaders converging on Copenhagen for the climate-change talks to remember that sustainable food policy is an essential weapon in the fight against global warming. At the same time we should not forget our individual capacity to act in ways that will help ? such as limiting our consumption of meat. This simple act can help slow global warming and help to feed ( Read more... )
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I had been pedalling fast, halfway into a 60-mile circuit through the North Downs of Kent, when a whippet-like man whirred past with enviable souplesse, a blur of Lycra and tanned forearms. He quickly opened a gap but I tried to keep him in sight ? at least for as long as I could. We turned out to be following the same route and, as I approached the Pilgrim's Way near Sevenoaks, I saw that he had stopped at a deserted junction.

Preparing to give him the obligatory ( Read more... )
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At the Commonwealth heads of government summit in Trinidad, the Prime Minister called on developing nations to start cutting their greenhouse gas emissions immediately and tackle what he called the "new historic injustice" of climate change.

Mr Brown said the resources, including £800m of British money over three years, would "kickstart" the Copenhagen climate change process ahead of the crucial UN talks in the Danish capital next month.

The Copenhagen Launch Fund has the backing ( Read more... )
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Yet a connection to the electricity grid far from assures a dependable supply of power for those living in rural areas. A recent report by Greenpeace India, Still Waiting, surveyed a tier A city, a tier B city and three villages in five states across India, and found that, while the cities received between 22 and 24 hours of electricity supply per day, all the villages surveyed had a power supply of less than 12 hours a day on average. In the villages, electricity is used for ( Read more... )
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Just days ahead of the vital UN-sponsored climate change conference in the Danish capital, Mr Brown proposed a £10 billion rich-world fund - to which Britain would contribute £800 million - to give incentives to developing countries to halt deforestation, develop low-carbon energy sources and prepare for the effects of a warmer climate.

The Copenhagen Launch Fund would cover the years 2010/12 and deliver funds to poorer states on a "payment by results" system, ( Read more... )
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Here is how other major emitters line up:

INDUSTRIALISED COUNTRIES

UNITED STATES: World's number two polluter says it will offer to cut emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, deepening to 30 percent by 2025, 42 percent by 2030 and 83 percent by 2050.

The offer "is in the context of an overall deal in Copenhagen that includes robust mitigation contributions from China and the other emerging economies."

The US target for 2020 means only a fall of four percentage ( Read more... )
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Although conservationists' fears have so far focused on seabirds in the Southern Ocean, especially albatrosses, there is mounting alarm over the numbers of northern species, such as shearwaters and petrels, falling victim to large-scale industrialised fishing methods.

The most deadly of these is longlining, which involves hooks set with bait on lines which stream out for great distances behind fishing vessels. Seabirds swoop on the bait when it is on the surface, before being hooked themselves ( Read more... )
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The inhabitants of this Danish isle seized upon wind's potential as a source of energy and money more than a decade ago. Since then the Baltic island has become one of the first industrialised places on the planet to qualify as being totally energy self-sufficient.

It is a major propaganda victory for a country that will shortly be hosting the world summit on climate change ? in fact, Copenhagen delegates will be flown or ferried out here next month to see Samso for themselves. The island's ( Read more... )
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Use of organic methods means that the soil takes up much more carbon, which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide to boost global warming, according to the report from the Soil Association, the organic food and farming charity.

Soil is a major store of carbon, the report says, containing three times as much as the atmosphere and five times as much as forests. About 60 per cent of this is in the form of organic matter in the soil. On average, organic farming produces ( Read more... )
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8 degrees Fahrenheit) this century, a figure that lies at the farthest range of expert predictions made only two years ago, scientists said on Tuesday.

The study is the biggest overview on global warming since the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a landmark report in 2007. Several authors of the new paper were part of that Nobel-winning group.

Entitled the "Copenhagen Diagnosis," the 64-page summary is pitched at the December 7-18 UN conference in Denmark ( Read more... )
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As it is, humanity each year uses resources equivalent to nearly one-and-a-half Earths to meet its needs, said the report by Global Footprint Network, an international think tank.

"We are demanding nature's services - using resources and creating CO2 emissions - at a rate 44 percent faster than what nature can regenerate and reabsorb," the document said.

"That means it takes the Earth just under 18 months to produce the ecological services humanity needs in one year," it said.

And ( Read more... )
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