Tag: carbon

Even very small changes in the ocean's surface temperature can have an enormous impact elsewhere A new study suggests that the rate of global warming from doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide may be less than the most dire estimates of some previous studies -- and, in fact, may be less severe than projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in 2007.Authors of the study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation's Paleoclimate Program and published online this week in the journal Science, say that global warming is real and that increases in atmospheric CO2 will have multiple serious impacts.However, the most Draconian projections of temperature increases from the doubling of CO2 are unlikely."Many previous climate sensitivity studies have looked at the past only from 1850 through today, and not fully integrated paleoclimate date, especially on a global scale," said Andreas Schmittner, an Oregon State University researcher and lead author on the Science article. "When you reconstruct sea and land surface temperatures from the peak of the last Ice Age 21,000 years ago -- which is referred to as the Last Glacial Maximum -- and compare it with climate model simulations of that period, you get a much ...

Countries commit to reduce emissions The U.N.'s top climate official said she expects governments to make a long-delayed decision on whether industrial countries should make further commitments to reduce emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases.Amid fresh warnings of climate-related disasters in the future, delegates from about 190 countries were gathering in Durban for a two-week conference beginning Monday. They hope to break deadlocks on how to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants.Christiana Figueres, head of the U.N. climate secretariat, said Sunday the stakes for the negotiations are high, underscored by new scientific studies.Under discussion was "nothing short of the most compelling energy, industrial, behavioral revolution that humanity has ever seen," she said.Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a hero of the movement that ended apartheid in South Africa, led a rally at a rugby stadium later Sunday urging negotiators to be more ambitious during what were expected to be difficult talks. Unseasonably cold, windy weather kept the crowd to a few hundred spectators.Tutu, dressed in ecumenical purple robes, he said the struggle to end the racist regime in his homeland is now followed by a fight against "another huge enemy, and no country can fight this particular enemy on its own."He chided ...

Sustainable development is a top priority The United Nations today launched a campaign ahead of its major conference on sustainable development (Rio+20) in June next year, inviting governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and people everywhere to engage in a global conversation about the communities they want to see in the future."Sustainable development is a top priority for a simple reason - it cuts across all the challenges and priorities," Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told a press briefing this morning. "We know that what we face - food insecurity, water scarcity, energy shortages, climate change, increasing carbon emissions and unhealthy oceans - all these are the priority challenges which we have to address."The campaign - Rio+20: The Future We Want - aims to encourage people to envision how societies can build a future that promotes prosperity for everyone without degrading the planet's natural environment, and to contribute their ideas through various mediums - photos, letters, essays and drawings - which will be combined to form an exhibit at the conference next year, to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil."Opportunities like Rio+20 do not come along often," Mr. Ban said. "The Rio+20 conference offers us a unique chance to discuss the challenges which ...

But country's shippers' body warns shipping emissions must be tackled on global scale. The UK government's independent body which identifies how the country can meet national greenhouse gas reduction targets, the Committee on Climate Change, the has recommended that greenhouse gas emissions from shipping should be included in future UK carbon budgets.Currently, the UK is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 based on 1990 levels, but to date international shipping and aviation are not included.The UK's Freight Transport Association (FTA) has welcomed proposals to incorporate the country's share of emissions from international shipping into the Climate Change Act, but has warned that maritime emissions reductions should be tackled at a global level through the International Maritime Organisation, rather then nationally or a regional level otherwise the UK's competitiveness could be damaged.Chris Welsh, FTA's General Manager of Global and European Policy, said: "We support in principle the inclusion of shipping emissions into the Climate Change Act. But shipping is a global industry and we must avoid taking on the burden of reducing emissions alone or else we will be put on an uneven footing with the rest of the world. This would be bad news for the ...

Global warming could be about to trigger a renaissance of the age of sail The Committee on Climate Change has called on the shipping industry to turn to wind power to cut the country's carbon emissions.It believes harnessing the natural energy could prove make shipping environmentally more friendly. Sail enjoyed its heyday in the 19th century when clippers crossed the seas carrying goods and passengers.The bulk of ships had three masts, though a few had five masts. However by the 20th century sail had been superseded by steam.Now the Committee wants the industry to go back to the future by "updating propulsion systems", which would see ships fitted with sails, including a new rigid design resembling aircraft wings or large "towing kites".The Committee's interest has been underpinned by a five-year study carried out by the Technical University of Berlin.It found that ships using sails as well as other conventional wind power achieved savings as high as 44 per cent.Shipping could also cut its emissions by using special paint on hulls to reduce friction and saving fuel by travelling slower."There is a wide range of technology which can be used to cut emissions," said David Baltson, the British Chamber of Shipping's ...

