Climate Change: latest news and comment

12.08.2004 The arrival in Malawi of a team of US climate researchers has raised hopes among officials in the country that oil reserves will one day be found under Lake Malawi. The researchers will soon begin drilling the bottom of the lake as part of a study on tropical climate shifts in sub-Saharan Africa.

12.08.2004 The scorching sun of Athens would suggest this might be more the place to think global warming than Salt Lake City where the winter Olympics of 2002 were held. It has turned out to be just the other way round.

11.08.2004 The UK Government is failing to tackle the growing threat of climate change, a new report from the Environmental Audit Committee reveals today [1]. Carbon dioxide emissions, one of the main gases contributing to climate change, are still rising the report says. It says that the Government needs a more imaginative and radical strategy for tackling transport emissions and domestic energy efficiency, including increasing fuel duty. The report says the Treasury must take a lead in providing investment in alternative fuels.

09.08.2004 WASHINGTON, DC, August 9, 2004 (ENS) - Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry outlined a 10 year, $30 billion energy plan on Friday and said the proposal will "put America on the path to energy independence and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs at the same time."

06.08.2004 Global warming is likely to cause hotter summer days and more smog for many cities in the eastern half of the United States, medical experts said in a study released Wednesday.

06.08.2004 Researchers have suggested that climate change may explain the declining lion population in Tanzania's Ngorongoro crater. The crater's lions have been repeatedly hit by disease outbreaks since studies on them began in the 1960s. There have since been four big lion die-offs, all associated with floods or drought — conditions that have been increasingly frequent in the past ten years.

04.08.2004 Climate change could cause alarming changes to sea life far below the surface, report oceanographers in the journal Science. A 14-year study off the coast of California found that sea cucumbers and other marine life living 2.5 miles deep are closely attuned to the weather up top.

04.08.2004 A new report by Friends of the Earth shows how companies are hiding climate change-related risks from their investors in violation of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosure rules. The report, which is the third such annual survey performed, reviewed climate change disclosure in 2003 SEC filings of companies likely to be impacted by climate change (i.e. companies in the automobile, integrated oil & gas, property & casualty insurance, petrochemicals and electric utilities sectors). It found that compared with last year, the overall rate of climate change reporting has stayed the same (39 percent), and the quality of climate disclosure has generally improved.

03.08.2004 Critics who have dismissed the recent report commissioned by the Pentagon, An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security, should instead view it as a clarion call. Small risks which can result in catastrophic consequences - even if they cannot be precisely quantified - should not be ignored. Neither should the government use it as excuse to postpone effective action.

03.08.2004 You do not have to be green by inclination to notice some simple environmental truths in Greece. Despite innovative uses of solar power in everyday life, this year's summer Olympics in Greece are far from Green.