Britain Stakes Claim to Climate Crisis Leadership
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has promised that Britain will take tough measures to fight the global climate crisis, and urged leaders from other countries to follow his lead.
Brown said, "The climate change crisis is the product of many generations, but overcoming it must be the great project of this generation. And it will have to involve not just Europe and America but the entire community of nations,"
The Kyoto Agreement expires in 2012 and no agreement has been made to replace it. Brown noted little new in his speech about how the crisis will be overcome, but he did mention the job and business opportunities it offered.
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Britain to Build World’s Largest Biomass Plant
Consent has been granted by the Energy Secretary John Hutton for a 350MW wood-chipped fuelled electricity generating plant in Port Talbot, South Wales.
It will be the biggest biomass plant in the world, generating enough clean electricity to power half of the homes in Wales. When completed at the turn of the decade, the £400m plant from developer Prenergy, will contribute around 70% of the Welsh Assembly's 2010 renewable electricity target.
It will be able to produce continuous, base-load electricity for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year over the 25 years of its expected lifetime. The wood fuel is expected to come from sustainable sources in the US and Canada.
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CO2 Emissions Growing Faster Than Expected
Researchers have said that human activity is putting increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, whilst natural carbon sinks such as oceans and trees are taking up less.
It is believed that the 35% increase in emissions since 2000 is attributed to increased emissions from rapidly expanding developing nations. Scientists say that global temperatures will rise by 2 to 6 degrees Celsius by the end of the century as a result of greenhouse gas emissions.
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Al Gore Partners With Silicon Valley Venture Capital Firm
Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore has become a partner of California-based Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers which has a history of backing computer start-up companies.
Kleiner is now a leading funder of alternative energy investments, and alongside Gore’s Generation Investment Management, the company hopes to fund green business, technology and policies addressing climate change.
100% of Gore’s salary of the partnership will be donated directly to the Alliance for Climate Protection.
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Tiny Ocean Plankton to Absorb Greenhouse Gas
Norwegian experiments have shown that small drifting plants or creatures could absorb up to 39 percent more CO2 in an environment simulating climate conditions up to 2150.
Other research has shown that oceans have absorbed almost half of the carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution.
However, when these plankton die they consume oxygen, vital to marine life. This creates large expanses of ocean floor with little oxygen, impacting upon the growth and reproduction rates of organisms.
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GE to Cut Mercury in Energy Efficient Light Bulbs
General Electric Co is working on ways to cut the level of hazardous mercury in popular low energy light bulbs which are more efficient and generate lower greenhouse gas emissions than traditional incandescent bulbs.
A standard energy saving light bulb contains only 5 milligrams of mercury, but with 150 million bulbs sold in 2006, this amount soon accumulates in landfill sites creating a toxic hazard.
"We're raising investments to get mercury down. If we can get it down to 1 milligram of mercury, that is a big breakthrough," Lorraine Bolsinger, vice president for GE's green unit called ecomagination.
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Kyoto Energy Projects To Dry Up In 2 Years
A project developer has expressed concerns that carbon offset projects under the Kyoto Protocol will dry up by 2009.
At present, rich nations can buy carbon offsets by funding projects in developing nations, but when the protocol expires in 2012, there will be much less certainty about this market.
World leaders agreed in June in Germany to try and clinch a new deal to fight global warming by 2009, with serious negotiations expected to kick off in Indonesia in December.
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