Environmental pressure will increase because shipping is seen to have an oversized carbon footprint Clarkson Research Services' (CRSL) managing director (CRSL) Martin Stopford told a delegates at seminar last week that high energy costs will push up the bunker prices while environmental pressure will increase because shipping is seen to have an oversized carbon footprint.Speaking at Moore Stephens' Op Cost seminar in London last week, well known shiooing ecenomist Dr Stopford outlined three themes for the 2010s: shipyard overcapacity; energy costs; and the environment. All were correlated, he said, and would lead to a renewed focus on costs.Heavy fuel oil, he said, is seen as "super dirty" and shipping is a growth industry so its emissions are increasing. But he cautioned that society has only accepted this at a "macro" level while micro-decision-making is only partially committed. He likened the situation to that of the 1980s.He said that shipbuilding overcapacity will mean cheaper ships and greater willingness to do innovative work while lower ship earnings will push the strategic focus towards cost control.Shipbuilding technology is very mature and so has no magic solutions. Cutting energy costs and carbon footprint will involve compromise and difficult choices. The options will include lower ...

Carbon pricing on the shipping sector is innovating and promising source European Union finance ministers have indicated support for the carbon pricing of international maritime and aviation transport.The ministers, meeting in Luxembourg, adopted conclusions on climate finance ahead of the UN climate change conference in Durban next month.At the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009, developed countries agreed to mobilise $100 billion per year by 2020 to help poor countries adapt to climate change and develop low carbon technologies. Since then, governments have been discussing the details of how to spend the money.Carbon pricing on the shipping and aviations sectors has been recognised as one of the most promising innovative finance sources by the upcoming G20 report on Mobilising Climate Finance.Development NGO Oxfam International, cautiously welcomed the conclusions of the meeting, but stressed that the EU should go further and "ensure that there are clear commitments that finance raised from these and other sources should be spent through the Green Climate Fund, agreed at last year's UN climate conference in Cancún, and not go through national budgets as it risks disappearing in national coffers".After the meeting Oxfam spokesperson Lies Craeynest said "a charge on dirty shipping fuels to finance climate action ...

Deep ocean was not an important source of carbon during glacial times After the last ice age peaked about 18,000 years ago, levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide rose about 30 percent. Scientists believe that the additional carbon dioxide -- a heat-trapping greenhouse gas -- played a key role in warming the planet and melting the continental ice sheets. They have long hypothesized that the source of the gas was the deep ocean.But a new study by a University of Michigan paleoclimatologist and two colleagues suggests that the deep ocean was not an important source of carbon during glacial times. The finding will force researchers to reassess their ideas about the fundamental mechanisms that regulate atmospheric carbon dioxide over long time scales."We're going back to the drawing board. It's certainly fair to say that we need to have some other working hypotheses at this point," said U-M paleoclimatologist David Lund, lead author of a paper in the journal Nature Geoscience."If we can improve our understanding of the carbon cycle in the past, we will be better positioned moving forward as CO2 levels rise due to anthropogenic causes," said Lund, an assistant professor in the U-M Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. ...

The black smoke that rose from the explosion pumped more than 1 million pounds of black carbon During the 2010 BP/Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill, an estimated one of every 20 barrels of spilled oil was deliberately burned off to reduce the size of surface oil slicks and minimize impacts of oil on sensitive shoreline ecosystems and marine life. In response to the spill, NOAA quickly redirected its WP-3D research aircraft to survey the atmosphere above the spill site in June. During a flight through one of the black plumes, scientists used sophisticated instrumentation on board, including NOAA's single-particle soot photometer, to characterize individual black carbon particles.The black smoke that rose from the water's surface during the controlled burns pumped more than 1 million pounds of black carbon (soot) pollution into the atmosphere, according to a new study published last week by researchers at NOAA and its Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) in Boulder, Colo.This amount is roughly equal to the total black carbon emissions normally released by all ships that travel the Gulf of Mexico during a 9-week period, scientists noted.Black carbon, whose primary component is often called soot, is known to degrade air quality and ...

Applying a carbon price of $25 per tonne to shipping or 'bunker' fuel Escalating greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping could be tackled by applying a carbon price of $25 per tonne to shipping or 'bunker' fuel, according to a new report from Oxfam and WWF.The report shows that the EU could broker a deal on a carbon price for shipping fuel at the United Nations' climate change conference in Durban, South Africa later this year.As well as controlling emissions from shipping, the proposal would also raise around $25 billion a year by 2020 to help tackle climate change in developing nations, say the charities. The revenues raised could also be used to compensate developing countries for higher import costs arising from the carbon price.The report, Out of the Bunker - Time for a fair deal on shipping emissions, says the proposal would tackle two of the major issues facing the Durban conference - agreement on future emissions cuts and finance to help developing nations.International shipping is currently responsible for around 3% of total global emissions - more than Germany and twice that of Australia - but has remained resistant to regulation, although the industry did recently agree to some ...